Alps Electric Co., Ltd.

Hiroo Sonoda

Katsutoshi Suzuki

Yasuhiko Iwane

Masahiko Mori

Yuko Sonoda

Mitsuo Yoshida

A thermal printer that performs thermal printing by employing a commonly-used thermo-sensitive recording sheet. In the thermal printing, a thermal head starts heating the recording sheet from the back side of a base that covers a recording surface in order to print, so that the recorded information is effectively hidden from view. When the thermal printer performs thermal printing by using a two layer thermo-sensitive recording sheet, high quality images with sharp edges can be reliably recorded. The thermal printer uses two types of thermo-sensitive sheets to perform thermal recording. When the first type of thermo-sensitive recording sheet is used, a heating control device is switched to a reversed or inverted image heating control mode causing the thermal head to start heating the recording sheet from a carrier sheet side of the first type of thermo-sensitive recording sheet that has not yet undergone a change in color to a recording material of the sheet, whereby the recording material undergoes a change in color, resulting in the recording of images with their sides reversed or inverted.

Growing community of inventors

Fukushima-ken, Japan

Hiroo Sonoda