Alps Electric Co., Ltd.

Noboru Tsushima

Makoto Tomoyori

Masatoshi Harumatsu

Takashi Shirakawa

Masashi Fuse

Toshifumi Nakatani

Masayoshi Takeuchi

Teruo Mimori

Toshio Sasaki

Tadashi Mukai

Satoru Sasaki

Satoshi Kubo

Toshiya Endoh

Ken Yamamura

Akinori Takahashi

Daiki Sugiyama

Masayuki Ogata

The present invention provides a thermal head having a long lifetime and a high printing quality by making the size of steps of a protective layer formed on a heating portion of a heating resistor small and a method for manufacturing the thermal heads. In the thermal head, respective lower-layer electrodes having a film thickness of approximately 2 &mgr;m are formed on outskirts portion of a bulging portion of a heat insulation layer excluding a heating portion of a heating resistor and portions in the vicinity of the heating portion. Then, respective upper-layer electrodes having a film thickness which falls in a range of 0.1 to 0.3 &mgr;m are continuously formed from portions at positions in the vicinity of the heating portion excluding the heating portion to upper surfaces of the lower-layer electrodes. Due to such a constitution, the size of the steps formed in the protective layer can be made extremely small and hence, it becomes possible to prevent dregs and dusts which are generated during printing from being gathered at the steps.

Thermal head with small size of steps of protective layer formed on heating portion and manufacturing method thereof

A thermal head including a temperature keeping layer disposed on a substrate, a plurality of heat generating elements formed on the temperature keeping layer, a plurality of individual electrodes connected to the corresponding heat generating elements, a common electrode connected to the heat generating elements, respectively. Each heat generating element includes a heat generating portion formed between one of the individual electrodes and the common electrode. Each of the individual electrodes and the common electrode have a dual layered structure including a lower electrode and an upper electrode, the lower electrode being formed between the temperature keeping layer and one of the heat generating elements, and the upper electrode being formed above the heat generating element.

Thermal head

In a moving object, such as automobile, having a steering gear which determines a traveling course, and a traveling distance detector which detects a traveling distance; a direction detection apparatus comprising a steering position detector detecting an amount of displacement of the steering gear, and an arithmetic unit which calculates a traveling direction of the moving object from a steering position signal proportional to the amount of displacement and a traveling distance signal proportional to the traveling distance, thereby to detect the traveling direction of the moving object. The apparatus can detect the traveling direction without being affected by a magnetic deviation, an abnormal magnetic field, etc.

Direction detection apparatus

Disclosed is a magnetic course detector capable of accurately detecting the bearing of the course of a traveling body independently of the position a magnetic bearing sensor is installed in the traveling body through rotatably mounting the magnetic bearing sensor and making corrections for the offset and sensitivity of its output.

Magnetic course detector

A direction detection apparatus comprising a magnetic sensor which senses a geomagnetic azimuth, a turning-angle sensor which senses a turning angle dynamically, a magnetic-disturbance detector which detects a magnetic disturbance on the basis of the output of the magnetic sensor, and a signal switching device which transmits either the magnetic sensor output or the turning-angle sensor output to a display device in accordance with a signal from the magnetic-disturbance detector. The traveling direction of a moving object can be detected as a precise geographic azimuth even when the moving object lies in a place subject to the magnetic disturbance.

A direction detection apparatus which detects the traveling direction of a moving object on the basis of the movement of a weight. It comprises a centrifugal force detector, a clock signal generator, and a velocity detector, and also a detection device which receives signals from the detectors and the generator to provide a directional angle.

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Morioka, Japan

Noboru Tsushima