Brother Kogyo Kabushiki-kaisha

Shigeo Ishikawa

Hiroshi Tokuda

Toshiaki Sugiura

Hikaru Kaga

Takemi Yamamoto

Fumio Morita

Tsuneo Yasui

Seijiro Kadowaki

Tomoyoshi Watanabe

Hiroaki Kimura

Yoshikatsu Hirata

Akira Ninomiya

Hirokazu Kishimoto

Kiyomichi Okada

The carriage mounting the print head, for a printer, is supported at an upper guide bar with an upper bearing and at a lower guide bar with a lower-right bearing and a lower-left bearing. The printing device prints characters while driving the print head in reciprocal movement along the guide bars. The lower-left bearing has an eccentric center relative to the axis of the lower-guide bar. A lever fitted on the lower-left bearing allows the operator to rotate the lower-left bearing relative to the axis of the lower guide bar to adjust the height of print.

Printing device with a tiltable printing head

A sheet feeding device for automatically feeding sheet paper from a cassette or feeding one sheet of paper at a time as the sheets are inserted into an insertion guide. The paper is fed in the automatic feed mode by bringing the stacked paper and a rotating sheet feeding roller into contact with one another. When the manual feed mode is selected, the stacked paper and the rotating roller are separated. A sheet of paper placed in the insertion guide is fed to a contact point between the sheet feeding rollers, now rotating counter to the rotational direction during automatic sheet feeding, and an opposing pressure rollers.

Sheet feeder provided with both automatic sheet feeding function and

A sheet feeding device includes a member for depressing a pair of rollers to feed the top sheet off a stack of papers in a case. The depressing member is only operated when the case is positioned in an associated device. The spacing between the feed rollers is variable and controlled in accordance with the width of the stacked sheets.

Sheet feeding device

A printing apparatus includes a feed cassette detachably loaded in a main body of the printing apparatus for containing cut sheets, a sheet feeder unit for feeding a cut sheet contained in the feed cassette to the main body of printing apparatus, a printing unit for printing on the cut sheet feed by the sheet feeder unit, a bar code provided on the feed cassette or the cut sheet contained in the feed cassette for representing various information about the cut sheet, a bar code reader for reading the bar code, and an electronic control apparatus for controlling the sheet feeder unit and the printing unit. The bar code reader is provided on the main body of the printing apparatus at which the bar code reader is able to read the bar code when the feed cassette is loaded in the main body of the printing apparatus. The electronic control apparatus controls the sheet feeder unit and the printing unit based on the bar code read by the bar code reader.

Printing apparatus

A sheet feed device for feeding sheets from a stack to a machine, such as a copier, is provided with rollers for feeding the top sheet of the stack to the entrance of the machine. When a sheet is being fed through the machine, the presence of the sheet is sensed and used to generate a signal to disengage the rollers from the stack to thereby ensure precise feeding of the sheets.

A thermal printing apparatus includes a carriage body on which a thermal ribbon cassette is detachably mounted, a driving gear rotated in accordance with the movement of the carriage body, a spool shaft rotatably mounted on the carriage body for rotating a ribbon spool of a ribbon cassette, and a rotation transmitting mechanism adapted to interlink or interrupt between the driving gear and the spool shaft when a ribbon cassette is mounted on or removed from the carriage body, respectively. The thermal printing apparatus further includes a shaft operable to detect if a ribbon cassette is mounted, and the rotation transmitting mechanism includes an engaging member engageable with a disc portion secured to the shaft for holding the rotation transmitting mechanism in a state where the interlinking between the driving gear and the spool shaft is interrupted. By means of this structure, rotation of the spool shaft and gears connected therewith is stopped when printing on a sheet of heat-sensitive paper without thermal transferable ribbon, thus enabling the thermal printing apparatus to achieve higher speed printing with reduced load on a driving power source.

Thermal printing apparatus

A printing apparatus having a platen for supporting a sheet of paper, comprising: a carriage movable along the length of the platen, and including an upward protrusion having a top surface which includes a first slant part inclined downwardly in a direction toward the platen; a print head including a mounting portion resting on the upward protrusion, the mounting portion having a bottom surface which includes a second slant part in abutting contact with the first slant part; and a fixing device for clamping the mounting portion of the print head to the upward projection of the carriage substantially in a direction of height of the upward protrusion. An angle of inclination of the first and second slant parts being selected such that a clamping action of the fixing device produces a component force sufficient to force a portion of the print head against a side surface of the protrusion on its side opposite to the side facing the platen.

In a ribbon changing mechanism, a ribbon retaining portion of the ribbon vibrator lifts a printing ribbon from a lowered non-printing position to an elevated printing position, in response to the printing operation. When a push button is depressed for retaining an actuating lever in a first position where said ribbon vibrator is shifted to a ribbon changing position, the ribbon vibrator connected to the actuating lever is moved upward from the lowered non-printing position to the ribbon changing position, independently of the printing operation and retained in the ribbon changing position. The ribbon retaining portion is comprised of a rear ribbon retaining member and a front ribbon retaining member, which defines a pair of ribbon passages having closed top and bottom portions in combination with both ribbon retaining members. The actuating lever is operatively connected to an opener shaft, so that when the push button is depressed, the opener shaft may be brought into engagement with the front ribbon retaining member, and then the top portions of the ribbon passages are opened. By depressing the push button, a top cover of the typewriter is moved to an open position. If the top cover is brought into a closed position, the actuating lever is returned to the second position, whereas the top portions of the ribbon passages are closed.

Growing community of inventors

Hazu, Japan

Shigeo Ishikawa