Thermal printing apparatus
First Claim
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1. Printing apparatus for printing on a print receiving surface of an item during feeding of the item in a feed direction, said item being of nonuniform thickness in a direction transverse to the feed direction, said apparatus comprising a print head including printing means extending along a line;
- means providing a layer of ink for transfer by the printing means to a surface of the print receiving item; and
feed and impression means operable to feed the item past the printing means in the feed direction;
said line of printing means extending transversely to said feed direction and while feeding the item to press the item toward the printing means into ink transfer engagement with said layer of ink;
said feed and impression means including a plurality of freely rotatable impression rollers having axes extending transversely to the feed direction and engageable tangentially with the item in opposition to the printing means, said impression rollers each being independently and resiliently mounted to accommodate the non-uniform thickness of the item transversely of the feed direction;
a driven feed roller engageable with said item downstream of and adjacent said plurality of impression rollers;
said feed and impression means having an inoperative retracted position in which both the feed roller and the plurality of impression rollers are spaced from the printing means to permit free passage of a print receiving item past the feed roller and between the printing means and the plurality of impression rollers and an operative position in which the plurality of impression rollers press the surface of the item into ink transfer engagement with the ink layer and the feed roller engages the print receiving item to feed the item past the printing means;
means operable to move said feed and impression means from said inoperative position to said operative position in a printing operation when the print receiving item is located between the printing means and the plurality of impression rollers to receive a printed impression thereon.
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Abstract
Printing apparatus is disclosed for printing on articles of non-uniform thickness. The printing apparatus includes a thermal transfer print head to print on the article and the article is pressed toward thermal printing elements of the thermal print head by a line of individual impression rollers each individually resiliently biased toward the print head.
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Citations
9 Claims
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1. Printing apparatus for printing on a print receiving surface of an item during feeding of the item in a feed direction, said item being of nonuniform thickness in a direction transverse to the feed direction, said apparatus comprising a print head including printing means extending along a line;
- means providing a layer of ink for transfer by the printing means to a surface of the print receiving item; and
feed and impression means operable to feed the item past the printing means in the feed direction;
said line of printing means extending transversely to said feed direction and while feeding the item to press the item toward the printing means into ink transfer engagement with said layer of ink;
said feed and impression means including a plurality of freely rotatable impression rollers having axes extending transversely to the feed direction and engageable tangentially with the item in opposition to the printing means, said impression rollers each being independently and resiliently mounted to accommodate the non-uniform thickness of the item transversely of the feed direction;
a driven feed roller engageable with said item downstream of and adjacent said plurality of impression rollers;
said feed and impression means having an inoperative retracted position in which both the feed roller and the plurality of impression rollers are spaced from the printing means to permit free passage of a print receiving item past the feed roller and between the printing means and the plurality of impression rollers and an operative position in which the plurality of impression rollers press the surface of the item into ink transfer engagement with the ink layer and the feed roller engages the print receiving item to feed the item past the printing means;
means operable to move said feed and impression means from said inoperative position to said operative position in a printing operation when the print receiving item is located between the printing means and the plurality of impression rollers to receive a printed impression thereon. - View Dependent Claims (2)
- means providing a layer of ink for transfer by the printing means to a surface of the print receiving item; and
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3. Printing apparatus for printing on a print receiving surface of an item during feeding of the item in a feed direction, said item being of non-uniform thickness in a direction transverse to the feed direction, said apparatus comprising a thermal print head including a plurality of selectively energisable thermal printing elements located in a line on a substrate;
- ink ribbon means to guide a thermal transfer ink ribbon in heat transfer engagement with the thermal printing elements; and
feed and impression means operable to feed the item past the line of thermal printing elements in the feed direction;
said line of thermal printing elements extending transversely to said feed direction and while feeding the item to press the item toward the thermal printing elements to produce ink transfer engagement of the surface with a layer of ink carried by said ink ribbon;
said feed and impression means including a plurality of freely rotatable impression rollers having axes extending transversely to the feed direction and engageable tangentially with a rear surface of the item in opposition to the line of thermal printing elements, said rear surface being spaced from said print receiving surface by the non-uniform thickness of the item;
said impression rollers each being independently and resiliently mounted to accommodate the non-uniform thickness of the item transversely to the feed direction and effective to act on the rear surface and thereby press the print receiving surface of the non-uniform thickness item into engagement with the ink layer;
a driven feed roller engageable with said rear surface of the item downstream of and adjacent said plurality of impression rollers;
said feed and impression means having an inoperative retracted position in which both the feed roller and the plurality of impression rollers are spaced from the printing means to permit free passage of a print receiving item past the feed roller and between the printing means and the plurality of impression rollers and an operative position in which the plurality of impression rollers press the surface of the item into ink transfer engagement with the ink layer and the feed roller engages the print receiving item to feed the item past the printing means;
means operable to move said feed and impression means from said inoperative position to said operative position in a printing operation when the print receiving item is located between the printing means and the plurality of impression rollers to receive a printed impression thereon. - View Dependent Claims (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
- ink ribbon means to guide a thermal transfer ink ribbon in heat transfer engagement with the thermal printing elements; and
Specification