Loading patent…
AssigneeMarkem-Imaje Industries Limited
InventorsPhillip Lakin, Stephen Carter
Estimating the term…
Systems and techniques relating to printing include an apparatus including a base mounting a storage spool to store printing ribbon including a web carrying marking medium, the base mounting a ribbon take-up spool. A ribbon path from the storage to the take-up spool runs through a printing station where there is a print head, and printing is effected at the printing station when relatively moving the head and the substrate with the ribbon interposed between. The apparatus includes a movable ribbon guide member, a ribbon guide member drive device to move the ribbon guide member, and a controller which, during or in between at least some printing operations, controls drive of at least the take-up spool to advance ribbon through the printing station. The controller controls the ribbon guide member in response to an input signal representative of ribbon tension along the ribbon path to adjust the ribbon tension.
A printing apparatus for printing on a substrate, the apparatus including a base mounting a storage spool to store ribbon of a kind including a web carrying marking medium, and the base mounting a ribbon take-up spool to take up ribbon, and there being a ribbon path from the storage spool to the take-up spool through a printing station where there is a print head, printing being effected at the printing station when relatively moving the print head and the substrate with the ribbon interposed between substrate and print head so that marking medium is transferred from the web of the ribbon to the substrate, and wherein the apparatus includes a movable ribbon guide member including a pair of ribbon guide member parts about which the ribbon is entrained along the ribbon path, a ribbon guide member drive device including a pair of ribbon guide member part drive motors to move respective ribbon guide member parts of the movable ribbon guide member, and there being a controller which, during or in between at least some printing operations, controls drive of at least the take-up spool to advance ribbon through the printing station, wherein the pair of ribbon guide member parts being movable in a first direction during printing, to effect ribbon movement through the printing station, and the ribbon guide member parts additionally being movable relative to one another via the controller controlling the ribbon guide member part drive motors in response to a ribbon tension input signal representative of ribbon tension along the ribbon path to adjust the ribbon tension in the ribbon path between predetermined tension limits.
A method of operating a printing apparatus, the apparatus including a base mounting a storage spool for storing ribbon of a kind including a web carrying marking medium, and the base mounting a ribbon take-up spool for taking up ribbon, and there being a ribbon path from the storage spool to the take-up spool through a printing station where there is a print head, printing being effected at the printing station when relatively moving the print head and a substrate with the ribbon interposed between the substrate and the print head so that marking medium is transferred from the web of the ribbon to the substrate, and wherein the apparatus includes a movable ribbon guide member including a pair of ribbon guide member parts about which the ribbon is entrained along the ribbon path, the pair of ribbon guide member parts being movable in a first direction during printing, to effect ribbon movement through the printing station, and a ribbon guide member drive device including ribbon guide member part drive motors for moving the ribbon guide member parts, and there being a controller which, during or in between at least some printing operations, controls drive of at least the take-up spool to advance ribbon through the printing station, the method including controlling by the controller the ribbon guide member parts, relative to each other, via the ribbon guide member drive device in response to a ribbon tension signal representative of ribbon tension along the ribbon path to adjust ribbon tension in the ribbon path.
A printing apparatus for printing on a substrate, the apparatus including a base mounting a ribbon storage spool and a ribbon take-up spool to take-up ribbon, and there being a ribbon path from the storage spool to the take-up spool through a printing station where there is a print head, and wherein the apparatus includes a ribbon guide member including a pair of ribbon guide member parts about which the ribbon is entrained along the ribbon path, a ribbon guide member drive device including a pair of ribbon guide member part drive motors to move respective ribbon guide member parts, the ribbon guide member parts being movable in a first direction by the ribbon guide member part drive motors to effect ribbon movement at the printing station, wherein the pair of ribbon guide member parts additionally are movable relative to one another to adjust ribbon tension in the ribbon path, and wherein each of the ribbon guide member parts includes a pair of ribbon guide member elements about which the ribbon is entrained, the ribbon being entrained about a base-mounted ribbon path guide in between being entrained about the respective guide member elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.