Media gate for thermal transfer printers
AssigneeHand Held Products, Inc.
InventorJason Dean Lewis Bowles
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A thermal transfer printer having a media gate and a method for its use are presented. The media gate prevents the improper loading of thermal transfer paper and/or thermal transfer ribbon into a thermal transfer printer by preventing access to the wrong track. In this way, a user cannot feed (i.e., route) the paper/ribbon along the wrong track (i.e., path) when loading (or reloading) paper/ribbon into the thermal transfer printer. In some embodiments, the media gate may have printing (e.g., icons) to provide a user with guidance for proper media loading.
Claims20
A method for preventing the improper loading of media into a thermal transfer printer, the method comprising:
- obtaining access to a media loading area of a thermal transfer printer, the media loading area comprising (i) a thermal transfer paper track that the thermal transfer paper must be routed along for thermal transfer printing and (ii) a thermal transfer ribbon track that the thermal transfer ribbon must be routed along for thermal transfer printing;
- positioning a media gate to cover at least part of the thermal transfer ribbon track to block access to at least part of the thermal transfer ribbon track when the thermal transfer paper is being routed along the thermal transfer paper track;
- loading the thermal transfer paper into the thermal transfer printer;
- and
- routing the thermal transfer paper along the thermal transfer paper track.
A method for preventing the improper loading of a thermal transfer ribbon into a thermal transfer printer, the method comprising:
- obtaining access to a media loading area of a thermal transfer printer, the media loading area comprising (i) a thermal transfer paper track that thermal transfer paper must be routed along for thermal transfer printing and (ii) a thermal transfer ribbon track that the thermal transfer ribbon must be routed along for thermal transfer printing;
- positioning a media gate to cover at least part of the thermal transfer paper track to block access to at least part of the thermal transfer paper track when the thermal transfer ribbon is being routed along the thermal transfer ribbon track;
- loading the thermal transfer ribbon into the thermal transfer printer;
- and
- routing the thermal transfer ribbon along the thermal transfer ribbon track.
A thermal transfer printer comprising:
- a paper track that continuous feed thermal transfer paper must be routed along for thermal transfer printing;
- a ribbon track that a thermal transfer ribbon must be routed along for thermal transfer printing;
- and
- a media gate configurable in either (i) a ribbon loading position or (ii) a paper loading position, wherein
- in the ribbon loading position access to at least part of the paper track is closed while access to the ribbon track is open, and
- in the paper loading position access to at least part of the ribbon track is closed while access to the paper track is open.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.