TITLE	Development of Rewritable Print Technology of the Low Energy by Reversible Reaction Dye (Joint Program to Promote Technological Development with the Private Sectors)
AUTHOR	RITE-FUCHU LABORATORY in CYBER IMAGING CORPORATION
SOURCE
ABSTRACT	We worked out ten developing themes to decrease the consumption energy based on plain paper usage at office and home. Current rewritable print method consists of two heating steps; the first step is erasing of all characters by heater drum and the second step is writing new information by thermal head. Our method realizes erasing and writing by one heating of Intelligent Thermal head at the same time. Our Intelligent Thermal Technology can control heating by the accumulation of applied heat energy of erasing/writing for every heating element. 1. The Development of the Program Software for Energy Control We designed a heating control program software that is suitable for various applications along with the development of LSI of a high-speed type that makes 128 dots one group instead of LSI that makes 256 dots of the situation to date one group when a new IT thermal head equipped with new LSI described later is developed. The new LSI measures the temperature, puts feedback of the temperature information and controls media driving. The control program can demonstrate the performance of the LSI to the maximum extent. 2. The Development of Circuit Pattern for New Drive-Sense LSI We designed an electric circuit pattern of new LSI that is small and can be high-speed processed for we developed new LSI that can execute the feedback control by every 128 dots and that achieve high-speed, steady rewritable printing. 3. The Development of Drive-Sense LSI The feedback control that is the feature of technology of our company divides the heat element on a thermal head into a certain block, and is performing heating control by making it into one unit. In order to perform printing which raised print speed and was moreover stabilized, it is necessary to raise and carry out high-speed processing of the number of times of sensing per unit time in the block. For this reason, we decided to perform sensing by making 128 dots into one unit rather than to make into 1 block the 256-dot unit performed so far and to carry out sensing. 4. The Development of Rewritable Point-Card Printer We added mechanism improvement so that rewritable printing of the card thickness up to 400μ could be carried out in the first half of 2006. Then, the demand of the rewritable ID cards using a continuous tone image, rewritable parking cards, rewritable patient registration cards, etc., has been in sight by highly precise heating control of our company. Therefore, we performed the design improvement so that we may put to use the unique characteristic of our technology for such a use. In connection with it, we developed it as the card printer that uses a thermal head of edge type about the rewritable thick card centering on 760μ thickness. 5. The Development of New Thermal Head To print a thick rewritable card of 760μ thickness card (JIS:CR80), we developed an edge type thermal head though IT thermal heads that had been developed up to now were only the thermal heads of flat type. At this time, we developed the edge type thermal head with an applicable thick card and we developed a thermal head that has the resolution of 300dpi suitable for ID rewritable cards and two dimensional barcode. 6. The Designing of Electric Circuit and the Development of the Driver Circuit Board / Control Circuit Board We designed the development of driver circuit board equipped with new LSI and the development of the control circuit board for the card printer and the control circuit board that controls them. 7. The Composition of the Driver Circuit Board / Control Circuit Board We assembled the driver circuit board and the control circuit board for trial thermal head of the edge type made for trial purposes. 8. The Development of the Mechanism of Rewritable Printer An A4 size printer is unable to hold 500-1,000 rewritable sheets which a Kanban printer is expected, however our trial purposes A4 size rewritable printer is able to hold 50 sheets of this form at the stacker part of the printer as the transportation of the stacker part is not straight. So we examined the capacity of the stacker part of the printer and we also examined the transportation structure of the Kanban form. First of all, to examine physical properties of the form requested from the Kanban usage, and to reflect in the printer structure afterwards for that. 9. The Composition and the Adjustment of Rewritable Printer Since the rewritable printer for office is put on a desk, it needs to be small to be installed in small area and also it needs to be silent during rewrite printing. The rewritable printer of A4 size which is being carried out the precedence trial production at our company is not silent enough at the time of being rewritable printing, although installation area is very small. Therefore, we examined whole mechanism including a transporting mechanism. Moreover, we examined to perform easy composition when commercializing it. 10. The Performance Evaluation of Rewritable Printer The performance evaluation of the card printer with the improved mechanism, and A4 printer that is equipped with a head of turned-edge type.