JP2000331874A - Printing apparatus, printing method using the same and manufacture of electronic component using the method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To adjust the coating quantity in line, without wasting and suppress the waste of ink by comprising temp. adjusting means inside, a doctor blade attached to the outer side wall for scraping ink off a plate cylinder and a backup roller for transferring ink from grooves of the plate cylinder to a work to be printed. SOLUTION: A plate cylinder 10 has grooves 11 cut in the outer side wall and a water circulating piping 12 formed flat into the inner wall of the cylinder 10 so as to flow circulating water in this piping 12 to adjust the temp. of the cylinder 10. A doctor blade 13 for scraping extra ink 9 off the surface of the cylinder 10 is disposed on a part of the cylinder 10 from which ink 9 flows out. On the top of the cylinder 10 a backup roller 15 is provided for pressing a ceramic green sheet 14 to be printed to the cylinder 10, thereby transferring the ink 9 buried in the grooves 11 of the cylinder 10.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for performing gravure printing, a printing method using the same, and a method for manufacturing electronic components using the printing apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional electronic component, for example, a ceramic capacitor, when forming an internal electrode on a ceramic green sheet, an ink for an electrode is printed using a gravure printing method.

[0005] The printing apparatus using the conventional gravure printing method is configured as shown in FIG. That is, the ink pan 2 containing the electrode ink 1 and the ink pan 2
A rotating plate cylinder 4 having a lower part immersed in the electrode ink 1 and having a predetermined pattern of grooves 3 formed on the surface thereof, and other parts except for the electrode ink 1 filled in the grooves 3 of the plate cylinder 4. Doctor blade 5 for scraping off electrode ink 1 adhering to
And a backup roller 7 for pressing the printing medium 6 such as a ceramic green sheet against the plate cylinder 4 and transferring the electrode ink 1 in the groove 3 of the printing cylinder 4 to the printing medium 6.

In order to adjust the amount of the electrode ink 1 applied during printing, the viscosity of the electrode ink 1 is adjusted by appropriately adding a solvent while circulating the electrode ink 1 in the ink pan 2 to the outside. A device provided with a viscosity adjusting means for keeping the constant is also practically used.

[0005] Then, after printing and drying the internal electrodes on the ceramic green sheets as the printing object using the above-described printing apparatus, the obtained ceramic green sheets with electrodes are laminated and thermocompressed. Was cut, the binder was removed and then fired, and an external electrode was formed on the end face where the internal electrode was exposed to obtain a multilayer ceramic capacitor.

[0006]

However, since the internal electrodes formed by gravure printing using the above-described conventional printing apparatus use the plate cylinder 4 having the grooves 3 formed at a predetermined depth in advance, the electrode The change of the viscosity of the electrode ink 1 and the solid content in the electrode ink 1 occurring between lots of the ink 1 for printing, and the change of the viscosity of the electrode ink 1 due to the fluctuation of the ambient temperature during printing. The amount of wear changes subtly. In addition, since the solvent component in the electrode ink 1 gradually evaporates during printing, the viscosity of the electrode ink 1 increases with time, and the solid content in the electrode ink 1 also increases. This leads to an increase in coating amount.

In order to adjust the amount of coating, it is also possible to collect the electrode ink 1 once, adjust the viscosity by additionally adding a solvent, and then inject the electrode ink 1 into the ink pan 2 again. However, there is a problem that extra time is spent because the adjustment cannot be performed in-line, and that the viscosity must be adjusted many times to obtain a desired coating amount.

As described above, a means for adjusting the viscosity of the electrode ink 1 can be employed. However, since the electrode ink 1 must also be present in the viscosity adjusting means, the necessary electrode ink 1 is required. However, there is a problem in that a large amount of is required and waste occurs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing apparatus which eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and which can adjust the amount of coating at the time of printing without waste and suppress the waste of ink.

[0010]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above problems, a printing apparatus according to the present invention comprises an ink pan having ink therein, a part of the ink pan being immersed in the ink, rotating and rotating, and A plate cylinder having a temperature control means and having a predetermined pattern of grooves on the outer peripheral surface, a doctor blade for scraping off excess ink attached to the surface of the plate cylinder, and a printing medium pressed against the plate cylinder to press the plate cylinder; It is constituted by a backup roller for transferring the ink in the groove to the printing medium.

With the above configuration, the amount of ink can be arbitrarily adjusted according to the temperature of the plate cylinder, and printing can be performed without wasting time and ink.

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The invention according to claim 1 of the present invention is directed to an ink pan having ink therein, a part of which is immersed and rotated in the ink of the ink pan, and a temperature control means inside. A plate cylinder having a predetermined pattern of grooves on the outer peripheral surface thereof, a doctor blade for scraping off excess ink adhered to the surface of the plate cylinder, and an ink in the groove of the plate cylinder by pressing a printing medium against the plate cylinder. And a backup roller for transferring the ink to the printing medium. By adjusting the temperature of the plate cylinder, constant ink can be constantly transferred to the printing medium to perform excellent printing.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the temperature adjusting means has a configuration in which a circulating water pipe for passing circulating water is disposed in the plate cylinder, and the temperature of the plate cylinder can be accurately adjusted by the temperature-controlled circulating water. Become.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the circulating water pipe is of a flat type, and the temperature of the circulating water can be transmitted to the plate cylinder more reliably.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the temperature adjusting means comprises a heating element, and the temperature of the plate cylinder can be arbitrarily adjusted by controlling the heating element.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the temperature of the plate cylinder adjusted by the temperature adjusting means is set to a temperature lower than the boiling point of the solvent in the ink, so that the evaporation of the solvent is suppressed as much as possible and the viscosity of the ink is reduced. It can be as limited as possible.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, the temperature of the plate cylinder partially immersed in the ink of the ink pan is adjusted by the temperature adjusting means in the plate cylinder in accordance with the viscosity of the ink, and the plate cylinder is rotated to rotate the doctor. It is a printing method in which excess ink is scraped off with a blade, a predetermined amount of ink is filled in the groove on the surface of the plate cylinder, and the ink is transferred to the print object by bringing the print object into contact with the plate cylinder. A stable amount of ink can be transferred to the substrate.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, a ceramic green sheet is used as an object to be printed, an electrode ink is used as an ink, and an electrode is printed on the ceramic green sheet by the printing method according to the sixth aspect. A method of manufacturing a multilayer ceramic electronic component in which a plurality of ceramic green sheets on which electrodes are printed are laminated, the laminated body is cut into a predetermined shape, a binder is removed, and a terminal electrode is formed on a fired product. It can be excellent.

Hereinafter, specific embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an embodiment of a printing apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of the printing section, FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a plate cylinder used in the printing apparatus, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a sectional view of the plate cylinder.

1 to 4, reference numeral 8 denotes an ink pan.
Ink 9 is built-in. As the ink 9, for example, an electrode ink containing nickel powder, ethyl cellulose, and an organic solvent is used. In the ink 9 of the ink pan 8, a lower portion of a plate cylinder 10 in which a surface of a stainless steel is plated with copper-chrome is immersed. A groove 11 having a predetermined pattern is provided on the outer peripheral surface of the plate cylinder 10.
20 are disposed on the inner wall surface of the circulating water pipe 12 made of flat steel, and the temperature of the plate cylinder 10 is adjusted by flowing circulating water through the circulating water pipe 12. I have.

A doctor blade 13 for scraping off excess ink 9 adhering to the surface of the plate cylinder 10 is disposed at a portion of the plate cylinder 10 that comes out of the ink 9. A ceramic green sheet 14 as a printing medium is pressed against the plate cylinder 10 on the upper surface of the plate cylinder 10 to transfer the ink 9 buried in the groove 11 of the plate cylinder 10 to the ceramic green sheet 14. A backup roller 15 is provided.

The ceramic green sheet 14 as a printing medium is fed from an unwinding roll 16 to a guide roller 17.
, The ink 9 serving as an electrode is transferred by the plate cylinder 10, sent to guide rollers 19 and 20 of a dryer 18, and exits the dryer 18. Winding roll 2 through 21
It can be wound into two.

In the vicinity of the ceramic green sheet 14 to which the ink 9 has been transferred by the plate cylinder 10 and sent out from the dryer 18, a coating amount detection sensor 23 using fluorescent X-rays for detecting the printing amount of the ink 9 is provided. It is arranged and detects whether it is larger or smaller than a preset amount of coating, and the result is fed back to the temperature control means to control the temperature of the circulating water flowing through the circulating water pipe 12, and The surface temperature is controlled to keep the amount of the ink 9 filling the groove 11 constant.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the circulating water uses a hollow shaft as the rotating shafts 24 at both ends of the plate cylinder 10, and one of the rotating shafts 24 is a circulating water inlet 25 and the other is a circulating water outlet. 2
6, the circulating water pipe 12 is connected between the pipes 6 and attached to the inner wall surface of the plate cylinder 10.

In the above configuration, a circulating water pipe 12 is arranged on the inner wall of the plate cylinder 10 as a temperature adjusting means of the plate cylinder 10 and the temperature of the surface of the plate cylinder 10 is controlled by temperature-controlled circulating water. Although the configuration is shown, the circulating water piping 12
A heating element is attached to the inner wall of the plate cylinder 10 in place of
May be adjusted.

The temperature of the surface of the plate cylinder 10 needs to be lower than the boiling point of the solvent of the ink 9. If the temperature is higher than the boiling point, the solvent is violently volatilized and the solid content of the ink 9 increases. Will be.

Furthermore, in order to control the surface temperature of the plate cylinder 10, the coating amount detection sensor 23 is used in the above-described configuration. However, a viscosity meter is arranged in the ink pan 8 to directly measure the viscosity of the ink 9. The result may be fed back to the temperature control means to control the surface temperature of the plate cylinder 10.

Next, a specific printing method will be described using a multilayer ceramic capacitor as an example. A nickel ink 9 containing nickel powder, ethyl cellulose and an organic solvent is filled in an ink pan 8 to prepare a ceramic green sheet 14 having a thickness of 13 μm and comprising a reduction-resistant ceramic powder mainly composed of barium titanate and an organic binder. Then, printing was performed using the printing apparatus shown in FIG.

At this time, the surface temperature of the plate cylinder 10 is changed in the range of 10 ° C. to 80 ° C. by the temperature control means, and the amount of nickel applied to the film after the printing ink is dried is determined by using fluorescent X-rays. It was measured by the applied coating amount detection sensor 23. The results are shown in (Table 1).

[0031]

[Table 1]

As is apparent from Table 1 above, plate cylinder 1
The amount of coating gradually decreases due to the rise in the temperature of the surface of the ink cylinder 9 by adjusting the temperature of the plate cylinder 10.
It can be seen that the coating amount is controlled. However, the reason why the amount of coating increased when the temperature reached 80 ° C. was that the solvent component volatilized violently due to the temperature exceeding the boiling point of the solvent in the ink 9 and the solid content ratio in the ink 9 increased. Conceivable.

Based on the above results, the desired ink 9
An experiment was conducted to confirm that a stable coating amount was obtained.
The method uses 500 ml of nickel ink 9, prints on ceramic green sheets 14 of 500 m each when the temperature of plate cylinder 10 is adjusted and when temperature is not adjusted (comparative example). The body was sampled every 100 m and the amount of nickel applied at that time was measured. The results are shown in (Table 2). The room temperature during printing was 22 ° C.
Met.

[0034]

[Table 2]

As can be seen from Table 2, by changing the surface temperature of the plate cylinder 10 according to the present invention in accordance with the viscosity of the ink 9, the desired coating amount at the start of printing is reduced to the end. It is clear that this was done. On the other hand, in the comparative example in which the temperature is not adjusted, the result is that the coating amount gradually increases. This means that the coating amount increases due to the gradual change in the viscosity of the nickel ink 9, and the coating amount is changed by changing the surface temperature of the plate cylinder 10 in accordance with the change in the viscosity of the nickel ink 9. This proves that it can be kept constant.

As described above, the ceramic green sheets with the nickel dried film were laminated and thermocompression bonded so that the number of effective dielectric layers was 65, and this was cut into a predetermined shape to obtain a raw chip of a laminated ceramic capacitor. The green chip was held at 400 ° C. for 4 hours in a nitrogen atmosphere to perform a binder removal treatment, and was fired at 1325 ° C. for 2 hours in a low oxygen partial pressure atmosphere.

Thereafter, the obtained sintered body element is chamfered, a terminal electrode paste containing copper as a main component is applied to both end faces of the sintered body element, dried and baked at 800 ° C. in a nitrogen atmosphere. External electrodes were formed to obtain a multilayer ceramic capacitor.

With respect to the multilayer ceramic capacitor thus obtained, the electrical initial characteristics and the high temperature load life test (8
5 ° C., 32 V-DC load, 1000 hours), high temperature humidity load life test (85 ° C., 85% RH, 16 V-DC load,
(500 hours), an evaluation was performed by appearance inspection and observation of the internal structure by embedding and polishing in a resin material. As a result, a multilayer ceramic capacitor having the same quality as that of the conventional method was obtained. The results are shown in (Table 3). The measurement parameter was set to 100.

[0039]

[Table 3]

[0040]

As described above, according to the present invention, the provision of the temperature adjusting means on the plate cylinder for gravure printing makes it possible to arbitrarily adjust the amount of ink applied to the printing medium, The constant coating amount can be maintained by changing the surface temperature of the plate cylinder in response to the change of the printing cylinder, and cost saving and stabilization can be achieved by effective use of ink.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram illustrating an embodiment of a printing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged schematic configuration view of the main part.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the plate cylinder.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of the plate cylinder.

FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram of a main part of a conventional printing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 8 Ink Pan 9 Ink 10 Plate Cylinder 11 Groove 12 Piping for Circulating Water 13 Doctor Blade 14 Ceramic Green Sheet of Printed Material 15 Backup Roller 18 Dryer 23 Coating Amount Detection Sensor

Continued on front page F-term (reference) 5E001 AB03 AF06 AH00 AH01 AH06 AH08 AH09 AJ01 AJ02 AJ03 5E082 AA01 AB03 BC40 EE04 EE31 EE35 FG06 FG26 FG54 GG10 GG28 JJ03 JJ23 LL03 MM24

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A plate having an ink pan having ink therein, a plate partially rotating in the ink of the ink pan and rotating, and having a temperature control means inside and a predetermined pattern-shaped groove on the outer peripheral surface. Printing composed of a cylinder, a doctor blade for scraping off excess ink adhering to the surface of the plate cylinder, and a backup roller for pressing the printing medium against the printing cylinder and transferring ink in the groove of the printing cylinder to the printing medium. apparatus. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the temperature adjusting means has a configuration in which a circulating water pipe for passing circulating water is arranged in the plate cylinder. 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the circulating water pipe is of a flat type. 4. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the temperature adjusting means comprises a heating element. 5. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the temperature of the plate cylinder adjusted by the temperature adjusting means is lower than the boiling point of the solvent of the ink. 6. The temperature of a plate cylinder partially immersed in the ink of the ink pan is adjusted by temperature control means in the plate cylinder in accordance with the viscosity of the ink, and the plate cylinder is rotated to discharge excess ink with a doctor blade. A printing method in which a predetermined amount of ink is filled in grooves on the surface of a plate cylinder by scraping, and a printing medium is brought into contact with the printing drum to transfer the ink to the printing medium. 7. A ceramic green sheet, wherein a ceramic green sheet is used as an object to be printed, an electrode ink is used as an ink, electrodes are printed on the ceramic green sheet by the printing method according to claim 6, and the electrodes are printed. A multilayer ceramic electronic component in which a plurality of are laminated, and the laminated body is cut into a predetermined shape, a binder is removed, and a terminal electrode is formed on the fired product.