Method and apparatus for transporting and tensioning sheet materials in an ink jet printer

摘要

An ink jet printer in which a roll of paper is stored within an imaging drum and feeds through a longitudinal opening in the drum to the outside, passes around the drum, where it is held in place during the imaging process, and then ejected from the drum and cut off. While the imaged sheet is being ejected from the drum, the next length of paper is drawn from the interior of the drum and around the outside of the drum in position for the next imaging operation. The paper is withdrawn from the drum by a traction roller that engages only the center portion of the paper to prevent the paper from skewing because of unequal forces applied to the edge portions of the paper. The same traction roller is also used in a reverse mode to tension the paper around the drum.