Ribbon cassette storage and transfer apparatus for a printer

摘要

Apparatus is disclosed for use with printers (or plotters) for storing and transferring ink-containing ribbon cassettes between a print head and a storage location. The printers (or plotters) are of the type which include a print head that is not as wide as the width of the medium to be printed on so that the print head has to be moved to print (or plot) across the full width of the medium. The apparatus automatically removes a cassette mounted to the movable carriage to which the print head is also mounted and deposits it in the storage station, and automatically removes a selected cassette from the storage station and deposits it on the print carriage. The apparatus includes cassette holders at the storage location and a cassette holder mounted to the print carriage. The storage station is positioned in or adjacent the path of travel of the print carriage, and the apparatus holding the cassettes at the storage station may be indexed to position a particular cassette holder into alignment with the cassette holder mounted to the carriage. The cassette holders have cooperating structure which automatically engage each other when the holders are aligned and are moved one into the other to automatically and directly transfer a cassette from one holder to the other.