GB2302679A - Printable marker assemblies and their use - Google Patents

Abstract

A printable marker assembly consists of an elongate array of printable markers 1 with a leader 42 secured to its free end. The markers 1, particularly heat-shrinkable polymeric tubes, are interconnected by printer-drivable carrier strips 2,3. The leader 42 can be fed into the printer driver, enabling the first marker to be registered with the printing station thus avoiding wasting markers. The leader 42 may be a flexible sheet having printer-drivable features e.g. a series of holes 41 corresponding with those 21 of the marker assembly. It may engage the carrier strips 2,3 of the marker assembly but have a recess or cut-out part to avoid overlap with printer zones of the first marker. The leader 42 may be removable and reusable or may be secured to the end of the array by adhesive. The assembly may be provided in a "fan-fold", i.e. zig-zag, arrangement.

Description

PRINTABLE MARKER ASSEMBLIES AND THEIR USE This specification has to do with printable marker assemblies, such as are printed while being fed through a printer feed drive. A particular aspect of our proposals relates to the printing of heat-shrinkable marker sleeves, conventionally used for marking cable ends, but the proposals are not necessarily limited to that.

BACKGROUND It is well known to present printable markers such as heat-shrinkable marker sleeves in a format which can be fed through a typewriter or automatic printer. Printers of the relevant type typically have a roll over which the printable product is passed and which serves as a support against the printing or typing force. Printers usually have a tractor feed for the printable product, with one or more drive elements such as sprockets having spaced teeth engaging in corresponding spaced holes of the printable product.

US-A-3894731 (Raychem Corporation) describes a printable product comprising a long flat plastic strip with a longitudinal series of printer drive perforations and integrally-formed tines projecting transversely, on each of which a flattened heat-recoverable sleeve is fitted. The tines may however be dispensed with and the marker sleeves secured to the carrier strip by releasable adhesion of one or both ends, as seen in Raychem's US-A4865895 (corresponding to EP-A-295918) .

An alternative printable format has the flattened marker sleeves fixed on a backing sheet: see for example GB-A-2071010 and US-A-4361230.

The printable product may be provided as a roll or in a fan-fold format i.e. with respective strips or sheets connected edge-to-edge at foldable lines of weakness.

Printable marker assemblies are not cheap, and there is a general problem of wastage between printing one batch of markers and the next. Most printer drives need to engage a substantial length of printable substrate before they can operate, so even with a fresh assembly some markers must be pulled past the printing station before the batch can be printed. Particularly with fan-folded product there is a continual wastage of printable markers in this way. To make matters worse the last-printed marker must typically be pulled well clear of the printing station before it can be separated from the main supply.

Following markers pulled past the printing station may then be wasted, particularly if reverse drive is impossible.

What we now propose firstly is a discrete printerfeed-drivable leader which is secured to a free end of the printable marker product and fed into the printer drive, enabling markers at the free end of the product to be registered with the printing station.

One aspect of the invention is the leader itself, for which preferred constructional details are given below.

Another aspect of the invention is a method of printing marker assemblies, incorporating the use of a leader as described.

A third aspect is a printable marker assembly comprising an elongate interconnected array of printable markers, individually separable from the array, the assembly being adapted to be fed in a longitudinal direction of the array through a printer while engaged by a feed drive of the printer which locates and feeds the assembly relative to a printing station of the printer, the assembly further comprising a discrete printer-feed-drivable leader securable to a free end of the array and adapted to be fed through the printer to enable location of that free end at the printing station.

The array may be a fully continuous strip e.g. in reel format, or subdivided into individual portions each comprising plural markers, separated by lines of weakness for separation e.g. fan-folded. It may have a feed-drive engaging portion, e.g. one or more longitudinal series of holes for engagement by sprocket projections of a printer tractor drive. A series of such holes along each side edge of the assembly is typical.

The assembly usually comprises a carrier, which may be in sheet form e.g. a backing sheet, or in a strip form on which the markers are not superimposed or at least not wholly superimposed, e.g. by the use of tines or by the endwise adhesion of markers to one or more side strips.

The markers may be of paper material, polymeric material or any other suitable material. Of particular interest are flattened polymeric tubes, e.g. part-cured flattened heat shrinkable tubes such as are disclosed in GB-A-2071010.

Generally the markers are arranged in a series distributed in the longitudinal direction; when they are elongate their elongation desirably extends transversely to the longitudinal direction. There may be one series, or plural series extending side-by-side in the assembly.

The leader is a discrete element to be secured to a free end of the array. Typically it is in sheet form and flexible; either paper or synthetic polymeric materials are suitable. According to the nature of the drive in the printer, the leader may have one or more feed-drive engaging portions to assure a positive drive, e.g. one or more longitudinal series of holes. The leader can be of the same width as the array. Most preferably the leader is releasably securable to the array so that it can be removed after use, and most preferably is adapted to be used again in the same way. Thus, a single leader could be used to print several batches from a single supply of printable assembly without waste.

The leader may secure to a carrier of the array.

Preferably the portion or portions of the leader which engage the array do not overlap the markers' printable zone, e.g. being localised at a carrier. They may take the form of longitudinally projecting limbs.

The leader's securing means may be adhesive, preferably a releasable adhesive. The leader may have an adhesive securing zone and a non-adhesive (handleable) zone. An adhesive zone of the leader can be provided with a removable backing to mask the adhesive until needed.

Another aspect of our proposals, which may however be combined with the proposals above, relates to the need sometimes to reverse the direction of movement of a printable array through the printing station. In most printers a transverse bar or strip closely opposes the printer roller immediately upstream of the printing location, defining a narrow convergent slot through which the array passes just before it is printed. With many kinds of printable marker array, reverse movement of the array through the printer is impossible because the markers are liable to be caught by the aforementioned strip, jamming the reversal and potentially ruining the markers. We now propose that, before reversing the drive, a flexible guide sheet be inserted between the array and the transverse member opposing the roller, thereby providing a smooth convergent surface to guide the marker array back into and through the slot without jamming or damage.

The guide sheet should be sufficiently flexible to follow the roller and array conformation, sufficiently stiff to be pushed into the slot past the marker array, and sufficiently smooth to guide the marker array with sliding back through the slot. The skilled person can easily identify a suitable material in relation to the given situation. It may be for example a smooth plastic sheet, or a paper or card sheet laminated with a plastics exterior layer. In particular it may be provided by a non-adhesive portion of a leader as was described above.

Examples embodying our new proposals are now given, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 shows a printable marker sleeve assembly; Figure 2 shows a fan-folded format for such an assembly; Figure 3 is a plan view of a leader before use; Figure 4 shows the Figure 3 leader prepared for use and attached to the end of a marker sleeve assembly; Figure 5 is a schematic sectional view showing marker sleeves passing forwardly around a printer backing roller, and Figure 6 is a corresponding sectional view showing reverse driving of the marker sleeves, assisted by a guide.

Referring to Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, the present invention is exemplified in relation to a marker sleeve assembly as disclosed in EP-A-295918. Tubular polymeric marker sleeves 1, such as are commonly used for identifying the ends of wires and cables, are flattened and kept in the flattened condition by the application of some heat and pressure (although not enough to make them heat-shrink, as they do in the ultimate use). These pre-flattened sleeves 1 are held in a longitudinally-extending series by securing their ends in respective carrier strips 2,3 of flexible plastics material, each perforated with holes 21 spaced in the conventional manner to receive the teeth of a printer drive sprocket.The sleeves 1 are attached to the strips 2,3 by narrower strips of adhesive tape 22, a pair of such narrow strips 22 being stuck along the opposite faces of the inner edge of each of the carrier strips and trapping between them at the appropriate locations the extreme ends of the marker sleeves 1. The adhesive strips 22 may be segmented, perforated, continuous or discontinuous as desired; these are options known to the skilled person.

Fig. 2 shows how an elongate marker assembly of the Fig. 1 type is conveniently provided as a fan-fold product, with the continuous length being sub-divided into equal shorter lengths at lines of weakness 29 (created by perforation) at which it is folded to create a neatly packagable stack.

When printing on the markers, sufficient of the assembly must be pulled past the printing location to engage fully with the printer drive sprocket. Some markers are then downstream of the printing location and are wasted.

Fig. 3 shows a leader 4 designed to overcome the wastage problem, and constituted by a parallel-sided flexible sheet of the same width as the marker assembly and having edge perforations 41 of the same gauge. The main part 42 of the sheet is continuous, and adapted to be fed into a printer at the leading end. The trailing end 43 is formed with projecting side limbs 44 separated by a recess or clearance 45. The limbs 44 carry a releasable adhesive by which, as seen in Fig. 4, they can be secured onto the respective carrier strips 2,3 of the marker assembly at an extreme end thereof, with the leader's holes 41 superimposed on the carrier strips' holes 21 at the region of overlap. The limbs 44 extend past the first marker 1' of the assembly but the recess 45 between them ensures that at least the printable zone of the marker is still exposed.The leading portion 42 of the leader is not adhesive, and will run freely through the printer.

The function and advantage should now be evident.

When it is desired to start printing a batch, the leader 4 is attached in the manner shown to the free end of the marker sleeve assembly and fed through the printing location onto the printer drive sprockets. The printer drive is thus brought into driving connection with the marker sleeve assembly without needing to bring the first marker sleeve 1' further than the printing location.

Printing of the batch therefore starts at the first sleeve 1' and waste is avoided.

In this embodiment the leader is made reusable by providing it initially as a rectangle of form-feedable adhesive paper, that is, paper with adhesive on one face covered with a siliconised release backing sheet. Fig. 3 shows it from the paper side, the backing sheet being behind. The paper sheet is preliminarily die-cut along the line 45' to define the limbs 44 and the recess 45 between them. The backing sheet is preliminarily cut along a line 46 extending along the back of the recess 45 and across the roots of the limbs 44. So, removal of the trailing portion 47 of the backing sheet simultaneously exposes the adhesive on the limbs 44 and removes the intervening paper segment to form the recess 45.

The skilled reader will appreciate that there are other possible ways and materials for forming a suitable leader. The present paper-based construction is suitable for a few reuses, e.g. as when supplied with a pack of printable product, but a flexible plastics sheet could be used many times over if a suitable releasable adhesive is selected, or some non-adhesive means is used for securing.

The leader may not necessarily have to have its holes superimposed on those of the marker assembly, although this is one way of ensuring that they are mutually aligned with the printer drive. If they are not superimposed, some other means such as an end marker or limit stop can be used to ensure the proper alignment between the leader and the marker assembly.

Figs. 5 and 6 illustrate an additional technique which helps to reduce wastage. The marker assembly, which may be as shown in Fig. 1, passes around the roll 8 of a printer with a feed drive. Immediately upstream of the printing location PL the marker assembly passes between the roller 8 and a front strip 9 extending axially along the front of the roller 8. For clarity, only the marker sleeves 1 are shown; the carrier strips 2,3 should be assumed.

The strip 9 assists in locating the sleeve 1 for printing, but causes difficulties otherwise. When all of a batch has been printed, the last sleeve typically needs to be pulled beyond the end of the printer drive assembly PD before it can be detached from the remainder of the marker assembly. As before, this means that unprinted markers are drawn past the printing location and potentially wasted. Accordingly it is often attempted to reverse the printer drive, but when this happens the lower edge of the nearest sleeve 1 invariably catches the top edge of the locating strip 9 and jams, spoiling that sleeve and wasting those above it.

What we propose is that a flexible sheet 10, e.g. of plastics material or plastics-laminated card or paper, is inserted between the strip 9 and the marker assembly before reversing the drive, as seen in Fig. 6. This can be done manually, and provides a convergent guide path leading the sleeves 1 back through the slot between the strip 9 and roller 8 without damaging them, once more enabling printing of the next batch to commence with reduced wastage.

The guide sheet 10 is here shown as a separate item, but it may also be provided by the handleable portion of a leader item as described in relation to Figs. 3 and 4. It may have an end with a tapered shape to facilitate insertion into the slot.

Claims (16)

CLAIMS:

1. A printable marker assembly comprising an elongate interconnected array of printable markers, individually separable from the array, the assembly being adapted to be fed in a longitudinal direction of the array through a printer while engaged by a feed drive of the printer which locates and feeds the assembly relative to a printing station of the printer, the assembly further comprising a discrete printer-feed-drivable leader securable to a free end of the array and adapted to be fed through the printer to enable location of that free end at the printing station.

2. An assembly according to claim 1 in which the array has individual portions joined to one another by lines of weakness to facilitate separation.

3. An assembly according to claim 2 in which the array is a fan-fold array.

4. An assembly according to any one of the preceding claims in which the markers are arranged in at least one series distributed in the longitudinal direction of the array.

5. An assembly according to claim 4 in which the markers are elongate and their direction of elongation is transverse to the longitudinal direction.

6. An assembly according to any one of the preceding claims in which the markers are flattened polymeric tubes.

7. An assembly according to claim 6 in which the markers are heat-shrinkable tubes.

8. An assembly according to any one of the preceding claims in which the leader comprises a flexible sheet.

9. An assembly according to any one of the preceding claims in which the leader has one or more feed-drive engaging portions to engage a printer drive.

10. An assembly according to claim 9 in which the feeddrive-engaging portion comprises a longitudinal series of holes.

11. An assembly according to any one of the preceding claims in which the leader is releasably secured to the array so that it can be removed after use.

12. An assembly according to any one of the preceding claims in which the leader secures to a carrier of the array by means of connecting portions shaped so as not to overlap any marker printable zone of the array.

13. An assembly according to any one of the preceding claims in which the leader has adhesive securing means for fastening it to the array.

14. An assembly according to any one of the preceding claims in which the adhesive securing means has an adhesive zone with a backing sheet removable to expose the adhesive.

15. A method of printing marker assemblies, comprising the use of a marker assembly as defined in any one of claims 1 to 14

16. A leader for a marker assembly as defined in any one of claims 1 to 14.