JPH0150897B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

The present invention relates to a control device for heaters in a processing tank and a drying section in a photosensitive material processing apparatus that automatically processes film, photographic paper, PS plates, and the like. For example, in an automatic developing machine, a heater is provided in each of processing tanks such as a developing tank, a fixing tank, and a drying section to control the respective temperatures.
Most of the electric capacity of an automatic processing machine is consumed by these heaters, but power is often supplied to these heaters at the same time.
The power supply lines and other electrical equipment for the automatic developing machine must also have a capacity that can withstand the sum of the rated currents of these heaters. In contrast, the present applicant has already disclosed the following method in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 158641/1983. In other words, in order to reduce the electric capacity of the automatic processor, in constant temperature control of the developer and fixer, priority is given to controlling the developer temperature, taking advantage of the fact that the fixer temperature has a wide allowable range. , so that only one of them is energized. However, considering that more than half of the electrical capacity consumed by the heaters in the developing tank, fixing tank, and drying section is consumed by the drying section heater, the overall electrical capacity that can be reduced by the above method is If you look at it,
It's not that big. In addition, if the same idea is used for the processing tank and drying section, giving priority to temperature control of the processing liquid, and ensuring that each heater is only energized to one or the other, the drying section There may be cases where the drying heater is not energized even though there is photosensitive material in the dryer. As a result, the temperature of the drying section tends to drop relatively easily, which may cause uneven drying of the photosensitive material, which is inconvenient. Further, US Pat. No. 4,316,663 discloses an automatic developing machine that has a developing heater, a fixing heater, and a plurality of drying heaters, and prevents simultaneous use of a combination of these heaters. However, this device has disadvantages in that it uses a large number of heaters, which increases the cost, and also requires a large number of switches, etc., depending on the number of heaters. The present invention has been made in consideration of the above-mentioned current situation, and when it is necessary to energize the heater in either the processing tank or the drying section, it is possible to continuously energize only that heater, and
When it is necessary to energize multiple heaters in the processing tank and drying section, by applying pulse voltage to each heater alternately, the effective capacity of each heater is reduced, thus reducing the maximum electrical power of the entire automatic processing machine. It is an object of the present invention to provide a heater control device in a photosensitive material processing apparatus that can reduce the capacity. Note that the processing tank mentioned in this specification refers to the processing tank for developing,
Refers to any processing tank that requires temperature control, such as for fixing or reducing power. In the following description, a high level output will be referred to as H, and a low level output will be referred to as L. FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing the basic concept of the present invention. By inputting the outputs of temperature sensors 2 and 3 provided in the processing tank and drying section to the control circuit 1, when it is necessary to energize only the processing liquid heater 4, the switch 6 is turned on and the heater 4 is continuously supplied with electricity. When it is necessary to energize only the drying heater 5, the switch 7 is turned on to continuously energize the heater 5, and when it is necessary to energize both heaters 4 and 5, the switch 6 and 7 are turned on. Turn on both heaters 4 and 4 alternately.
By applying a pulse voltage to 5, the maximum capacitance is suppressed. In FIG. 1, 8 is a power source, and the power line is shown as a double line. The same applies to the following figures. In this device, the switches 6 and 7 are frequently turned on and off, so it is preferable to use durable non-contact switches.Also, in order to solve the problem of preventing noise (radio wave interference), , it is preferable to use a zero-cross switch. The same applies to the switch means in the following figures. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 2, a processing liquid temperature sensor 2 installed in a processing tank measures the temperature of the processing liquid, and a comparator 11 compares this measured value with a set value inputted in advance to a temperature setting device 9. If the measured value is lower than the set value, the output a of the comparator 11 becomes H.
and is input to the NOT circuit 17 and the AND circuit 13. The drying temperature sensor 3 installed in the drying section similarly measures the temperature of the drying section, and the comparator 12 compares this measured value with the set value input in advance to the temperature setting device 10, and the measured value is set. If it is lower than the value, the output b of the comparator 12 becomes H and is input to the NOT circuit 18 and the AND circuit 14. The outputs OS ₁ and OS ₂ of the oscillator 20 are signals that alternately become H, and when OS ₁ is H, OS ₂ becomes L,
When OS ₂ is H, OS ₁ is L. Output a from comparator 11 is H, and OS ₁
When is H or the output b of the comparator 12 is L,
The output of the OR circuit 15 becomes H, and the output of the AND circuit 13
The output also becomes H, the processing liquid heater switch 6 is turned on, and the processing liquid heater 4 is energized. When the output b of the comparator 12 is H and OS ₂ is H or the output a of the comparator 11 is L,
The output of the OR circuit 16 becomes H, and the output of the AND circuit 14
The output becomes H, and the drying heater switch section 7
is turned on, and the drying heater 5 is energized. Therefore, when the output of one of the comparators 11 and 12 is H, one of the heaters 4 and 5 is continuously energized, and when the output of both comparators 11 and 12 is H, the oscillator 20 is turned on. Output OS ₁
is H, heater 4 is turned on and OS ₂ is H.
If so, the heater 5 will be turned on.
Table 1 shows the relationship between the outputs a and b of the comparators 11 and 12 and the heaters 4 and 5 at this time.

[Table] FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention. Components that are the same as those in FIG. 2 are given the same symbols,
The explanation will be omitted. In Fig. 3, 23 is a cycle counter;
Based on the outputs of a photosensitive material sensor 21 such as a micro switch provided at the photosensitive material insertion slot and a conveyance speed sensor 22 such as a rotary encoder provided near the drive source, only when the photosensitive material is inside the processing device. , whose output is H. 24 is a timer for starting the drying section, which turns on the output for a certain period of time T after the output of the cycle counter 23 becomes H. 25 is an AND circuit. Next, the operation of this device will be explained. When the apparatus is turned on to process a photosensitive material, the temperatures of the processing liquid and the drying section are below the set temperature, so the outputs of the comparators 11 and 12 become H.
However, since no photosensitive material is present in the processing device yet, the output of the cycle counter 23 is L, and the output of the AND circuit 25 is L regardless of the output of the comparator 12. Therefore, only the processing liquid heater 4 is continuously energized. When the temperature of the processing liquid rises and reaches the set temperature, the output of the comparator 11 becomes L, power to the processing liquid heater is stopped, and a display device (not shown) indicates that processing of the photosensitive material is possible. (so-called ready display). When the photosensitive material is inserted into the processing device in this state, the output of the cycle counter 23 becomes H, the output of the AND circuit 25 becomes H, and the output of the timer 24 is turned on for a certain period of time T. The output d of this timer 24 is input to the oscillator 20, and the oscillator 20 sets OS ₁ to 1 second and OS ₂ to H for 20 seconds only during this time T.
Even if the output of the comparator 11 becomes H, electricity is mainly applied to the drying heater 5 to rapidly heat the drying section to the set temperature. At this time, the photosensitive material is passing through the processing tank, but the temperature of the processing solution has once risen to the set temperature. The liquid temperature never drops. After time T has elapsed, the output of timer 24 is L.
As in the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, when the output of only one of the comparators 11 and 12 is H, current is continuously supplied to one of the processing liquid heater 4 and the drying heater 5, and the output of the comparators 11 and 12 is continuously energized. When both outputs are H, if the output OS ₁ of the oscillator 20 is H, the processing liquid heater 4 is energized, and if the output OS ₂ of the oscillator 20 is H, the drying heater 5 is energized. At this time, since the processing liquid and the drying section are approximately at the set temperature, the set temperature can be sufficiently maintained by simply applying a pulse voltage. Generally, the temperature of the processing liquid can be kept constant with a small amount of electricity, but in order to keep the temperature of the drying section constant,
Relatively large power is required compared to the case of processing liquids. Therefore, the output of the oscillator 20 may be set so that the time when OS ₁ is high is short and the time when OS ₂ is high is long (for example, 1 second or 3 seconds). When the photosensitive material passes through the processing tank and the drying section and is discharged from the processing device, the output of the cycle counter 23 becomes L, and the output of the AND circuit 25 becomes L, so the output b of the comparator 12 becomes H. Also, the drying heater 5 is not energized. At this time, comparator 1
1 becomes H, the processing liquid heater 4 is continuously energized. At this time, the outputs a and b of the comparators 11 and 12, the cycle counter 23, and the timer 2
Table 2 shows the relationship between the outputs c and d of 4 and the heaters 4 and 5. In addition, in FIG. 3, the cycle counter 23
Since the output c of the timer 24 will never be L and the output of the timer 24 will be H, in such a case, the second
Not shown in the table.

[Table] FIG. 4 is a diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention, for example, an embodiment in which heaters 27, 28, and 29 in the developer, fixer, and drying sections are controlled. There is. In FIG. 4, 30, 31, and 32 are temperature sensors for development, fixing, and drying, respectively, and the measured values measured by these and the temperature setting device 33,
Comparators 40, 41, and 42 compare set values input in advance to 34 and 35. 26 is an oscillator having three outputs OS ₄ , OS ₅ , and OS ₆ ; as in the embodiment shown in _FIG .
It is possible to change the time when each output of OS ₅ and OS ₆ becomes H, and for example, when the output of the comparator 40 is L, by inputting that output to the oscillator 26, it is possible to control only OS ₅ and OS ₆ . It is set to be H alternately. Similarly, when the output of the comparator 41 is L, only OS ₄ and OS ₆ are activated, and when the output of the AND circuit 56 is L, only CS ₄ and OS ₅ are activated.
Each becomes H alternately. 36, 37, 38 are switch means, 50, 5
1, 52, 53, 54, 55 are AND circuits, 6
0, 61, and 62 are OR circuits, and 70, 71, and 72 are NOT circuits. The device of this embodiment has heaters 27, 28, 2
9, a pulse voltage is applied alternately to the necessary ones, but the operation is almost the same as the embodiment shown in FIG. 3, so the explanation will be omitted. Note that, for example, when using three heaters such as a developer, a fixer, and a drying section, the fourth
In addition to using the embodiment shown in the figure, there is also a method for controlling the temperature of liquid in a plurality of tanks (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.
58-48113), and by connecting the developing heater 4 and the fixing heater (not shown) in parallel in the embodiment shown in FIG. It is also possible to control three heaters. However, (drying heater power)≧(developing heater power)+(fixing heater power). Furthermore, it goes without saying that the present invention can also be applied to the case where four or more heaters are controlled, taking into account the reduction of the maximum power supply capacity. In this invention, if a non-contact relay such as a zero-cross switch is used as the switching means, the alternate ON time of the heater can be controlled down to the fine detail of 1/2 cycle of the AC power supply, resulting in highly accurate control. can be done. Although the numerical values of this invention are not limited, for example, if the developing heater is 600W, the fixing heater is 600W, and the drying heater is 1.5KW, the power supply capacity is:
What would have required 2.7KW+α becomes a power supply capacity of 1.5KW+α. α is the electric capacity required for the control device, transportation, etc. As described above, the heater control device in the photosensitive material processing apparatus of the present invention alternately applies a pulse voltage to a plurality of heaters, so that processing can be performed without increasing the number of heaters or switching means. It is possible to reduce the electric capacity of the entire device, and also to control the temperature extremely accurately, so it is of high practical value.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing the basic concept of the present invention, and FIGS. 2 to 4 are block diagrams showing different embodiments of the present invention. 1... Control circuit, 2, 3, 30, 31, 32... Temperature sensor, 4, 5, 27, 28, 29... Heater, 6, 7, 36, 37, 38... Switch means,
20, 26...Oscillator.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 a processing liquid heater for heating the processing liquid;
A drying heater for heating the drying section, a processing liquid temperature detector for detecting whether the temperature of the processing liquid is below the set temperature, and a processing liquid temperature detector for detecting whether the temperature of the drying section is below the set temperature. Based on the outputs of a drying temperature detector, an oscillator that alternately changes the output between at least a first state and a second state, a processing liquid temperature detector, and a drying temperature detector, the temperature of the processing liquid is lower than or equal to the set temperature. When the temperature of the drying section is above the set temperature, the processing liquid heater is continuously energized, and when the processing solution temperature is above the set temperature and the drying section temperature is below the set temperature, the drying heater is continuously energized. means for supplying current to the processing liquid heater if the output of the oscillator is in the first state and to the drying heater if the output of the oscillator is in the second state when both the temperature and the temperature of the drying section are below the set temperature. A heater control device in a photosensitive material processing device.