JPH02309384A - Cleaning device for electrophotographic device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the cleaning ability of the fur brush by constituting a flicker from a shaft parallelly crossed in the axial direction of the fur brush, and a coil spring which is provided with that shaft going through it. CONSTITUTION:When a device main body 1 is driven, the fur brush 29 is rotated in the direction of the arrow, and toner stuck to the surface of a photosensitive body 14 is scraped off by electro conductive fiber 37 of the fur brush 29 slidingly contacted with the photosensitive body 14 with a biting in amount of 1 to 2mm. In the electro conductive fiber 37 of the fur brush 29, the shaft 38 of the flicker 28 is bitten in from the outside to the inside 2 to 3mm and slidingly contacted, and at the same time, the coil spring 39 is bitten in deeper inside than that and slidingly contacted and toner paper powder adhered to the electro conductive fiber 37 is eliminated. In this case, since the coil spring 39 is bitten into the electro conductive fiber 37, the resistance with the fur brush 29 is made smaller by the elasticity of the coil spring, and at the same time, because it is oscillated from the elasticity, toner powder is prevented from stopping and being fixed in a space 40.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] Industrial Field of Application This invention is applicable to electrophotographic devices such as laser printers, copying machines, and facsimile machines that record on paper using electrophotographic processes such as charging, exposure, development, transfer, and fixing. applicable.

More specifically, the present invention relates to a cleaning device that uses a fur brush to scrape off toner paper powder adhering to the surface ml of an adherend in such an electrophotographic apparatus.

Conventionally, in this type of device, for example, in a photoconductor cleaning device, a fur brush is provided so that it can be slid across the photoconductor, which is the object to which toner paper dust is attached, and a fur brush is provided in parallel with the photoconductor. The shaft of the flicker is passed across the brush, and the brush is provided so that it can be slid into contact with the brush by cutting into the inside from the outer periphery.゛When the main body of the device is driven, the fur brush rotates and scrapes off the toner paper powder adhering to the photoreceptor surface after transfer, and the fur brush and flicker rub against each other to remove the toner paper powder adhering to the fur brush. remove.

However, in the past, the shaft of the flicker and the fur brush simply rubbed against each other, making it impossible to sufficiently remove toner paper dust from the fur brush, and over time, cleaning of the fur brush became difficult. There was a problem that degraded performance.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to sufficiently remove toner from a fur brush and improve the cleaning performance of the fur brush.

In order to achieve the above object to solve the problem, the present invention comprises a fur brush that slides into contact with an object to be adhered to, and a flicker that bites into the inside of the fur brush from the outer periphery and slides into contact with the fur brush. In the cleaning device for an electrophotographic apparatus, the toner paper powder adhering to the surface of the adherend is scraped off by a fur brush during rotation, and the toner paper powder adhering to the fur brush is removed by the flicker. The fur brush is characterized by comprising a shaft extending parallel to the axial direction of the fur brush, and a coil spring provided passing through the shaft.

Raw--1 Therefore, when the fur brush rotates, not only does the shaft of the flicker dig in from the outer periphery of the fur brush into sliding contact, but also the coil spring digs deeper into the interior and slides into contact.

Embodiment 1 Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.6 FIG. 3 schematically shows the overall structure of the internal mechanism of a laser printer equipped with a cleaning device according to the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 1 indicates a main body of a laser printer, and 2 indicates a paper feed cassette loaded in the main body 1 of the laser printer.

When the main body of the fi apparatus is driven, the paper P in the paper feed cassette 2 is fed out by a feed roller 11, and then fed to a pair of registration rollers 13 by a next paper feed roller 12. The pair of registration rollers 13 transports the paper P that abuts thereon to the lower side of the drum-shaped photoreceptor 14 at a proper timing. The photoconductor 14 is driven to rotate clockwise in FIG.
An electrostatic latent image is formed by irradiating laser light from When the latent image passes through the developing device 17, it becomes visible with toner. The visible image is transferred by a transfer charger 18 onto the paper P that has been conveyed below the photoreceptor 14 . Then, the transferred paper P is electrostatically separated from the photoreceptor 14 by the separation charger 19, and is transported to the fixing device ra21 by the transport belt 2'O. The fixing device 21 fixes the visible image on the paper P and then discharges it to the outside of the apparatus main body 1 .

On the other hand, after the visible image has been transferred, the photoreceptor 14 is cleaned by a cleaning device 22 according to the present invention to remove toner paper dust, and is further discharged by a discharge lamp 23, and then the charger 1
It is charged again at 5.

The cleaning device 22 according to the present invention is specifically constructed as shown in FIG. The cleaning device 22 has a cleaning chamber 26 formed inside a casing 25, and a toner collection coil 27. Flicker 28, fur brush 29, cleaning blade 30
are sequentially arranged in the rotational direction of the photoreceptor 14 from the bottom to the top in the figure.

A separating claw 32 is attached to a fulcrum 33 below the casing 25.
It is provided so that it can rotate freely around the center. The separation claw 32 transfers the paper P that could not be separated by the separation charger 19 to the photoreceptor 14.
It is forcibly separated from the And photoreceptor 14
In order to prevent damage to the photoreceptor 14, the leading edge of the paper P is configured to come into contact with the photoreceptor 14 when it approaches.

Furthermore, a pre-cleaning charge wire 34 is installed parallel to the photoreceptor 14 on the outside of the lower part of the casing 25 . The pre-cleaning charge wire 34 charges the toner paper powder from negative to positive to weaken the electrostatic attraction with the photoreceptor 14 6 Furthermore, a sealing member 35 is provided outside the lower part of the casing 25 . The sealing member 35 is made of urethane rubber or mylar film, and has one end fixed to the casing 25 and the other end pressed against the surface of the photoreceptor 14.
Toner scraped off by the fur brush 29 and cleaning blade 3o is prevented from falling to the outside.

At the bottom of the cleaning chamber 26, the toner collection coil 27 is provided. The toner collection coil 27 has a function of rotating and discharging toner to the outside of the casing 25.

The fur brush 29 is composed of a metal shaft 36 and conductive fibers 37 made of acrylic carbon or the like provided radially around the shaft 36. The conductive fiber 37 is provided so as to extend parallel to the photoreceptor 14 and to be rotatable in the clockwise direction indicated by the arrow, and to be able to come into sliding contact with the photoreceptor 14 with a depth of 1 to 2 cm.

The flicker 28 is provided between the fur brush 29 and the toner collection coil 27. The flicker 28 is
It is composed of a shaft 38 and a coil spring 39, and is provided so as to be able to come into sliding contact with the fur brush 29. The shaft 38 is a round bar with a diameter of 2 to 3 m. The shaft 38
As shown in FIG.
41, and is provided so as to be able to slide into contact with the conductive fibers 37 of the fur brush 29 from the outer periphery to the inside with a biting depth of 2 to 3 mm. The support stands 40 and 41 are fixed to the inner surface 42 of the casing 25 so as to protrude to a predetermined height, and the support stands 40 on both sides are fixed to the inner surface of the side plate 43 of the casing 25. The coil spring 39 has an inner diameter larger than the outer diameter of the shaft 38, is provided to loosely penetrate the shaft 38, and is attached to the conductive fibers 3 of the fur brush 29.
7 so that it can be slidably contacted from the outer periphery to the inside with a depth of 2 to 3 m or more. The coil spring 39 may have one end or both ends fixed to the support bases 40 and 41, or may not be fixed.

A predetermined gap is provided between the flicker 28 and the inner surface 42 of the casing 25 to provide a passage for the toner paper powder. The gap 45 is provided so that the inner surface 42 of the casing 25 is inclined low toward the toner collection coil 27 side, as shown in FIG.

A cleaning blade 3o is installed at the top of the cleaning chamber 26. The cleaning blade 30 is made of urethane rubber and has a thickness of about 311111 mm, for example, and is attached to the holder 4.
6 with screw 47. The holder 4G is rotatably provided on a shaft 48, and is fixedly connected to one end of a link 49 at the 1i[1148 portion thereof, and the other end of the link 49 is connected to a lever 50. The lever 50 is connected to a plunger 52a of an electromagnet 52 via a spring 51. Also,
One end of the tension spring 53 is hooked to the holder 46, and the other end of the tension spring 53 is hooked to the casing 25. When the electromagnet 52 is turned on, the lever 50 is pulled and the other end of the link 49 is pushed, so the holder 46 rotates clockwise and presses the tip 30a of the cleaning blade 30 against the photoreceptor 14. On the other hand, when the electromagnet 52 is turned off, the lever 50 returns to the concave state and separates from the link 49, so the tension spring 53 works and the holder 46 rotates counterclockwise, causing the tip 30a of the cleaning blade 30 to rotate.
is separated from the photoreceptor 14.

An auxiliary blade 54 is placed against the lower surface of the tip 30a of the cleaning blade 3o. The auxiliary blade 54 scrapes off toner paper powder adhering to the cleaning blade 30 and is made of Mylar film or the like, and is fixed to one end of an arm 55, and the other end of the arm 55 is fixed to the casing 25.

When the device main body 1 is driven, the fur brush 29
rotates in the direction of the arrow, and the conductive fibers 37 of the fur brush 29
slides into contact with the photoreceptor 14 with a biting depth of 1 to 2+y+n+ to scrape off toner adhering to the surface of the photoreceptor 14. The shaft 38 of the flicker 28 digs into the conductive fibers 37 of the fur brush 29 by two to three strokes from the outer periphery to the inside and comes into sliding contact, and the coil spring 39 digs further inside and comes into sliding contact with the conductive fibers 37. Remove adhering toner paper powder.

The toner paper powder that has fallen from the fur brush 29 flows down to the toner collection coil 27 side through the gap 45 .

By the way, in the past, toner paper powder sometimes stuck to the gap 45 and blocked the flow of toner. This is because toner mixed with paper dust or toner that still has an electric charge tends to stick. Furthermore, in the past, in order to enhance the flicker effect, the shaft was deeply wedged into the conductive 11 fibers, but this resulted in a disadvantage that the resistance with the fur brush 29 was too strong.

In the above-mentioned embodiment, the coil spring 39 is inserted into the conductive fiber 37, so the elasticity of the coil spring can reduce the resistance to the fur brush 29, and since the coil spring vibrates with one elasticity, the toner paper powder is stopped in the gap 4o. This prevents the toner from sticking and prevents the flow of toner from being blocked.

FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment described above, the shaft 38 was fixed to the supports 40 and 41, but here the entire flicker 28 is configured to be freely rotatable. That is,
The shaft 38 is supported by a support base 41, has both ends attached to the side plate 43 of the casing 25 via bearings 57, and has one end protruding outside the side plate 57 to provide a gear 58.

Coil spring 39 is secured to shaft 38 at both ends. Thus, when the gear 58 is driven, the shaft 38 and the coil spring 39 rotate together. Since the entire flicker 28 rotates and squeezes together with the fur brush 29, the flickering effect for removing toner paper powder from the conductive fibers 37 is further improved.

2 Lesson Fυ From the above, according to the present invention, when the fur brush rotates, not only does the flicker shaft dig into the inside of the fur brush from the outer periphery and come into sliding contact, but the coil spring also bites into the inside. Because of the sliding contact, the elasticity of the coil spring can further enhance the flicker effect without increasing the resistance with the fur brush, and also improve the cleaning performance of the fur brush.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the entire cleaning device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view of a portion thereof, and FIG. 3 is a laser printer equipped with the cleaning device of the present invention, showing its entire internal mechanism. FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a part of another embodiment of the cleaning device of the present invention.

14......Adherent body (photoreceptor), 28...
...Flicker, 29...Fur brush, 37...Conductive fiber, 38...
...Shaft, 39...Coil spring Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 2

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] Consisting of a fur brush that comes into sliding contact with the object to which toner paper powder is attached, and a flicker that bites into the interior of the fur brush from the outer periphery and comes into sliding contact with the object, when the fur brush rotates, the object to which the toner paper powder adheres In a cleaning device for an electrophotographic device that scrapes toner paper powder adhering to a surface with a fur brush and removes toner paper powder adhering to the fur brush with the flicker, the flicker is removed in the axial direction of the fur brush. A cleaning device for an electrophotographic device that is composed of a parallel shaft and a coil spring that extends through the shaft.