JPH03225381A - Used/new toner cartridge judging device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the cost of a device by judging a used/new toner cartridge from the fact that the similar detection is carried out or not while printing is carried out within a prescribed number of sheets from the time paint when it is detected that toner is left a little. CONSTITUTION:The toner cartridge 24 is used for a long period, the toner is consumed, and the absence of the toner is detected by a magnetic sensor 27, for the first time. The counted values of a warning counter 55 and the used/new cartridge judging counter 56 are subtracted one by one whenever printing is carried out, till the absence of the toner is detected again. When the absence of the toner is detected, a CPU 51 reads out the value of the counter 56. When it is subtracted till 'zero', it means that a new cartridge is used for a long period. On the other hand, when the absence of the toner is detected before the counted value of the counter 56 is subtracted to 'zero', it corresponds to the fact that the cartridge 24 is not replaced. Thus, a fuse and a circuit for identification are eliminated, and the device is produced at low cost.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION "Industrial Application Field" The present invention forms an electrostatic latent image on a photoreceptor and develops it with toner, such as in an electronic copying machine, some types of printers, or facsimile machines. The present invention relates to a determination device for determining whether a toner cartridge used in an image forming apparatus is new or old.

``Prior Art'' Image forming apparatuses have conventionally been designed to detect when the amount of toner remaining in a toner cartridge is low and to display this information. In such a device, it is also possible to replace the toner cartridge immediately upon detection. However, since it is normally possible to record or copy a certain number of sheets from the time the detection is performed until the toner finally runs out, a warning is simply displayed at the stage when the detection is performed, and a certain number of sheets are to be taken from now on. It is in the user's interest to have the toner car (IJ) replaced at that point.

Therefore, there have conventionally been devices that display a two-step display of a warning display and a replacement display regarding toner cartridges. In such a device, a new toner cartridge (IJ) is prepared as soon as a warning message appears regarding the toner cartridge, and this is replaced with a new toner cartridge as soon as a replacement message appears. Also,
Such devices are equipped with a non-volatile memory to count a certain number of sheets, and are designed to hold the counted value even if the power of the copying machine or the like is turned off midway through.

In this device, once the toner cartridge replacement indication is displayed, new recording or copying (hereinafter simply referred to as printing) is often disabled. Naturally, this is due to the requirement to maintain image quality above a certain level during printing.

Therefore, in many such devices, data related to the toner cartridge replacement is stored in the non-volatile memory described above at the time the toner cartridge replacement indication appears, and recording cannot be started unless this data is erased or reset. I'm trying not to.

``Problems to be Solved by the Invention'' Therefore, in such conventional devices, it was necessary to reset the data in the nonvolatile memory after replacing the toner cartridge with a new one.

Specifically, when the cover of a copying machine or the like is opened and a toner cartridge is replaced, the user usually presses a reset button located inside the copying machine or the like.

For this reason, if you forget to press the reset button even if you replace the toner cartridge with a new one, there is a problem that you will not be able to erase or reset the data unless you open the cover of the copier etc. and press the button again. there were.

On the other hand, if the user presses the button with the toner cartridge still in use due to misunderstanding, the data instructing to replace the toner cartridge will be erased, and a warning will be displayed when the sensor detects that there is no toner. It was decided to be cleared.

As already explained, when a warning is displayed, it is desirable that a toner cartridge replacement indication be displayed after a certain amount of recording has been performed. However, if the warning display can be cleared one after another, the life of the toner cartridge can be unduly extended, resulting in a problem of deterioration of image quality.

To solve this problem, there is an apparatus in which a fuse is attached to the toner cartridge and the fuse is blown when the copying machine reaches a certain stage.

In such an apparatus, it is possible to easily determine whether an old toner cartridge is used as is, but there is a problem in that the apparatus becomes expensive due to the fuse.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new/old toner cartridge determining device that can determine whether a toner cartridge installed in a copying machine or the like is new.

"Means for Solving the Problems" The present invention (i) detects that the amount of toner in the toner cartridge is less than a predetermined amount and outputs a toner replacement warning signal to warn that the toner cartridge is about to be replaced; (ii)) a counter that counts the number of sheets on which a toner image is transferred; and (iii)) a toner sensor that counts the number of sheets to which a toner image is transferred; When the sensor does not output a toner replacement warning signal (new toner car)'
A determining device for determining whether a toner cartridge is new or old is provided with a determining means for determining whether the toner cartridge has been replaced.

That is, in the present invention, the output of the toner sensor is monitored from the start of the warning display until a predetermined number of sheets are recorded,
Only when there is no output from the toner sensor during this period, it is determined that the toner cartridge is new, and the toner cartridge is reset.

"Example" Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to Examples.

Outline of Laser Beam Printer FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration of a laser beam printer as an image forming apparatus using the toner cartridge old/new determining device in this embodiment.

This laser beam printer 11 includes a laser scanning device 12
It is equipped with The laser scanning device 12 is provided with a semiconductor laser 13 that modulates and outputs laser light according to an image signal. A laser beam emitted from this semiconductor laser 13 is incident on a polygon mirror 14, and is deflected according to this rotation.

After the deflected laser beam passes through the fθ lens 15, its traveling direction is changed by mirrors 16 and 17, and the laser beam is output from the laser scanning device 12.

A photosensitive drum 19 that rotates at a constant speed is arranged below the laser scanning device 12. The laser beam output from the laser scanning device 12 repeatedly scans a predetermined exposure position 21 of the photosensitive drum 19 in its axial direction, that is, in the main scanning direction. A charge corotron 22 is disposed slightly in front of the exposure position 21, facing the photoreceptor 1' ram 19, so as to uniformly charge the surface of the photoreceptor drum 21. By irradiating the charged photosensitive drum 21 with a laser beam, an electrostatic latent image corresponding to image information is formed on the drum surface.

This electrostatic latent image is developed by a developing mechanism within the toner cartridge 24 on the drum surface downstream of the exposure position. Inside the toner cartridge 24, there is a developing roll 25 for developing an electrostatic latent image by magnetically making the toner stand up, a toner supply mechanism 26 for supplying the toner in the cartridge to the developing roll 25, etc. parts are arranged. A predetermined developing bias is applied to the toner cartridge 24 . A magnetic sensor 2 is located at a predetermined position corresponding to the bottom of the replaceable toner cartridge 24.
7 is arranged to detect when the amount of toner remaining in the cartridge is running low.

The toner image formed by the developing mechanism of the IJ edge 24 is moved to a position facing the transfer corotron 28 by the rotation of the photoreceptor drum 19, where it is electrostatically applied to the recording paper (plain paper). will be transcribed into. The charge corotron 22 and the transfer corotron 28 used in this embodiment have a structure in which a single corotron wire is stretched between the ground and the voltage application terminal.

Next, the transport path of the recording paper will be briefly explained. Recording sheets (not shown) are stacked on a cassette tray 31 that is removably disposed at the bottom of the laser beam printer 11.

The recording paper placed in the top layer of the cassette tray 31 is
It is sent out of the tray by a half-moon roll 32 having a half-moon shape. Other means such as a retard roll may be used instead of the half-moon roll 32.

The fed recording paper travels along the path indicated by the broken line by the conveyance roll 33, and its progress is temporarily stopped when it reaches the tip of the registration roll 34. Thereafter, an electromagnetic clutch (not shown) starts rotation of the registration roll 34 in synchronization with the rotational position of the photosensitive drum 19, and the recording paper starts to be stably transported at a constant speed. In this way, the recording paper passes between the photosensitive drum 19 and the transfer corotron 28 at a desired timing. Only at this point in time, transfer corotron 2
8 performs discharge, whereby the toner image on the photosensitive drum 19 is electrostatically attracted toward the transfer corotron 28, and the toner image is transferred onto the recording paper. The recording paper on which the transfer has been performed is charged from its back surface by a charge eliminating needle (not shown) disposed downstream of the transfer corotron 28, and is peeled off from the drum surface. The peeled recording paper is conveyed along a conveyance path of a predetermined length to release the tension, and then conveyed to a fixing device consisting of a pair of heat roll 6 and pressure roll 8. In the fixing device, the recording paper passes between a heat roll 6 and a pressure roll 8 that are nipped at a predetermined width. At this time, the side of the recording paper onto which the toner image has been transferred becomes the heat roll 6 side, and the pressure roll 8 presses the recording paper against the heat roll 6 to enable efficient heat transfer. heat roll 6
is controlled at a constant high temperature.

In this state, the toner image on the recording paper is thermally fixed to the paper surface.

A switching valve 38 is provided on the exit side of the fixing device to switch the conveyance path of the recording paper after fixing. Depending on the switching operation of the switching valve 38, the recording paper after fixing will either go straight and be ejected in the first ejection direction 39, or it will be conveyed in an inverted U-shape within the device and will be ejected in the first ejection direction 39. It is discharged from the upper part of the laser beam printer 11 in a second discharge direction 41 in the opposite direction. The reason why two types of ejection directions can be selected is to enable the selection of ejecting with the recording surface facing up or with the recording surface facing down. If the second ejection direction 41 is selected and the paper is ejected with the recording surface facing down, pages printed one by one can be bound with a stapler in the order in which they were ejected.

Incidentally, the toner image that has not been transferred to the recording paper is removed from the drum surface by a cleaning device 43 disposed further downstream of the transfer corotron 280. The cleaning device 43 includes a blade 44 for scraping toner from the drum surface and a rotating body 45 for evacuating toner particles accumulated under the blade 44 to a rear storage location.

Structure of a device for determining whether a toner cartridge is new or old Figure 1 shows a circuit portion of a device for determining whether a toner cartridge is new or old as a main part of the circuit configuration of this laser beam printer.

This laser beam printer uses a CP to perform various controls.
The CPU 51 is equipped with a central processing unit (U) 51, which is also shared by the new/old toner cartridge determining device.

(i) ROM 53: ) This is a read-only memory that stores a program for performing the operation of determining whether the cartridge is new or old.

(ii) RAM 54: Random access memory for temporarily storing various data.

(iii > Warning counter 55: This counter is used for management from starting a warning when toner is low until shutting down the laser beam printer. In this embodiment, the warning force counter 55 is set at a predetermined time. A positive number A is set and this is subtracted to "0".The number A is "100" in this embodiment.

(iv) New/Old Discrimination Counter 56: This is a counter used to determine whether the toner cartridge 24 is new or not. In this embodiment, a numerical value B is set at a predetermined time and is subtracted to "0". Numerical value B is larger than numerical value A, and is "200" in this embodiment. The warning counter 55 and old/new discrimination counter 56 of this embodiment are constructed of a non-volatile memory consisting of a RAM backed up by a battery, for example, and are designed to retain the count value even if the power is cut off midway through. .

(v) Magnetic sensor 27: Since magnetic toner is used in this embodiment, this detection is performed using the magnetic sensor 27, and when detection is no longer performed, it is determined that there is little toner remaining. As understood from FIG. 2, the toner cartridge 24 used in this embodiment is connected to the toner supply mechanism 2.
6 is used to supply toner to the developing roll 25. Therefore, even if the magnetic sensor 27 shown in FIG. 2 no longer detects toner, toner remains in the recessed portion of the toner cartridge 24 and can still be supplied to the developing roll 25. be.

Therefore, in the apparatus of this embodiment, when the magnetic sensor 27 no longer detects toner, the user is simply warned that the toner is running out, and promises that a predetermined number of copies will be made.

(vi) Warning display lamp 57: This is a display lamp for warning that toner is running low.

(V■) Toner out indicator lamp 58: This is a lamp to indicate when the laser beam printer has shut down due to running out of toner. Note that both the warning indicator lamp 57 and the toner empty indicator lamp 58 are used to inform the operator of the status of the apparatus. Therefore, it is possible to use other visual display means such as liquid crystal, and it goes without saying that the lamps 57 and 58 are not necessarily required. It is likewise possible to use audible devices such as buzzers in place of these lamps 57,58.

(viii) Paper discharge sensor 59: This is a sensor that detects the passage of recording paper in order to count the number of recording paper sheets that pass through the heat roll 6 and are discharged.

FIG. 3 shows the operation of the device for determining whether a toner cartridge is new or old.

The CPU 51 shown in FIG. 1 first determines in step (2) whether or not a toner out warning is being issued. If there is no toner out warning (N), it is determined whether the magnetic sensor 27 is detecting toner (step 2). When toner is detected (N),
The CPU 51 counts down the values of the warning counter 55 and old/new discrimination counter 56 by 1 each time the paper discharge sensor 59 detects recording paper during the printing operation (
Step ■). Such a countdown will be repeated until the magnetic sensor 27 detects that there is no toner (steps ①, ②).

It is assumed that the toner cartridge 24 has been used for a long time and the toner has been consumed, and the magnetic sensor 27 detects that there is no toner for the first time (step 2; Y).

At this time, the CPU 51 determines whether the count value of the old/new discrimination counter 56 is MO'' (step ■).
. Numerical value B is not set in the old/new discrimination counter 56, and in this state, the counted value "0" is held (Y)
. Therefore, the CPU 51 sets the value A to the warning counter 55.
(Step ■), and the warning display lamp 570 starts lighting (Step ■).

After this warning is issued, it is assumed that the operator replaces the toner cartridge 24 at a predetermined time, or turns off and on the power of the laser beam printer at the end or start of work. Control in such a case will be explained below.

In this warning state (step ■; Y), the CPU 51 monitors whether the top panel (not shown) of the laser beam printer has been opened or closed to replace the toner cartridge 24, or whether the printer's power has been turned off (step ■).

And if any of these is done (Y),
The detection output of the magnetic sensor 27 is checked again to confirm whether or not there is toner in the toner cartridge 24 (step 2). If the magnetic sensor 27 detects toner at the time of this inspection (Y), a value B is set in the old/new discrimination counter 56 (step 2). The value B is set because if the magnetic sensor 27 does not detect toner before this value decreases to "0", the toner cartridge 2
This is to determine that 4 has been replaced with a new one. Therefore, it is desirable that the value of the numerical value B be a somewhat large value, such as the numerical value "200" or the numerical value "300", for example.

After setting the value B in the old/new discrimination counter 56, there is a possibility that a new toner cartridge 24 has been inserted into the printer, so the toner out warning display is ended for the time being (step knob 0).

Then, until no toner is detected again (step ■
), and repeats the control of decrementing the count values of the warning counter 55 and old/new discrimination counter 56 by 1 each time printing is performed (steps ①, ②). Then, the magnetic sensor 27 detects that there is no toner (step ■; Y),
The CPU 51 reads the count value of the new/old discrimination counter 56 at this time, and determines whether or not this has been decremented to "0" (step 2). The case where the value has been subtracted to "0" means that the new toner cartridge 24 has been used for a long time, and this is as explained at the beginning (steps (2) and (2)).

In contrast, the count value of the new/old discrimination counter 56 is “
If no toner is detected before the toner is subtracted to 0'', step ■; N) corresponds to the case where the toner cartridge 24 is not replaced even though the toner out warning has been issued. .

Therefore, in this case, the count value of the warning counter 55 is checked (step 0), and if it has been decremented to "0" (Y), the value A is reached after the lack of toner is detected.
The number of pages corresponding to
There is a high possibility that the toner in 4 will be completely exhausted. Therefore, in order to maintain the quality of printing, the laser beam printer is put into a shutdown state and printing operations are prohibited (step @). In this state of power down, the CPU 51 displays the toner empty indicator lamp 58.
is lit to instruct the operator to change the toner cartridge 24.

On the other hand, if the count value of the warning counter 55 has not reached "0" yet at the stage of step ■ (N), although the toner out warning is displayed (step ■), the count value The printing operation is possible until the value is subtracted to "0" (steps ■, ■, ■, ■, ■, ■, ■). This is done by ensuring printing on a certain number of recording sheets A even after the magnetic sensor 27 first detects that the toner in the toner cartridge 24 is running low.
This is to make it possible to purchase the toner cartridge 24 during this time.

Note that when the amount of toner in the toner cartridge 24 begins to run low, the magnetic sensor 27 will continue to be in an unstable state for some time, such as detecting the absence of toner or detecting the presence of toner. In such a case, there may be a case where the presence of toner is detected in step (2), but each time in step (2) a value B is set in the new/old discrimination counter 56, so this value B becomes "0". The lack of toner will be detected before the count is subtracted, and control such as shutdown will be performed in accordance with the count value of the warning counter 55.

As explained above, in this embodiment, two types of counters are used to manage toner cartridges, so it is not only possible to simply distinguish between new and old toner cartridges, but also to enable even when the remaining amount of toner is low. The use of a certain number of toner cartridges can be continued, and the economical efficiency of the toner cartridge can be improved.

"Effects of the Invention" As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to determine whether a toner cartridge is new or old based on whether or not a similar detection occurs again during printing within a predetermined number of sheets after it is detected that toner is running low. Since it was decided to do this, there is no need to use a fuse or an identification circuit device to distinguish between new and old toner cartridges, and there is an advantage that the device can be manufactured at a low cost.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The drawings are for explaining one embodiment of the present invention. Among them, Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration of a device for determining whether a toner cartridge is new or old, and Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a laser beam printer using this device. The configuration diagram and FIG. 3 are flowcharts showing the flow of judgment control of the toner cartridge new/old judgment device. 24... Toner cartridge, 27...
- Magnetic sensor, 51...CPtJ. 53...ROM. 56...Counter for determining old and new.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A toner sensor that detects that the amount of toner in the toner cartridge is below a predetermined amount and outputs a toner replacement warning signal to warn that the toner cartridge is about to be replaced; a counter for counting the number of sheets to be replaced, and a counter for counting the number of sheets to be replaced; and a counter for counting the number of sheets to be replaced, and a counter for determining whether the toner cartridge is replaced with a new toner cartridge if the toner sensor does not output the toner replacement warning signal until the counter counts a predetermined number of sheets after the toner sensor outputs the toner replacement warning signal. 1. A device for determining whether a toner cartridge is old or new, comprising: a determining means for determining whether a toner cartridge is new or old.