JPH0426873A - Toner supply device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent toner from adhering to the wall surface of a toner container by attaching a motor to the toner container so that the vibration of the motor which drives a stirring member, etc., may be transmitted to the wall surface of the toner container. CONSTITUTION:This device is provided with the toner container 1 in which the toner is stored and the motor 8 which drives at least one of the stirring members 6 and 7 for stirring the toner in the toner container, a carrying member 5 for carrying the toner in the container 1 and a supplying member 4 for supplying the toner in the container 1 to the developing machine of an image forming device, and the motor 8 is supported by the toner container 1. Therefore, the vibration of the motor 8 which drives the stirring members 6 and 7, the carrying screw 4 and the toner carrying screw 5 is transmitted to the container wall of the toner hopper 1. Thus, the toner adhering to the container wall of the toner hopper 1 is swept off and the toner is prevented from adhering to the wall of the container.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a toner supply device installed in an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, image forming apparatuses use a toner supply device that contains toner containing silica or the like and has good fluidity when flowing, or a large capacity toner, and supplies the toner from the supply device to a developing machine. There is something I did. Toner with good fluidity has high cohesiveness when left alone, and on the other hand, even with large-capacity toner, the toner in the lower part is compressed, so toner blocking occurs in the toner hopper of the toner supply device that stores these toners. (clumping) is likely to occur. Further, toner lumps and the like tend to adhere to the wall surface of the toner hopper. Blocking occurs and toner adheres to the wall of the toner hopper, making it difficult to detect the amount of toner remaining or toner not being smoothly supplied to the developing machine. A driven stirring member may be provided in the toner hopper to prevent blocking, or a swinging mechanism for swinging the entire toner hopper may be provided separately, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 61-5264. This prevents blocking from occurring and toner from adhering to the wall of the toner hopper.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, these conventional toner supply devices have problems such as being unable to prevent toner from adhering to the wall surface of the toner hopper and increasing costs.

That is, in a toner supply device provided with a stirring member, it is extremely difficult to use the stirring member to shake off all the toner adhering to the wall surface of the toner hopper, and it is impossible to prevent toner from adhering.

Furthermore, although a toner supply device provided with a swinging mechanism can prevent toner from adhering to a wall surface, it is necessary to provide a separate swinging mechanism, which increases costs.

[Purpose of the invention]

Therefore, in the present invention, the motor is attached to the toner container so that the vibration of the motor that drives the stirring member etc. is transmitted to the wall surface of the toner container, and it is possible to prevent toner from adhering to the wall surface of the toner container. The purpose is to provide a low-cost toner supply device.

[Structure of the invention]

In order to achieve the above object, a toner supply device according to the present invention includes a toner container containing toner, a stirring member that stirs the toner in the toner container, a conveyance member that transports the toner in the toner container, and a toner container that contains the toner. a motor for driving at least one of supply members for supplying the toner to a developing machine of an image forming apparatus, the toner supply apparatus comprising: a motor for driving at least one of supply members for supplying the toner to a developing machine of an image forming apparatus; Furthermore, the motor is supported by the toner container.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained based on the drawings.

1 to 7 are diagrams showing an embodiment of a toner supply device according to the present invention, and show an example in which the present invention is applied to a color copying machine.

First, the configuration will be explained.

1 to 3, reference numeral 1 denotes a toner hopper containing toner, and the toner hopper 1 constitutes a toner container according to the present invention. The toner hopper 1 supports a rotating shaft 2.3 and a conveying screw 4.

A stirring member 6 is attached to the rotating shaft 2, a part of the rotating shaft 3 is formed integrally with the toner conveying screw 5, and a stirring member 7 is attached to the remaining part of the rotating shaft 3. The stirring member 6.7 is integrally constructed by laminating two elastic members, a polyester film having a thickness of 0.18 nm+m and a polyurethane sheet having a thickness of 1 inch. The stirring member 6.7 is a member that stirs the toner in the toner hopper 1, and the toner conveying screw 5 is a member that conveys the toner in the toner hopper I.
The toner in the toner hopper 1 is transferred to the color copying machine 11 (described later).
This is a member that is supplied to the developing units 128K, 12C112M, and 12Y. The rotating shaft 2.3 and the conveying screw 4 are driven by a motor 8 via a gear mechanism, which will be described later.
The motor 8 rotates at, for example, 3000 rpm,
The stirring member 6.7, the conveyance screw 4, and the toner conveyance screw 5 are driven. The motor 8 is attached to the container wall 1a of the toner hopper 1 via a bracket 9, and vibrations of the motor 8 are transmitted to the entire container wall 1a of the toner hopper 1 when the motor 8 is driven. A remaining toner amount detection sensor 10 is supported on the toner hopper 1.
The remaining toner amount detection sensor 10 has a detection surface 10a, and the detection surface 10a can come into contact with the stirring member 6. That is, the stirring member 6 contacts the detection surface 10a every time it rotates once, and the detection surface 10a of the remaining toner amount detection sensor 10 is cleaned by the stirring member.

Here, the configuration of the color copying machine 11 will be briefly described.

4 to 7, the color copying machine 11 includes a developing unit 7 12Y to which toner of each color, for example, yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), and black (BK) is supplied; 12M, 12c, and 128K (hereinafter also simply referred to as the developing unit 12), and the above-mentioned color toners are stored outside the unit 2 to form a developing unit 1-12.
a position where the developing unit 12 is engaged with the developing unit 12 by the slide mechanism 13, as shown in FIG.
As illustrated in FIG.
4C8148 (hereinafter also simply referred to as the supply unit 14). The supply unit 14 constitutes a toner supply device according to the present invention. Developing unit 7) 1
2 are the first screw 15 and the second screw 16, respectively.
, a developing sleeve 17a, a fixed magnet group 17b, a replenishment roller 18, a screw case 19, a blade 20, a toner tank portion 21 (toner chamber), a doctor blade 22, and the like. The toner (not shown) in the toner tank section 21 adheres to the photoreceptor drum 23 via the developing sleeve 17a, and develops the electrostatic latent image on the photoreceptor drum 23. Each developing unit 12 also includes a toner remaining amount sensor 24 that detects the remaining amount of toner in the toner tank section 21.
A carry-in passage member 25 and a carry-in screw 26 are provided for carrying the toner of each color from the toner supply device into the toner tank section 21 based on the detection information of the remaining toner amount sensor 24.

Referring again to FIGS. 1 to 3, the supply unit 14 includes the above-mentioned toner hopper 1, rotating shaft 2.3, conveyance screw 4,
toner conveying screw 5, stirring member 6.7, motor 8,
In addition to the bracket 9 and the remaining toner amount detection sensor 10, there are also a pipe 33, an outer cylinder 35, a packing member 36, a worm wheel 42, 43, 44, 45, an idler gear (not shown), a worm gear 46, a spring 47, and a wiper member 48. have. The motor 8 is connected to a control means (not shown) and rotates forward or reverse based on an output signal from the control means. The motor 8 also has a worm gear 46,
The rotating shaft 2 is driven via the worm wheel 45, the rotating shaft 3 is further driven via the worm wheel 44, the idler gear, and the worm wheel 43, and the conveying screw 4 is further driven via the worm wheel 42.

Further, the remaining toner amount detection sensor 10 is a known sensor that normally vibrates and stops vibrating when toner adheres to it, and transmits a predetermined signal to the control means when the vibration stops. Then, the control means causes the operation display panel section 61 to display a decrease in the remaining amount of toner in the toner hopper 1 based on the signal from the remaining toner amount detection sensor 10.

Note that when the supply unit 14 approaches the developing unit 12 (see FIG. 1), the outer cylinder 35 collides with the inner space 25a of the carrying-in passage member 25 of the developing unit 7 12 and is separated from the packing member 36. However, as shown in FIG. 7, the delivery vibrator 33 and the carry-in passage member 25 communicate with each other to connect the toner supply passage from the supply unit 14 to the developing unit 12.

That is, the supply units 14 each have the developing unit 1
2, and is detachably engaged with the carrying-in passage member 25, thereby allowing the developing unit 2 to be moved from each supply unit 14 to the developing unit 2.
The toner supply passages are adapted to be connected and separated.

Further, the plurality of supply units 7h14 described above are arranged directly below and parallel to the operation display panel section 61 extending laterally at the front part of the color copying machine 11, and are integrally supported by the movable frame 62. . The movable frame 62 removably supports the supply units 7 and is movably supported by the main body frame 63 of the color copying machine 11 via a pair of left and right slide mechanisms 13 in the direction of the arrow in FIG. 4.5. Each moving frame 62 has a plurality of supply units 14.
can be removed from the slide mechanism 13.

According to the above-described configuration, the motor 8 that drives the stirring member 6.7, the conveying screw 4, and the toner conveying screw 5
Since the vibration is transmitted to the container wall 1a of the toner hopper 1, the toner adhering to the container wall 1a of the toner hopper 1 can be brushed off, and it is possible to prevent toner from adhering to the container wall 1a.

In addition, the vibration generation source for brushing off the toner is the stirring member 6.
．． Since the motor 8 that drives the motor 7 etc. is also used, the toner
Compared to the conventional structure in which a separate swing mechanism for swinging the entire hopper 1 is provided, costs can be reduced.

Furthermore, the stirring member 6.7 can prevent the occurrence of bronking, and in addition to the above-mentioned toner adhesion prevention effect, it may make it difficult to detect the remaining amount of toner or the toner may not be smoothly supplied to the developing unit 12. It is possible to solve various problems such as missing.

Although this embodiment is applied to the color copying machine 11 having a plurality of supply units 14, the present invention is not limited to this and may be applied to a single supply unit. Further, although this embodiment is applied to a device in which the motor 8 drives all of the stirring member 6.7, the toner conveyance screw 5, and the conveyance screw 4, it is also applicable to a device in which the motor 8 drives at least one of these. Of course, it may also be applied to.

〔effect〕

According to the present invention, the vibration of the motor that drives at least one of the stirring member, the conveying member, and the supplying member is transmitted to the container wall of the toner container, so that the toner adhering to the container wall of the toner hopper can be brushed off. It is possible to prevent toner from adhering to the container wall.

Further, since the vibration generation source for brushing off the toner also serves as the motor for driving the stirring member, etc., costs can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 to 7 are diagrams showing one embodiment of the toner supply device according to the present invention, FIG. 1 is a sectional view of the main part thereof, and FIG.
3 is a sectional view taken along the line V-V in FIG. 2, FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of the engaged state of the developing unit and supply unit, and FIG. FIG. 6 is a sectional view of the developing unit, and FIG. 7 is an explanatory view of the toner supply path connected. 1... Toner hopper (toner container), 4--
・-・Conveyance screw (supply member), 5・・・・toner conveyance screw (conveyance member), 6.7・・・・
Stirring member, 8...Motor, 11--Color copying machine (image forming device), 12
8, 12C112M, 12Y...Developing unit (developing machine).

Claims (1)

[Claims] A toner container that stores toner, a stirring member that stirs the toner in the toner container, a conveyance member that transports the toner in the toner container, and a supply member that supplies the toner in the toner container to a developing machine of an image forming apparatus. A toner supply device comprising: a motor driving at least one of the toner supply devices;
A toner supply device characterized in that a motor is supported by a toner container so that vibrations of the motor are transmitted to a container wall of the toner container when the motor is driven.