JPH0438367Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] Technical Field The present invention includes a cleaning member for cleaning toner remaining on an image bearing member, and a moving means for moving the toner dropped by the cleaning member to a collected toner storage section. The moving means relates to a cleaning device comprising a corner member rotatably driven around an axis and a blade member abutting the corner member.

Prior Art Cleaning devices of the above type are well known and include
Used in electrophotographic copying machines and other recording devices. In this type of cleaning device, the above-mentioned moving means includes a blade member 22 made of mylar or the like on the left side in a longitudinal view of a corner member 21 rotating clockwise as shown in FIG.
It is often used that the two are in contact with each other. This moving means moves the toner 2 near the ridgeline of the corner member 21.
3 are successively scraped off by the blade member 22 and moved along the blade member 22 so as to be pushed into a storage portion such as a hopper container (not shown).

In the cleaning device equipped with the moving means configured as described above, when the ridgeline of the corner member 21 crosses the contact portion of the blade member 22, the blade member 22 moves over the corner member 2.
It bends to the circumscribed circle 24 of 1. Then, at this time, the peak torque of the drive device that rotationally drives the corner member 21 is reached. However, this peak torque does not pose any problem initially because the blade member 22 is thin and flexible.

However, as the hopper container becomes filled with toner due to use over time, this becomes a load on the bending of the blade member, causing the above-mentioned peak torque to rise rapidly. If this condition continues, the drive device will cause pulsation, which may cause image abnormalities if other components are sharing the drive device, and the sound of the blade member hitting the corner member will become louder, causing noise. did. Furthermore, when the peak torque increases, there is a problem in that a part of the hopper container, the blade member, the drive device, and especially the transmission system thereof may be damaged.

As a method to solve such problems, it has been proposed to increase the functionality of the driving force, transmission system, etc. in accordance with the increased peak torque. As another method, it has been proposed to provide a toner detection means in the hopper container, detect the peak torque before it rises above a predetermined amount, and replace the cleaning device.

However, the biggest disadvantage of the former method is that the cost increases significantly, and with the latter method, the entire device must be replaced before the hopper container is fully filled, and the detection means must be highly accurate. I was demanded to.

Purpose It is an object of the present invention to provide a cleaning device that eliminates the above-mentioned conventional problems and can moderate the peak torque even if the storage section is full of recovered toner.

Structure This object has been achieved in the present invention by shifting the ridge lines of the corner members in the axial direction.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a copying machine will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes an image carrier configured as a photosensitive drum, and the photosensitive drum 1 is rotatably supported by a machine frame (not shown).
When this photoreceptor drum 1 is rotated in the direction of arrow A by a drive device (not shown), its surface is charged by a charging section 2, and an exposure section 3 is placed on the charged portion.
An electrostatic latent image is formed by imagewise exposure at . When this electrostatic latent image passes through the developing section 4, powder toner is attached to the electrostatic latent image to form a visible image, which then reaches the transfer section 5. A transfer paper 6 is fed to the transfer section 5 in synchronization with the visible image, and the visible image is transferred onto the transfer paper. The transfer paper 6 on which the visible image has been transferred is separated from the photoreceptor drum 1 by the separation section 7, conveyed in the direction of arrow B, and then discharged to the outside of the machine via a fixing section (not shown). . Further, it is inevitable that toner remains on the photosensitive drum 1 after the transfer, and the remaining toner is cleaned by the cleaning device 8 according to the present invention.

As is clear from FIG. 1, the cleaning device 8 includes a cleaning member configured as a cleaning blade 9 that comes into contact with the photosensitive drum 1 over almost the entire width, and this cleaning blade 9 is shown in FIG. The blade body is provided in a so-called training direction in which the blade body is inclined toward the upstream side in the rotational direction A of the photoreceptor drum 1 with respect to the contact point C with the photoreceptor drum. The cleaning blade 9 is attached to a blade holder 10, and is applied with a pressure force against the photosensitive drum 1 by a compression spring 11.

Below the cleaning blade 9, the toner scraped off by the blade 9 is stored in a hopper container 1.
A moving means 13 for moving to 2 is provided. The moving means 13 is a corner member 1 made of aluminum, for example.
4, and a blade member 15 made of mylar or the like and abutting substantially the entire length of one surface of the corner member 14 in the axial direction, that is, the longitudinal direction. This corner member 14 is divided into three sections in the longitudinal direction as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3. In this embodiment, the corner member 14a is divided into three sections and has a square cross section.
14b and 14c are connected with their centers coincident and their longitudinal ridge lines shifted by approximately a constant angle. In this example, the angle is approximately as shown in Figure 3.
The ridgeline angles of the square members 14a, 14b, and 14c are shifted by 30°. Further, the corner member 14 is drivingly connected to a drive device (not shown) that drives the photosensitive drum 1 and the like, and is driven to rotate clockwise in FIG. 1 at an appropriate speed. The blade member 15 has a second
As shown in the figure, a notch 16 is formed at the boundary between the corner members 14a, 14b, and 14c, and at the side edge that abuts the corner member 14. Due to this cut 16, even if the ridgeline angle of the corner member 14 is shifted as described above, it can be brought into contact with the surface of each of the corner members 14a, 14b, and 14c, and toner can be scraped off without any problem. Incidentally, reference numeral 17 is a switch that detects when the collected toner in the hopper container 12 is full.

The cleaning device configured as described above has two functions: pushing the toner scraped off from the photoreceptor drum 1 by the cleaning blade 9 into the corner member 14 using the rotating corner member 14;
By scraping off the toner near the ridgeline, the toner is forced into the hopper container 13 from below the side thereof. When the hopper container becomes full due to use over time, the toner is transferred to the blade member 15.
It was explained earlier that the peak torque of the drive device that rotates the corner member 14 suddenly increases due to the bending of the corner member 14 .

Therefore, in the cleaning device of this embodiment, the corner member 14 is divided into three corner members 14a, 14b, and 14c. Therefore, the load on the bending of the blade member 15 is dispersed, and the peak torque of the drive device that rotates the corner member 14 is reduced to 1/3 to 1/2 compared to the conventional case. Due to this reduction, even when the toner in the hopper container 12 approaches its full capacity, the rotation of the corner member 14 is relatively smooth and the noise does not increase.

The present inventor conducted an experiment to measure the peak torque of the cleaning device based on the above embodiment and the conventional cleaning device. The results are shown in FIG. As is clear from FIG. 4, the peak torque of this embodiment was about 1/2 of the peak torque of the conventional cleaning device shown in the experiment. Further, on the right side of the graph, the waveforms within the circles at the peak torques of the conventional and this embodiment are shown. Even when the machine approached full capacity, there was little vibration in the machine, there was no damage to the drive transmission system, and stable image quality was obtained.

Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and can be modified in various ways. For example, in the above embodiment, the corner member is divided into three parts and the ridge lines are shifted, but the corner member may be divided into two, or even four or more parts, and the ridge lines are shifted. In this case, the blade member is divided into It is advantageous to provide a slit at the border. Further, the corner member may be twisted so that one corner member is shifted by the angle of the ridgeline.
At this time, the torsion may be applied evenly to one square piece and the ridgeline angle of the square piece may be shifted sequentially, but it is also possible to divide the piece into a plurality of areas and apply the twist only to the boundaries of the areas. In this case, it is advantageous to provide the blade member with a large number of slits at appropriate intervals in the former case of twisting, and to provide slits at the locations where the twist is applied in the latter case. Furthermore, when the corner member is divided into a plurality of sections, the ridgeline angle of at least one section may be shifted from that of the other sections.

Although the cleaning device of the present invention has been explained using an embodiment of a copying machine, the present invention can of course also be applied to a recording device such as a facsimile machine.

Effects The cleaning device according to the present invention is configured as described above, and even when the storage section is filled with collected toner, it is possible to suppress the peak torque of the drive device that rotates the corner member. As a result, there is no fear that any of the storage section, blade member, or drive transmission system will be damaged, and no noise or image abnormality occurs.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram schematically showing a copying machine equipped with a cleaning device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a moving means, FIG. 3 is a side view of a corner member, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the present invention and a conventional copying machine. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the toner movement state of the moving means. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Photosensitive drum, 8... Cleaning device, 9... Cleaning blade, 12... Hopper container, 13... Moving means, 14... Corner member.

Claims (1)

[Claims for Utility Model Registration] (1) A cleaning member that cleans toner remaining on the image carrier, and a moving means that moves the toner dropped by the cleaning member to a collected toner storage unit, In the cleaning device, the moving means includes a corner member rotatably driven around an axis and a blade member abutting the corner member, wherein the corner member is divided into a plurality of sections in the axial direction, and at least one section is divided into a plurality of sections. A cleaning device characterized in that a ridge line parallel to the axis of the area and a ridge line parallel to the axis of the other area are displaced in the circumferential direction. (2) The cleaning device according to claim 1, wherein a slit is formed in the blade member at a position corresponding to a boundary between areas of the corner member.