JPS606477A - Recording electrode - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to obtain several kinds of resolving powers, in an ion stream control type electrostatic recording apparatus, by providing at least two sets or more of electrodes having a plurality of ion stream control orifices arranged thereto at different pitches. CONSTITUTION:Upper control electrodes have ion stream control orifices 4, 4' arranged thereto at different pitches P1, P2 and ions are passed through only arbitrary ion stream orifices by controlling voltage applied to lower control electrodes 6, 6' to form an electrostatic latent image. Now when resolving power is enough to be low, voltage is preliminarily applied to the lower control electrodes 6' having ion stream control orifices 4' at high density so as not to flow an ion stream regardless of voltage of the upper control electrodes 5 common to both control orifices 4, 4' and the lower control electrodes 6 having ion stream control orifices at low density are controlled so as to flow the ion stream corresponding to an image signal. When high resolving power is required, reversed operation is performed. By this mechanism, this apparatus can be used in an FAX and printer machine in combination.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a recording electrode that has a small size and simple structure and can change recording resolution in an electrostatic recording method that records by controlling ion flow.

First, the principle of electrostatic recording using ion flow will be explained.

As shown in FIGS. 1(-) and 1(b), ions generated from the corona wire 2 by applying a high voltage of several KV between the ion generator 1 and the corner wire 20 are
For example, the diameter of 100 mm is
The ion flow passes through the ion flow control hole 4 with a diameter of about 500 μm, and the amount of the ion flow is controlled by the electric field formed by the upper control electrode 5 and the lower control electrode 6. That is, Figure 1 C&)
If the electric field formed by the upper control electrode 5 and the lower control electrode 6 is set in the same direction as the electric field formed by the corona wire 2 and the counter electrode 3 as shown in FIG. The electrostatic latent image 8 is formed on the recording medium T made of a dielectric material on the counter electrode 3. Also,
As shown in FIG. 1(b), when the electric field formed by the pole 6 between the upper control electrode 5 and the lower side # is reversed, the ions flow 10
1, the electrostatic latent image 8 is not formed because it is absorbed by the upper control electrode 5 ().

The ions that have passed through the ion flow control hole 4 form an electrostatic latent image 8 on a rotating drum-shaped recording medium T as shown in FIG. A developer is applied to form a toner image 1o. The recording is completed by transferring the toner image 1o onto the recording paper 12 in the transfer section 11.

The rotating drum-shaped recording medium 7 is then neutralized in a static eliminating section 13, and then the remaining developer is removed by a residual toner removing section 14 such as a four brush in preparation for the next recording.

In conventional devices of this type, various proposals have been made for control electrodes, etc.
1967, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 57-151968, etc.).

Regarding the ion flow control holes 4, as shown in FIG.
A method has been proposed in which the recording pitch is arranged diagonally to reduce the effective recording pitch P and increase the resolution. However, in the above conventional proposal, the recording pitch P of the ion flow control holes 4 is 1.
Since it only has one type, it has the disadvantage that the resolution cannot be changed.

In order to eliminate this drawback, the present invention provides a simple electrode structure in which at least two or more sets of ion flow control holes with different recording pitches are provided and the set of ion flow control holes can be electrically selected during recording. The resolution is variable depending on the structure. The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, in which the recording pinches have different ion flow control holes 4 and 4' such as P, P2, and 5 indicates the ion flow control hole, for example. 4
, 4' are formed by printed wiring technology or the like on the substrate on which the ion flow control holes 4 and 4' are formed. 6 and 6' indicated by dotted lines are lower control electrodes formed on the back surface of the substrate. Upper control electrode 5 and lower control electrode 6.6
By controlling the voltage applied to ', it is possible to allow ions to pass through only a desired ion flow control hole and form an electrostatic latent image.

Because of this structure, the electrode pattern is
It has the advantage of being able to be formed all at once at a cost that is almost the same as in the case of two recording pinches. Furthermore, there is a feature that the number of electrode control circuits is approximately the same as in the case of one recording pinch.

For example, if a low resolution is sufficient, the lower control electrode 6' for the dense ion flow control holes 4, 4'
A voltage is maintained so that ions do not flow regardless of the voltage of the upper control electrode 5 common to ', and ions are controlled to flow to the lower control electrode 6 for the coarse ion flow control hole 4 according to the image signal. do.

If this is reversed, high-resolution recording will be obtained.

In the above explanation, an example of matrix drive was described, but as shown in FIG.
A control electrode may be provided for each, and the upper control electrodes 5.5' may be connected via wiring.

Although two types of recording pitches have been described above, it is also possible to obtain three or more types of resolution using the same principle. If the recording pitch of the ion flow control holes 4 and 4' is different, the hole diameter is generally changed, but there is no problem even if they are the same.

``As explained above, by using the recording electrode of the present invention, a recording device that can obtain several resolutions can be realized with a small size, simple structure, and a simple drive circuit that is almost the same as that used for one type of resolution. Such a device not only enables enlargement and reduction recording with the same signal, but also has the resolution for FAX and printer, so it can be used as a machine that can be used as both FAX and printer.

In addition, as shown in Figure 6, there are also excellent advantages such as the ability to freely record mixed resolutions, in which only a part of the recording screen (for example, the graphic area G) is recorded at a high resolution, and the rest (character area C) is recorded at a low resolution. There is.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figures 1 (a) and (b) are diagrams for explaining the recording principle of electrostatic recording using an ion probe, Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the recording device,
FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of conventional electrostatic recording, FIG. 4 is a plan view showing one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 5 is a plan view showing another embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of recording using this invention. In the figure, 1 is an ion generator, 2 is a corona wire, 3 is a counter electrode, 4.4' is an ion flow control hole, 5 is an upper control electrode,
6.6' is a lower control electrode, 7 is a recording medium, 8 is an electrostatic latent image, 9 is a developing device, 10 is a toner image, 11 is a transfer device, 12 is a recording paper, 13 is a static eliminator, 14 is a residual toner This is the removal section. Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] Consisting of a plurality of ion flow control holes and upper and lower control electrodes provided on the upper and lower surfaces of each of these holes, the amount of ions generated from the ion generator and passing through the ion flow control holes is controlled according to image signals. In recording electrodes used for electrostatic recording that performs recording by recording, there are few recording electrodes in which the plurality of ion flow control holes are arranged with different recording pitches. electrode.