JP2001180847A - Image forming device and manually feeding unit - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve maintainability. SOLUTION: An enclosing cover 13 can be opened and closed with a fulcrum of an opening-closing shaft 11 of a manually feeding table 10 as the center.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a manual feed unit, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus capable of manual feed and a manual feed unit having at least a manual feed unit.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in an image forming apparatus including a copying machine, a printer, a facsimile, a plotter, and the like, or a multi-function machine thereof, a manual feed tray for manually feeding paper can be opened and closed in addition to a paper feed cassette. And a manual insertion unit having an openable and closable manual insertion stand.

[0003]

However, for example, in an image forming apparatus having a document reading function having a manual feed function, a document is read by a document reading function section located at an upper portion of the apparatus, and a central portion in the apparatus is read. The image forming section forms an image on a transfer sheet, which is a sheet, and discharges the sheet by fixing. In particular, in a digital image forming apparatus, a control board is disposed between a document reading function unit and an image forming unit in order to temporarily drop image data of a read document into a memory.

[0004] However, after the control board is completed,
Despite the fact that there are many maintenance opportunities, such as updating and replacing control software, the exterior cover must be removed in order to access the control board because it is inside the device itself. After removing a fastening member such as a screw fastening the outer cover, a procedure of removing the outer cover must be taken.

[0005] Therefore, the workability of accessing the electrical components such as the control board inside the apparatus is poor, and especially when the apparatus is installed in a narrow space, the work of removing the outer cover is extremely difficult. There is a problem that the workability of maintenance work is poor, such as a problem in securing a space for the removed outer cover.

[0006] The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and has as its object to improve maintainability.

[0007]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in an image forming apparatus according to the present invention, an outer cover inside a manual feed stand which can be opened and closed with respect to the apparatus main body is coaxial with the open / close fulcrum of the manual feed stand. It can be opened and closed.

Here, it is preferable that a shielding member for shielding radio waves is provided inside the outer cover. In this case, a metal plate can be used as the shielding member. This metal plate is preferably grounded when the outer cover is closed.

It is preferable that a damping means for damping vibration is provided between the exterior cover and the main body of the apparatus.

In the manual feed unit according to the present invention, the outer cover inside the manual feed stand can be opened and closed at the same center as the open / close fulcrum of the manual feed stand.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory view of a mechanism section of an image forming apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective explanatory view of an exterior cover, and FIG. It is.

In this image forming apparatus, a document is read by a document reading section 2 arranged at an upper portion of the apparatus body 1, and image information read by the document reading section 2 is written by an image writing section 3 to the apparatus body 1.
The electrostatic latent image is visualized into a toner image by the image forming unit 4 and the paper cassette 5
Alternatively, the toner image is transferred to the transfer paper 6 (only the paper feed cassette 5 is shown) which is fed and conveyed from the manual feed tray 10 along a path shown by an arrow in FIG.
And discharge it.

Here, the manual feed stand 10 can be opened and closed with respect to the apparatus main body 1 by rotatably attaching the support shaft 11 to a side portion of the apparatus main body 1 with an open / close fulcrum. The transfer paper can be manually fed by setting the manual feed stand 10 to the opened position as shown in FIG.

Electrical components such as a control board 12 on which circuits such as a control circuit and a drive circuit are mounted are disposed on the side of the manual feed stand in the apparatus main body 1. An exterior cover 13 is mounted inside the base 10. The outer surface side of the exterior cover 13 has a shape following the shape of the manual feed stand 10. The outer cover 13 is rotatably mounted on the support shaft 11 of the manual feed stand 10 so that the outer cover 13 can be opened and closed at the same center as the open / close fulcrum of the manual feed stand 10.

As shown in FIG. 2, the outer cover 13 has a hole 13a at its lower end for rotatably mounting on the support shaft 11.
Main body 1 with a fastening member 14 such as a screw at the upper end.
The hole 13b for fixing the writing part 3 to the case member 15 of the writing part 3 is provided. The exterior cover 13 can be fixed by fastening the fastening member 14 to the screw hole 16 of the case member 15.

With the above configuration, the control board 12
When performing maintenance on electrical components such as, for example, the outer cover 13 can be opened by opening the manual feed stand 10 and then removing the fastening member 14 as shown in FIG. Parts can be accessed. This facilitates the opening of the exterior cover 13 to improve the workability of the maintenance work, and eliminates the need for a storage space for the exterior cover 13, thereby shortening the working time and the working space.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of a main part of the image forming apparatus similar to FIG. 1 according to the embodiment, and FIG. 5 is a perspective explanatory view of an exterior cover and a shielding member of the image forming apparatus.

In this embodiment, a shielding member 17 for shielding radio waves is provided inside the exterior cover 13. A metal plate such as a sheet metal can be used as the shielding member 17. As a result, harmful radio waves radiated from the electrical components such as the control board 12 can be blocked.

That is, the outer cover 13 is often formed of a resin material because of its complicated shape.
In order to allow access to the control board 12 with the outer cover 13 opened, the control board 12 is disposed at an end side inside the apparatus, and the radio wave emitted from the control board 12 is made of a resin material. It will pass through the exterior cover 13. Therefore, a shielding member 17 such as a metal plate is arranged inside the exterior cover 13 to shield radio waves.

Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 6 is an explanatory view of a main part of the image forming apparatus similar to FIG. 1 according to the embodiment, and FIG. 7 is a perspective explanatory view of a shielding member of the image forming apparatus.

In this embodiment, a leaf spring member 1 serving as a grounding means for pressing and contacting the apparatus main body 1 is provided on an upper end side of a shielding member 17 for shielding radio waves provided inside the exterior cover 13.
8, 18 are provided. Thus, by closing the shielding member 17 made of a metal plate (sheet metal cover), the leaf spring member 18 comes into contact with the case member 15 (see FIG. 3) of the apparatus main body 1 with pressure, and the shielding member 17 is grounded (electricity). Is connected to the apparatus main body 1). Therefore, the shielding member 17 does not become an electrically floating state, and does not serve as an antenna for harmful radio waves radiated from electric components such as the control board 12.

In this case, the shielding member 17 can be grounded to the apparatus main body 1 by a fastening means such as a screw. However, in such a case, when the control board 12 or the like is accessed, the shielding member 17 is eventually used. Therefore, the work of removing the fastening means increases, and it is not possible to sufficiently improve the maintainability. By using the grounding means made of an elastic member as in this embodiment, the grounding can be performed only by opening and closing the outer cover 13, and the maintenance performance can be improved.

Next, a fourth embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 8 is an explanatory view of a main part of an image forming apparatus similar to FIG. 1 according to the embodiment. In this embodiment, since the outer case 13 is fixed to the case member 15 of the writing unit 3 constituting the apparatus main body 1 with the fastening member 14, the vibration damping between the outer cover 13 and the case member 15 attenuates vibration. The damping means 19 made of rubber or the like is interposed.

That is, when the opening / closing support shaft of the outer cover 13 is the opening / closing support shaft 11 of the manual feed stand 10, the vibration of the pickup of the manual paper feed unit and the solenoid for driving the same is transmitted to the outer cover 13, and furthermore, the writing unit When the vibration propagates to the third case member 15, the writing performance is degraded, the writing with the vibration is performed in the writing unit 3, and an abnormal image called a banding image may be generated in the transfer image. Therefore, by interposing the damping means 19 as described above, the propagation of vibration from the exterior cover 13 to the case member 15 of the writing unit 3 during manual paper feeding is prevented.

In each of the above embodiments, the present invention can be similarly applied to an image forming apparatus such as a printer or a facsimile as described in the example in which the present invention is applied to an image forming apparatus as a copying apparatus. In addition, as an image forming apparatus, in addition to a copying function, there is also a multifunction device combining a facsimile unit, a printer unit, and the like.
In a case where a manual feed unit combining a single or another function (for example, a double-sided copy function) with a manual feed unit is used in such a composite device, the present invention can be applied to the manual feed unit itself.

[0026]

As described above, according to the image forming apparatus of the present invention, the outer cover inside the manual feed stand that can be opened and closed with respect to the apparatus main body can be opened and closed at the same center as the open / close fulcrum of the manual feed stand. Therefore, access to the inside of the apparatus main body is facilitated, and maintenance workability can be improved.

Here, by providing a shielding member for shielding radio waves inside the exterior cover, radio waves from electrical components can be shielded. Further, by using a metal plate as the shielding member, it is possible to more reliably shield radio waves. Further, by configuring the metal plate to be grounded when the outer cover is closed, it is possible to prevent the shielding member from being used as an antenna.

Further, by providing an attenuating means for attenuating the vibration between the outer cover and the apparatus main body, it is possible to prevent the vibration accompanying the manual sheet feeding from being transmitted to the writing means.

According to the manual feed unit of the present invention, the outer cover inside the manual feed stand can be opened and closed at the same center as the open / close fulcrum of the manual feed stand. Access to the system is facilitated and maintenance workability is improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory view of a mechanism of an image forming apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory perspective view of an exterior cover.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory perspective view of a main part used for describing the operation of the image forming apparatus.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a main part of a mechanism of an image forming apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory perspective view of an exterior cover and a shielding member.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating a main part of a mechanism of an image forming apparatus according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory perspective view of an exterior cover and a shielding member.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating a main part of a mechanism of an image forming apparatus according to a fourth embodiment of the invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Device main body, 10 ... Manual feed stand, 11 ... Support shaft, 13 ... Exterior cover, 15 ... Case member, 17 ... Shielding member, 18 ...
Leaf spring, 19: damping means.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An image forming apparatus having a manual feed stand that can be opened and closed with respect to an apparatus main body, wherein an exterior cover inside the manual feed stand can be opened and closed at the same center as an open / close fulcrum of the manual feed stand. Image forming device 2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a shielding member that shields radio waves inside the outer cover. 3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the shielding member is a metal plate. 4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the metal plate is grounded when the outer cover is closed. 5. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a damping unit that dampens vibration between the exterior cover and the apparatus main body. 6. A manual feed unit having an openable / closable manual feed stand, wherein an exterior cover inside the manual feed stand can be opened and closed at the same center as an open / close fulcrum of the manual feed stand.