JP2002156737A - Device and method for drying photosensitive material - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device and a method for drying photosensitive material, which enables temperature increase to a prescribed drying temperature, in a short time and enables realizing an ideal dried state, by prolonging on-time of a heater of low-heat capacity. SOLUTION: This device for drying photosensitive material is provided with a driver 19, which individually performs energizing by means of on/off control to plural heaters 42, 43, a temperature sensor 40 which performs temperature measurement of a drying chamber 16 and a control part 9 which performs energization on plural heaters 42, 43 at the prescribed drying temperature or lower and performs energizing to the heater 42 at the prescribed drying temperature.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for drying a photosensitive material, and more particularly to a technique for controlling the temperature of a drying section of a photographic processing apparatus for automatically developing photographic paper and photographic film as photosensitive materials.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A photosensitive material is sequentially conveyed to a processing tank in which a predetermined processing liquid is stored, and the predetermined processing is completed. The wet photosensitive material is dried while passing through a drying device and discharged to the outside. Various photo processing apparatuses configured as described above have been put to practical use.

A conventional drying apparatus in which the photosensitive material is photographic paper will be briefly described with reference to a cross-sectional view of the drying apparatus shown in FIG. A sensor 140 is provided, and two wires are connected in parallel to send drying air to the drying chamber 116 in the direction of arrow F to blow air from a duct (not shown) to photographic paper.
Book heaters 142 and 143 and a fan motor 144 are provided on the upstream side.

With the above configuration, when the temperature is set to a predetermined value by using the operation panel of the photographic processing apparatus, the heater 142, 143 and the fan motor 144 are energized by on / off control, so that the drying chamber is turned on. 1
16 is kept at a predetermined drying temperature. That is, according to the conventional drying apparatus, a method is employed in which the temperature is raised from room temperature to a predetermined drying temperature by on / off control and then maintained at a constant temperature.

[0005]

By the way, the temperature of the drying apparatus of the photographic processing apparatus in a state where the power is turned off is low near room temperature, but the temperature rises within a short time to the above-mentioned predetermined drying temperature. Need to be done. Specifically, when the photosensitive material is photographic paper, it must be at a predetermined drying temperature before passing through each processing tank after exposure. Therefore, conventionally, two wires wired in parallel as described above are used.
By controlling the energization of the heaters having a large heat capacity in combination with the heaters 142 and 143 at the same time, the heaters are used for both starting up to a predetermined temperature and maintaining the predetermined temperature.

However, such a heater having a large heat capacity starts up quickly, but when the photographic paper, which is the main purpose, is dried, the heater ON time per passage time is reduced in order to maintain a predetermined drying temperature. . In addition, since the humidity rises due to the passage of the wet photographic paper in the heated air circulated in the drying device, the ON time for energizing the heater having a low heat capacity needs to be increased in order to suppress the humidity rise. This is known to be more effective than turning on a heater having a large heat capacity for a short time.

[0007] Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is possible to raise the temperature of a drying apparatus to a predetermined drying temperature in a short time and to increase the on-time of a heater having a low heat capacity. It is an object of the present invention to provide a photosensitive material drying apparatus and a drying method capable of suppressing an increase in humidity generated when a wet photosensitive material passes through heated air circulated in a drying apparatus.

[0008]

Means for Solving the Problems The above-mentioned problems are solved,
In order to achieve the object, according to the present invention, a photosensitive material drying apparatus for drying a photosensitive material processed by a photographic processing apparatus by passing through a drying chamber in which heated air is blown by a heater is blown. A plurality of heaters, heater energizing means for individually energizing the plurality of heaters, temperature measuring means for measuring the temperature of the drying chamber, and judging whether the temperature is a predetermined drying temperature by the temperature measuring means. Then, when the temperature is equal to or less than the predetermined drying temperature, energize all of the plurality of heaters,
And a control means for controlling the heater energizing means so as to energize at least one of the plurality of heaters by on / off control at the predetermined drying temperature.

A method for drying a photosensitive material, wherein the photosensitive material processed by a photographic processing apparatus is dried by passing through a drying chamber in which heated air is blown by a plurality of heaters. A temperature measurement step of performing temperature measurement, and determines whether the temperature is a predetermined drying temperature in the temperature measurement step, and when the temperature is equal to or less than the predetermined drying temperature, energizes all of the plurality of heaters by on / off control, A heater energizing step of energizing at least one of the plurality of heaters by on / off control at the predetermined drying temperature.

[0010]

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a front view showing the entire structure of a photographic processing apparatus 1 (hereinafter also referred to as the apparatus 1) with a cover and the like detachably provided on a housing 2 serving as a base removed. . In FIG. 1, the case of processing photographic paper as a photosensitive material will be described. However, in the case of a photographic development processing apparatus which automatically develops a negative or positive photographic film, a drying apparatus can be used in common, The configuration of the photographic film processing device is omitted.

In FIG. 1, the apparatus 1 comprises an exposure section 3 for performing exposure, a processing section for performing processing of a photosensitive material, and a drying apparatus 6 when viewed from the front. It is configured to be flat in the direction of the front and back of the paper. With this configuration, while taking up the occupied area as much as possible, it is designed to allow easy access to the main parts from the front side, and when performing various tasks that should be performed daily, Easy to use.

The photographic paper P is supplied as roll paper RP,
After being cut to a predetermined size by the cutter 7, the exposure unit 3
The photographic paper P to which the image picked up through the lens 4 is exposed is sent to the developing tank 11 of the processing unit disposed downstream of the exposure unit 3 via the transport unit 8. The direction is changed in the direction of the arrow, and the bleach-fix processing tank 12 and the stabilization processing tank 13 are turned.
To be transported by a rack unit (not shown) provided in each processing tank.

Then, it is sent to the drying chamber 16 of the drying device 6 via the stabilizing treatment tank 13 and, after drying, is introduced into a direction changing device (not shown), sorted by size, and is sorted into a large-size tray or , And sent to a normal-size belt conveyor, and finally discharged to the outside of the apparatus 1. The drying chamber 16 of the drying device 6 is provided with a temperature sensor 40 for measuring the internal temperature. A power supply unit is provided in a housing occupying a space below the drying chamber 16, and various controls related to the above-described processing tanks and temperature control of a drying device described later are performed on the power supply unit. And a control unit 9 for controlling the entire apparatus and controlling the temperature of the drying apparatus described later.

On the other hand, in the developing processing tank 11, the bleach-fixing processing tank 12 and the four stabilizing processing tanks 13 of the processing section 5, a rack unit 14 which is a photosensitive material transport device is individually provided for transporting photographic paper. It is built in detachably. These rack units 14 are set at predetermined positions shown in the drawing via openings formed above the tanks, and by pulling up the rack units 14, a large number of transport units provided in the rack units 14 are provided. Periodic inspection and cleaning of the rollers can be easily performed.

The exposure unit 3 is provided as a dark room, and an operation panel 2 for operating the photographic processing apparatus 1 is provided above and behind the dark room. The operation panel 2 is operated. Thus, the drying chamber can be set to a predetermined drying temperature.

Next, in FIG. 2, which is a sectional view taken along line XX of FIG. 1, a temperature sensor 40 is provided inside the drying chamber 16, and an electric signal as a result of temperature measurement is controlled by the above control. It is sent to department 9.

The control unit 9 includes a storage unit 10 and a driver unit 19 connected to the control unit 9. A fan motor 44 is connected to the driver unit 19. . In addition, a table is stored in the storage unit 10, and a drying temperature is selected from the table. For this purpose, it is previously set how many times the drying chamber 16 can be set to the optimum temperature based on both the temperature and the humidity, and from the table based on the measurement results of the temperature sensor 40 and a humidity sensor (not shown). The drying temperature is selected.

Further, heaters 42 and 43 of nichrome wires having a predetermined resistance value are individually connected to the driver section 19, and the heating air is supplied by turning on and off, which will be described later. The printing paper P is dried by feeding the printing paper P in the direction.

As described above, the wind generated from the heaters 42 and 43 and the fan motor 44 composed of a plurality of nichrome wires is directly blown through the duct (not shown).

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the drying apparatus having the above-described configuration. In this figure,
A control example from a case where the temperature in the drying chamber is reduced to near room temperature after a long pause is described.

When the power is turned on in step S1, the process proceeds to step S2, where the temperature sensor 40 measures the temperature in the drying chamber. Based on the data of the temperature measurement, the temperature is set to be controlled by a control program incorporated in advance so as to reduce the temperature fluctuation caused by the ON / OFF energization control (ON / OFF energization control). Subsequently, in steps S3 and S4, energization of the heaters 42 and 43 and the fan motor 44 is started, and on / off energization control in step S5 is performed so that the temperature is increased to a predetermined drying temperature within a short time.

Thereafter, in step S6, the drying room 1
It is determined whether or not the inside of the chamber 6 has risen to a predetermined drying temperature. If it is determined that the temperature is lower than the predetermined drying temperature, the process returns to step S5. If it is determined that the temperature is the predetermined drying temperature, step S7
The power supply to the heater 43 is interrupted, and the ON / OFF power supply control of only the heater 42 is continued.

Thereafter, in step S8, it is determined every time a predetermined time elapses, and it is determined whether or not the drying temperature of the photographic printing paper P is deprived of heat and the drying temperature is reduced. Proceeding to S9, the power supply to the heater 43 whose power supply has been interrupted is restarted, so that the temperature can be raised to the predetermined drying temperature in a short time. If it is determined in step S8 that there is no decrease in the drying temperature, the process proceeds to step S10.
Then, the flow advances to step S11 to wait for the lapse of time for processing for one batch, and the flow advances to step S11 to stop the drying control and enter a standby state. Then, in step S12, the process waits until there is a request for processing for the next batch, and returns.

As described above, the control for raising the drying temperature and the control for keeping the drying temperature constant are separately performed so that the on-time of the heater when the photosensitive material passes can be increased, whereby the drying can be performed. A large amount of wind moisture can be taken, and the humidity can be reduced, so that the drying capacity can be increased. At the same time, the drying temperature can be reduced, thereby saving energy. In addition, since a margin can be provided in the drying ability at high temperature and high humidity, poor drying can be prevented.

FIG. 4 is a heater wiring diagram for the region 1 of the apparatus 1. That is, the device 1 can be used in each country, and has a voltage range of 220 to 240 V and a voltage range of 200 to 210 V.
The heaters 42 and 43 having the resistance values as shown in the figure are wired so as to be able to cope with the respective voltage regions, and the above control is made possible by energizing the dashed arrows and the solid arrows.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The temperature of the drying unit can be raised to the predetermined drying temperature in a short time, and the on-time of the heater with low heat capacity is extended, causing the wet photosensitive material to pass through the heated air circulated in the drying unit. It is possible to provide a drying apparatus and a drying method for a photosensitive material capable of suppressing a rise in humidity.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing the entire configuration of a photographic processing apparatus 1. FIG.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along line XX of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the drying device.

FIG. 4 is a heater wiring diagram of the apparatus 1 for local use.

FIG. 5 is a sectional view of a conventional drying device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 photo processing device 6 drying device 9 control unit 10 storage unit 16 drying room 19 driver 40 temperature sensor 42, 43 heater 43 fan motor

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A photosensitive material processed by a photographic processing apparatus,
What is claimed is: 1. A drying apparatus for drying a photosensitive material, wherein drying is performed by passing through a drying chamber in which heating air heated by a heater is blown, a plurality of heaters, and a heater energizing unit for individually controlling energization to the plurality of heaters. A temperature measurement unit for measuring the temperature of the drying chamber, and determines whether the temperature is a predetermined drying temperature by the temperature measurement unit, when the temperature is equal to or less than the predetermined drying temperature, to energize all of the plurality of heaters, A control unit for controlling the heater energizing unit so as to energize at least one of the plurality of heaters at on-off control when the predetermined drying temperature is attained. . 2. Photosensitive material processed by a photographic processing device
A method for drying a photosensitive material, wherein drying is performed by passing through a drying chamber in which heating air heated by a plurality of heaters is blown, wherein a temperature measuring step of measuring a temperature of the drying chamber; It is determined whether the temperature is the drying temperature, and when the temperature is equal to or lower than the predetermined drying temperature, power is supplied to all of the plurality of heaters by on / off control. When the temperature is the predetermined drying temperature, at least one of the plurality of heaters is turned on. And a heater energizing step of energizing by turning on / off control of the photosensitive material.