JP2002156825A - Method of manufacturing oa roller - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for manufacturing an OA roller such as a developing roller, a transfer roller and an electrifying roller, capable of uniformly drying many rollers without causing liquid-dropping at a drying process after dipping the substrates of the rollers in coatings. SOLUTION: As for the OA roller manufacturing method including a process of forming a coated film on the substrate surface of the roller 1 by dipping the substrate of the roller 1 in the coatings, many rollers 1 having the coated films on the substrate surfaces are nearly vertically suspended while mutually keeping the center distance (t) of nearly 6 to 9 times as long as the radius R of each roller 1 in the lateral direction, and then, air is nearly uniformly sent at an air speed within the extent of 0.1 to 1.5 m/s from the lateral direction so as to dry the coated film.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing an OA roller such as a developing roller, a transfer roller, and a charging roller, which is suitably used in an electrophotographic apparatus such as a copying machine, a facsimile, and a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the progress of electrophotographic technology, in an image forming apparatus such as a dry electrophotographic apparatus, a polymer elastic material is used as a material of an OA roller used for development, transfer, charging, and the like. Is attracting attention. In these OA rollers, in order to obtain a uniform high image quality, it is important to apply a paint uniformly and to dry uniformly.

In a conventional method of manufacturing an OA roller, a coating is formed on the surface of the roller base by dipping the base of the roller into a coating material. In the subsequent drying step, a number of rollers are hung on a hanger. In addition, it was left to air drying or only to apply a wind from the side, and no detailed knowledge on how to hit the wind was obtained. Therefore, the way of drying each roller tends to be uneven throughout the hanger, and there is a difference between a roller that dries quickly and a roller that does not.

[0004] The method of dipping a roller in a paint to form a coating film is a very excellent method for producing an OA roller or the like, but if the paint is not uniformly dried, a problem on an image occurs. For example, if the paint dries slowly, the paint will drip and will form a puddle at the lower vertical portion of the suspended roller, making it unusable as a product.

In an actual manufacturing site, 30 or more rollers are suspended from one hanger and dipping is performed at a time. However, it is necessary to uniformly apply air to all the rollers to increase productivity. Is very important.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and in a drying step after dipping a base of a roller into a paint, a large number of rollers are uniformly coated without dripping. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of manufacturing an OA roller such as a developing roller, a transfer roller, and a charging roller that can be dried.

[0007]

Means for Solving the Problems The present inventors have conducted intensive and repetitive experiments in order to achieve the above object.
By dipping the base of the roller into the paint,
OA including a step of forming a coating film on a substrate surface of a roller
In the method of manufacturing a roller, a number of rollers having a coating film formed on the surface of the substrate are kept substantially perpendicularly and at a lateral distance t of about 6 to 9 times the radius R of each roller in the lateral direction. The coating film of each roller is dried uniformly by sending a substantially uniform wind in the range of 0.1 to 1.5 m / s from the lateral direction of the roller and drying the coating film. It was confirmed that a high quality OA roller could be obtained. The present invention is based on such findings.

[0008]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION There are the following methods for applying an airflow at a substantially constant speed from a lateral direction to at least 30 or more rollers suspended vertically from a hanger.

One of them is to arrange a blowing chamber for sending a uniform velocity air flow beside a roller suspended from a hanger. This blower chamber can send uniform air from a blower opening by providing a straightening plate or a filter above a simple fan-type upward blower, or by providing a large number of small blowers, for example. It is desirable to measure and adjust the wind speed using a sensor or the like.

[0010] Further, since it is necessary to uniformly apply an air flow to all the rollers hung on the hanger, it is preferable to make the blower chamber large or small so as to cover all the hangers. It is preferable to provide a large number. In this case, the air flow is blown substantially uniformly to each part of the roller, and the time required for drying and the degree of drying of each part of the roller can be made substantially constant.

As a resin constituting a coating film applied to the surface of a substrate of an OA roller such as a developing roller, a transfer roller and a charging roller, a crosslinkable resin is preferable. Here, the crosslinkable resin refers to a resin that is self-crosslinked by heat, a catalyst, air, moisture, an electron beam, or the like, or a resin that is crosslinked by a reaction with a crosslinking material or another crosslinkable resin.

Specifically, fluorine resin, polyamide resin, acrylic resin, alkyd resin, phenol resin,
Melamine resins, silicone resins, epoxy resins, polyether resins, amino resins, urea resins, and mixtures thereof. In particular, alkyd resins, phenolic resins, melamine resins, and mixtures thereof are excellent in maintaining the non-staining property of the roller and the abrasion resistance.

[0013] If necessary, a catalyst and a crosslinking material are added to the crosslinking resin. Examples of the catalyst include a radical catalyst such as a peroxide, a base catalyst, and an acid catalyst. Examples of the cross-linking agent include a polyol compound, a polyisocyanate compound, a polyaldehyde compound, a polyamine compound, and a polyepoxy compound.

In the present invention, the resin coating layer is formed by applying a coating liquid obtained by melting or dispersing a crosslinkable resin, a crosslinker and various additives for conductivity to a roller by a dipping method, and preferably at room temperature. It is formed by drying at an elevated temperature.

Examples of the solvent used for preparing the paint include alcohol solvents such as methanol, ethanol, isopropanol and butanol, ketone solvents such as acetone and methyl ethyl ketone, aromatic hydrocarbon solvents such as toluene and xylene, and hexane. Examples thereof include aliphatic hydrocarbon solvents, ester solvents such as ethyl acetate, ether solvents such as isopropyl ether, and mixtures thereof.

In the present invention, it is particularly preferable that the applied paint is an aqueous paint. The reason for this is that, when a paint having poor drying properties such as an oil-based paint is used, when the OA roller is dipped, there is a high possibility that the paint will droop due to the slow drying.

Among water-based paints, urethane-based, acrylic-based, and emulsion-based paints are highly effective in practicing the present invention.

In the method for manufacturing an OA roller according to the present invention, the air flow is not simply applied evenly to the entire surface of the roller suspended from the hanger, but also between the roller suspended from the hanger. Is set to be approximately 6 to 9 times the radius R of the roller (6R ≦ t ≦ 9R).

If the distance t between the shafts is less than 6R, the air cannot pass through the entire hanger and cannot be dried unless the wind speed is increased. That is, the surface of the roller near the air port dries rapidly and the inside thereof does not dry, so that a uniform roller cannot be formed. 9R center distance t
The reason for the following is that the effect is not so large even if it is larger than that, and the occupied area at the time of drying becomes excessive.

The wind speed to be applied is 0.1 to 1.5 m / s
There is. For the above reason, if the distance between the rollers is sufficiently long, the wind can sufficiently reach the center and the end of the hanger without increasing the wind speed. Also, if the wind speed is too high than 1.5 m / s, the surface of the roller near the air port is rapidly dried and the inside thereof is not dried, so that a uniform roller cannot be formed. The reason why the wind speed is set to 0.1 m / s or more is that if the wind speed is less than 0.1 m / s, it is not so different from natural drying, it takes a long time to dry, and a dripping may occur.

Further, it is preferable to control the variation of the wind speed with respect to all the rollers to be within a range of ± 0.1 m / s. This is because, if there is more variation in the wind speed, a difference occurs in the degree of drying, and the difference causes the occurrence of dripping or film sticking.

If the material of the substrate of the roller to be applied is a solid rubber or urethane rubber, the image formation is good.

It is advantageous that the temperature of the air flow is slightly higher than room temperature, for example, 30 ° C. to 35 ° C., because the drying efficiency is further enhanced.

The OA rollers manufactured in accordance with the method of the present invention, that is, the developing roller, the transfer roller, and the charging roller are used in plain paper copiers, plain paper facsimile machines, laser beam printers, color laser beam printers, toner jet printers, and the like. Attach to the image forming device,
It is preferably used.

[0025]

Next, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to an embodiment. However, it goes without saying that the present invention is not limited by this example.

A water-based acrylic paint was dipped on a developing roller made of solid rubber.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the roller (1)
Was suspended from the hanger (2) in such a manner that 40 units were set as one unit, and the unit was set in a vertical state, and 10 units were arranged at equal intervals on four rows arranged on the left and right.

In front of the roller (1), a ventilation chamber (3) having a large number of ventilation ports (not shown) is provided on the rear surface.
An experiment was conducted in which the air flow from the blower chamber (3) was blown from the front of all the rollers (1) toward the rear as uniformly as possible to dry the paint on the surface of the rollers (1).

Here, the distance t between the rollers between the rollers is 6R
≦ t ≦ 9R (R is the radius of the roller) and t <6
The drying condition of the roller was measured when the wind speed was 0.1 to 1.5 m / s and when the wind speed was higher than 1.5 m / s.

More specifically, an experiment was conducted for the case where the radius R of the roller was 6 mm and the distance t between the shafts was 53 mm (6R ≦ t ≦ 9R) and 18 mm (t <6R). Is 1.3 m / s (0.1 to 1.5 m / s),
The case of 2.0 m / s (greater than 1.5 m / s) was measured. The results were as shown in Table 1.

[0031]

[0032]

According to the manufacturing method of the present invention, a large number of rollers can be dried uniformly without producing defects such as dripping or paint film peeling, and high quality. OA rollers such as a developing roller, a transfer roller, and a charging roller can be obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing one embodiment of a method for manufacturing an OA roller of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view schematically showing a cross section along the line II-II in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 (1) Roller (2) Hanger (3) Ventilation chamber (t) Center distance (R) Roller radius

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) G03G 15/02 101 G03G 15/02 101 15/16 103 15/16 103 F Term (Reference) 2H003 BB11 CC05 2H032 AA05 2H077 AD06 FA13 FA22 FA25 3J103 AA13 AA51 EA11 EA20 FA15 FA18 GA02 GA52 GA57 GA58 GA60 GA74 HA03 HA04 HA41 HA43 HA44 HA46 HA47 HA53 HA54 4D075 AB01 BB24Z BB95Z CA02 CA34 CA48 DA10 DA15 DA20 DB35 EB21 EB21 DC21 EB36 EB37 EB38 EB39 EB43 EB45

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A method for manufacturing an OA roller comprising a step of forming a coating film on the surface of a roller by dipping a substrate of the roller into a coating material. Approximately 6 of the radius R of each roller, oriented substantially vertically and transversely to each other.
It is recommended that the suspension be suspended while maintaining an inter-axis distance t of ９9 times, and that the coating be dried by sending a substantially uniform wind having a wind speed of 0.1 to 1.5 m / s from the lateral direction. A method for producing an OA roller. 2. The method for manufacturing an OA roller according to claim 1, wherein variation in wind speed is suppressed within a range of ± 0.1 m / s.