JP2006072224A - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming apparatus designed such that omission of image data is prevented, an image with less unnecessary empty space is formed on paper in a manual insertion tray, the improved quality of image formation is assured, and a user is allowed to determine whether or not image formation with less image omission and space is performed. <P>SOLUTION: A document size detected by a document size detection sensor 501 and a paper size read by a paper size detection sensor 541 are compared by a CPU 523, and the result of the comparison is displayed on a display section 531. A choosing section 532 chooses between the process of rotating the image data of a document read by a reading section 500 and the process of enlarging/reducing the image data. The process chosen is performed by an image processing section 521. The image data subject to image processing by the image processing section 521 is then subject to image formation by an image forming section 510. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of printing on paper of any size, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus including a manual paper feed tray capable of feeding paper of an irregular size.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in image forming apparatuses such as copiers and printers, a sheet feed that can normally have about 100 to 500 sheets of paper as a storage medium can be continuously copied or printed on the apparatus body. It is common to have a tray. In addition, since the size and type of frequently used paper is not always one, it is common to prepare a plurality of paper feed trays.

  In addition, as described above, even if there are a plurality of paper feed trays, a request to copy or print on paper of a different type from the paper temporarily set in each paper feed tray Is assumed to occur. In response to such a request, a manual paper feeder is generally provided separately from the paper feed tray. In addition, the main unit paper tray is generally set so that it can be loaded only on standard size paper so that the size of the loaded paper can be identified. In many cases, a copy request for a document is realized by a manual sheet feeder.

  The purpose of the manual paper feeder is not only to meet the demand for irregular sizes, but also to meet paper feed requirements for recording media such as thick paper, OHP paper, envelopes and postcards. In order to feed and convey and form an image at an appropriate position, the size of the sheet must be known by software.

For this reason, the user may be asked to input the vertical and horizontal sizes of the paper to be used from the operation unit. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-61086 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1) provides a printer apparatus that can prepare printing according to the paper size by simply setting the paper on various types of long paper. Yes. Specifically, this is a method of automatically detecting the size of the paper based on the position of the paper set guide plate at the time when the paper is placed on the manual feed tray.
On the other hand, in the case of a copying machine, a document size is detected in advance by a document size detection sensor mounted on a scanner unit, and the document is read at a size corresponding to the document size. In a printer, size information is generally added to transmission image data by a host computer.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-61086

When the size of the paper set in the manual feed tray in the main scanning direction is different from the size of the image data actually sent from the scanner unit or host computer, the image data does not fit on the paper and the data is missing. May occur.
In addition, when the size of the input image data is smaller than the paper size, an extra blank portion is generated in the final image.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of such a problem. The image data is not lost and an image with a small amount of extra margin is formed on the paper in the manual feed tray to improve the image formation quality. An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus in which a user can select whether to perform image formation with little image loss and margin.

  In order to achieve the above object, an image forming apparatus according to claim 1 has one or a plurality of paper feed tray devices capable of mounting a plurality of types of paper of a standard size. Separately, image forming is performed on the paper by manually feeding a paper feed device capable of temporarily feeding paper different from the paper set in the paper feed tray device and image data read by the reading means for reading the original. In the image forming apparatus, the sheet size detecting means for detecting the size of the paper set in the manual sheet feeding device and the size in the main scanning / sub scanning direction, and the document size detecting means for detecting the size of the document. Comparison means for comparing the detection result by the paper size detection means with the detection result by the document size detection means, display means for displaying the comparison result by the comparison means, and display on the display means. Depending on the the display results, and having a rotating means and scaling means is a scaling or rotating the image data.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first aspect, the display means includes a selection means for selecting a rotation means and an enlargement / reduction means.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first aspect, the comparing means determines the main scanning / sub-scanning direction detected by the paper size detecting means and the original size detected by the original size detecting means. It is characterized by comparing.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the image forming apparatus according to the second aspect, wherein the image data is rotated or reduced by the selection means by the selected rotation means or enlargement / reduction means, and then the manual feed apparatus. An image is formed on the set paper.

  From the above description, in the image forming apparatus of the present invention, the conveyance direction of the paper set in the manual paper feeder, the size in the main scanning / sub scanning direction, and the size of the image data are detected, and the comparison result is obtained by comparing each of them. If the paper size and the image data size are different, the user can refer to the comparison result displayed on the display unit and rotate or enlarge / reduce the image data. Images can be formed on paper.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of an electrophotographic printer. The printer 100 includes four process units 6Y, 6M, 6C, and 6K for generating toner images of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black (hereinafter referred to as Y, M, C, and K). These use Y, M, C, and K toners of different colors as the image forming material, but the other configurations are the same and are replaced when the lifetime is reached.

  An exposure apparatus 7 is disposed below the process units 6Y, 6M, 6C, and 6K. An image data processing device E1 is disposed at the top of the printer body. The image data processing device E1 generates an exposure scanning control signal based on an image information signal sent from a PC or the like and sends it to the exposure device 7b. The exposure device 7 serving as a latent image forming unit irradiates each photoconductor in the process units 6Y, 6M, 6C, and 6K with laser light L emitted based on the exposure scanning control signal. Electrostatic latent images for Y, M, C, and K are formed on the photoreceptors 1Y, 1M, 1C, and 1K exposed by the irradiation. The exposure apparatus 7 irradiates the photosensitive member with a plurality of optical lenses and mirrors while scanning the laser beam L emitted from the light source with a polygon mirror rotated by a motor. In addition, a sealing member (not shown) is provided on the casing of the exposure apparatus 7 in order to prevent contamination of internal parts due to toner falling from the photosensitive members 1Y, 1M, 1C, and 1K disposed above the exposure apparatus 7. Provided.

  A transfer unit having a first transfer unit 15 and a second transfer unit 20 is disposed above each process unit 6Y, 6M, 6C, 6K. The first transfer unit 15 includes an intermediate transfer belt 8 and a belt cleaning device 10. Also provided are four primary transfer rollers 9Y, 9M, 9C, 9K, a secondary transfer backup roller 12, a cleaning backup roller 13, a tension roller 14, and the like. The intermediate transfer belt 8 serving as an intermediate transfer member is endlessly moved in a counterclockwise direction in the drawing by being driven by rotation of at least one of the rollers other than the primary transfer roller while being stretched around these seven rollers.

The four primary transfer rollers 9Y, 9M, 9C, and 9K sandwich the intermediate transfer belt 8 that moves endlessly with the photoreceptors 1Y, 1M, 1C, and 1K to form primary transfer nips, respectively. Yes. Then, upon receiving power supply (not shown), a primary transfer bias having a polarity opposite to that of toner (for example, plus) is applied to the back surface (loop inner peripheral surface) of the intermediate transfer belt 8. The intermediate transfer belt 8 has an electric resistance condition suitable for realizing electrostatic transfer of the toner image by the primary transfer bias. Specifically, a surface layer made of a low surface energy material is coated on a belt base having a thickness of 50 to 500 μm made of a resin film, rubber or the like, so that the overall volume resistance is 10 ⁶ to 10 ¹⁴ (Ωcm). It has become. Further, the surface resistivity is adjusted in the range of 10 ⁵ to 10 ¹⁵ (Ω / □). In addition to the four primary transfer rollers 9Y, 9M, 9C, and 9K, all three rollers are electrically grounded.

  The intermediate transfer belt 8 sequentially passes through the primary transfer nips for Y, M, C, and K along with endless movement. At each primary transfer nip, Y, M, C, and K toner images on the photoreceptors 1Y, 1M, 1C, and 1K are primarily transferred by being superimposed by the action of the nip pressure and the primary transfer bias. As a result, a four-color superimposed toner image (hereinafter referred to as a four-color toner image) as a multiple image is formed on the intermediate transfer belt 8.

  The second transfer unit 20 sandwiches the intermediate transfer belt 8 between the secondary transfer roller 21 and the secondary transfer backup roller 12 of the first transfer unit 15 on the left side of the first transfer unit 15 in the drawing. It is arranged. By this sandwiching, a secondary transfer nip is formed in which the intermediate transfer belt 8 of the first transfer unit 15 and the secondary transfer roller 21 of the second transfer unit 20 come into contact with each other. In the secondary transfer nip, a secondary transfer electric field is generated between the secondary transfer backup roller 12 connected to the ground of the first transfer unit 15 and the secondary transfer roller 21 to which a secondary transfer bias is applied by a power source (not shown). It is formed. Then, the four-color toner image on the intermediate transfer belt 8 is secondarily transferred onto the transfer paper P.

  The transfer residual toner that has not been secondarily transferred onto the transfer paper P is attached to the intermediate transfer belt 8 that has passed through the secondary transfer nip. This is cleaned by the belt cleaning device 10. Specifically, the intermediate transfer belt 8 is between a belt cleaning device 10 disposed so as to abut on the outer surface (front surface) side of the loop and a cleaning backup roller 13 disposed on the inner surface side of the loop. Sandwiched between. The transfer residual toner on the front surface is mechanically or electrostatically collected and cleaned by the belt cleaning device 10. In place of the four primary transfer rollers 9Y, 9M, 9C, and 9K of the bias system, a charger system that discharges from the electrodes may be used.

  At the lower part of the printer main body, a sending unit 40 which is a part of the recording body sending device is arranged. The sending unit 40 includes a first paper cassette 41, a second cassette 42, and a manual feed tray 43, which are storage means. Also, a registration roller pair 44 that forms a registration nip by the contact of the two rollers, a registration cleaning unit 45, a conveyance roller pair 50 for supplying means for supplying transfer paper from these storage units to the registration roller pair 44, a conveyance path 53, a paper sensor (not shown).

  The first paper cassette 41 and the second paper cassette 42 are arranged so as to overlap vertically in the lower part of the exposure apparatus 7 in the figure, and each of the paper bundles in which a plurality of transfer papers P as recording bodies are stacked. Contained in a state. On the other hand, the manual feed tray 43 is configured to be openable and closable with respect to the housing of the printer main body, as indicated by an arrow in the drawing, and accommodates a bundle of paper in an opened state.

  The first paper feed roller 46 and the second paper feed roller 47 are in contact with the first transfer paper P of the paper bundle accommodated in the first paper cassette 41 and the second paper cassette 42, respectively. Then, it is driven to rotate by a driving means (not shown), and passes through the transport path 53 while taking out the uppermost transfer paper P. Before and after the take-out, both rollers of the registration roller pair 44 are rotationally driven so as to move their surfaces in the forward direction at the registration nip. A paper detection sensor (not shown) made up of a photo sensor or the like is disposed above the registration roller pair 44 serving as a feeding means. The leading end side of the transfer paper P that has begun to be taken out from the paper cassette eventually passes through the registration nip of the registration roller pair 44 at the tip of the transport path 53 and is detected by the paper detection sensor. Based on the detection signal, the driving of the registration roller pair 44 is stopped, and the transfer timing of the transfer paper P is measured.

  The manual paper feed roller 48 is in contact with the uppermost transfer paper P of the paper bundle accommodated (mounted) on the manual feed tray 27. Then, it is driven to rotate by a driving means (not shown), and passes through the transport path 53 while taking out the uppermost transfer paper P. Then, it is set on the registration roller pair 44 in the same manner as the transfer sheet P of the paper cassette.

  Both rollers of the resist roller pair 44 rotate while strongly pressing the transfer paper P at the resist nip, so that paper dust or dust is transferred to the surface and becomes dirty. The transferred dirt is cleaned by the resist cleaning unit 45.

  The registration roller pair 44 feeds the transfer paper P sandwiched between the rollers toward the secondary transfer nip at a timing at which the transfer paper P can be brought into close contact with the four-color toner image primarily transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt 8. At the secondary transfer nip, the four-color toner image on the intermediate transfer belt 8 is secondarily transferred to the transfer paper P under the influence of the nip pressure and the secondary transfer electric field, and becomes a full color image combined with the white color of the paper.

  In addition to the image data processing device E1, a control unit E2, which includes a CPU, a RAM, and the like, a bottle container 60, a fixing device 61, a discharge roller pair 64, and the like are disposed above the transfer unit in the drawing. . In the bottle container 60, toner bottles BY, BM, BC, and BK containing toner to be supplied to the developing devices in the process units (6Y, 6M, 6C, and 6K) are stored.

  The fixing device 61 is disposed above the secondary transfer nip of the transfer unit, and includes a pair of fixing rollers 62 that form a fixing nip while rotating so as to move in the forward direction at the respective contact portions. Yes. Both the fixing rollers are provided with heating means such as a halogen lamp (not shown). The transfer paper P that has passed through the secondary transfer nip is sandwiched between the fixing nips in the fixing device 61 and heated while being pressed by the fixing roller value 62. By this heating, the full-color image on the transfer paper P is fixed on the paper surface by the softening of the toner constituting the image. After the fixing, the transfer paper P is reversed along the reversing guide member 63 and then discharged to the outside through the paper discharge roller pair 64. Then, it is stacked on the stack portion 65 formed on the upper surface of the casing of the printer main body.

  The surface temperature of the fixing roller pair 62 is detected by temperature detection means (not shown). The temperature detection means transmits to the control unit E2 disposed at the top of the housing of the printer main body. Based on the detection result of the surface temperature sent from the temperature detection unit, the control unit E2 controls the power supply ON / OFF to the heat generation unit of the fixing roller pair 62, and the surface temperature of the fixing roller pair 62 is within a certain range ( Maintain target range).

  As described above, the printer 100 can form a full-color image on the transfer paper P. As in the printer 100, a plurality of image carriers such as photoconductors are arranged side by side, and a visible image formed by each is continuously superimposed and transferred to form a superimposed image such as a multicolor image. For the tandem system, a visible image is formed on one image carrier and transferred to an intermediate transfer member, and then a visible image is formed again on the image carrier and transferred onto the visible image on the intermediate transfer member. There is also a method of forming a superimposed image by repeating the process.

  In this method, the steps of visible image formation and transfer must be repeated. On the other hand, in the tandem method, a plurality of visible images to be superimposed and transferred can be formed almost simultaneously on the corresponding image carriers, so that the image forming time can be greatly shortened.

Next, the manual feed tray will be described with reference to FIGS.
In the case of manual paper feeding, as shown in FIG. 2A, the manual tray stored in the main body is normally opened, and the paper is placed on the manual tray 43 as shown in FIG. Depending on the size of the paper, the support plate 18 may be extended to increase the paper placement area. In general, the manual feed tray 43 is used for performing a small amount of copying or copying of an irregular size, and fences for guiding the set paper are provided on the left and right sides of the paper. The size is detected according to the movement of the fence.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the manual feed tray 43 is provided with side fences 101 and 102 which are fences for guiding the set paper. Further, as shown in FIG. 4, the side fences 101 and 102 are provided with gears 200 and 201, respectively, and the gears 200 and 201 and the rotary gear sensor 300 are linked and operated by sliding the side fence to the left and right. To do.

  The rotary gear sensor 300 has a circular resistor disposed therein, and the resistance value changes depending on the rotation angle. The rotation change angle is configured to be detected by software by electrically detecting a resistance value and performing AD conversion. Since the correlation between the rotation change angle and the position of the side fences 101 and 102 can be correlated, the software can continuously detect the size of the loaded paper in the scanning direction.

As shown in FIG. 5, there is a manual feed tray that detects the paper size step by step.
In the manual feed tray shown in FIG. 5, the slider 26 is attached to the side fence 400, and the slider 26 slides on the manual size detection plate 27 incorporated in the manual feed tray in conjunction with the movement of the side fence 400. Then, the sheet width comes into contact with each terminal of the manual feed size detection plate 27 and the width of the sheet is detected depending on the connection state.

  In addition, as a paper size detection method in the paper transport direction, for example, when a plurality of reflective sensors are arranged in the paper tray transport direction and preparations are set on the tray, a step-by-step process is performed based on the detection result of each reflective sensor. The size of the standard size paper is detected.

Next, the control unit of the image forming apparatus will be described with reference to FIG.
A reading unit 500, an image forming unit 510, a control unit 520, an operation unit 530, and a manual feeding unit 540 are included. Further, the reading unit 500 includes a document size detection sensor 501, the control unit 520 includes an image processing unit 521, a memory 522, and a CPU 523, and the operation unit 530 includes a display unit 531 and a selection unit 532. The manual feed portion 540 includes a paper size detection sensor 541.

  In the reading unit 500, the document size detection sensor 501 reads the size of the document set on the contact glass. In the manual feed unit 540, the paper size detection sensor 541 reads the size of the paper set on the manual feed tray, the CPU 523 of the control unit 520 compares the document size with the paper size, and the comparison result is displayed on the display unit 531 of the operation unit 530. The user refers to the comparison result displayed on the display unit 531 and selects whether the image data read from the document by the selection unit 532 is to be rotated or enlarged / reduced. The document image data read by the reading unit 500 is temporarily held in the memory 522, the image data is sent to the image processing unit 521, subjected to rotation and enlargement / reduction processing, and the image forming unit 510 forms an image. Is executed.

Next, the image data rotation and enlargement / reduction processing method will be described with reference to FIG.
A case will be described in which the size and direction of the paper set on the manual feed tray 15 is the A4 vertical feed direction, and the size and direction of the original set on the contact glass is the B5 horizontal direction.
At this time, the size detection result of the manual feed tray 15 in the main scanning direction (perpendicular to the conveying direction) detects the short or hand size (210 mm) of A4, and the size detection result of the sub-scanning direction indicates the longitudinal direction of A4. The size of (297 mm) is detected. The detection result of the document size detection sensor detects that the document is set in the B5 horizontal direction.

  If the manual feed tray 15 is set in the A4 vertical feed direction and the original is set in the B5 horizontal direction, a part of the image data is not correct if the copy is performed without performing the rotation process and the scaling process. Problems such as breakage or extra blank space.

  Therefore, by rotating the input image of the read original by the rotation processing of the image processing unit 521 shown in FIG. 6, the vertical and horizontal directions of the input image and the paper size match, and the image can be formed within the paper size. . Further, the display unit 531 displays the comparison result of the image data direction with the rotation and the paper size set on the manual feed tray, and the user recognizes the comparison result displayed on the display unit, and after the rotation, The selection unit 532 selects whether to execute the enlargement / reduction process on the image data.

  When the enlargement / reduction processing is selected, the image data after the rotation processing is in the B5 vertical direction, and therefore matches the paper direction (A4 vertical) set on the manual feed tray, but the size is different. Therefore, in order to form an image with as little space as possible on the paper set in the manual feed tray, the image data is enlarged by a function such as an enlargement process of the image processing unit 521, so that there is almost no image loss on the document. A final image corresponding to the paper size is obtained.

  As described above, according to the image forming apparatus of the present invention, the CPU 322 compares the document size detected by the document size detection sensor 501 with the paper size detected by the paper size detection sensor 341, and the comparison result is displayed on the display unit. To do. The user refers to the comparison result, and when the document size and the paper size are different, the selection unit 331 selects and executes rotation or enlargement / reduction processing on the image data of the document read by the reading unit 500. Thus, an image suitable for the paper size can be formed on the paper.

1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is the figure which expanded the manual feed tray in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure showing composition of a manual feed tray in an embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure showing composition of a manual feed tray in an embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure showing composition of a manual feed tray in an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a control unit of the image forming apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is the figure which showed the image processing method in embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

101, 102 Side fence 200, 201 Gear 300 Rotating gear sensor 500 Reading unit 501 Document size detection sensor 510 Image forming unit 520 Control unit 521 Memory 522 CPU
523 Image processing unit 530 Operation unit 531 Selection unit 532 Display unit 540 Manual feed unit 541 Paper size detection sensor

Claims (4)

There is one or a plurality of paper feed tray devices capable of mounting a plurality of types of standard size paper, and different from the paper set in the paper feed tray device, different from the paper feed tray device. In an image forming apparatus having a manual sheet feeding device capable of temporarily feeding a sheet and an image forming unit that forms an image of image data read by a reading unit that reads a document on the sheet.
A paper size detecting means for detecting the size of the paper set in the manual paper feeder and the size in the main scanning and sub scanning directions;
A document size detecting means for detecting the document size;
A comparison means for comparing the detection result by the paper size detection means with the detection result by the size detection means of the image data;
Display means for displaying a comparison result by the comparison means;
An image forming apparatus comprising: a rotation unit that rotates or enlarges / reduces the image data according to a display result displayed on the display unit; and an enlargement / reduction unit.   The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display unit includes a selection unit that selects the rotation unit and the enlargement / reduction unit.   2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the comparison unit compares the main scanning / sub-scanning direction detected by the paper size detection unit with the document size detected by the document size detection unit.   The image is formed on a sheet set in the manual sheet feeding device after the image data is rotated or reduced by the selected rotation means or the enlargement / reduction means by the selection means. Item 3. The image forming apparatus according to Item 2.

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