JP2007286510A - Fixing device and image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a fixing device which saves energy and costs, and can obtain an image of high picture quality having glossiness controlled and gloss unevenness prevented, and an image forming apparatus equipped with the fixing device. <P>SOLUTION: After a toner image is fused by passing recording paper which carries the unfixed toner image through a nip part formed by a heat roller 3 and a pressure roller 4, unevenness of a surface of the fused toner image is leveled with a surface of a picture quality control roller 5 during the passage of the recording paper through a nip part formed by the picture quality control roller 5 and pressure roller 6 to control glossiness of a fixed image. A heat pipe array 8 as a heat transfer means is brought into contact with a surface of the heat roller 3 and a surface of the picture quality control roller 5 to supply heat to the surface of the picture quality control roller 5, so heat needed to level the surface of the toner image can be supplied to the surface of the picture quality controller roller 5 without individually providing the picture quality control roller 5 with a heat source. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a fixing device for fixing an unfixed image formed of an image forming substance (hereinafter also referred to as toner) on a recording medium (hereinafter also referred to as paper or sheet), a copying machine having the fixing device, a printer, and a facsimile machine. The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a printing machine.

  When a full-color image is formed in an image forming apparatus, there is a demand for obtaining a desired gloss by controlling the image gloss. In order to control the glossiness of an image, it is known that the gloss should be controlled by changing the melting state of the toner depending on the amount of heat applied to the recording medium, and the amount of heat applied by the heat capacity of the recording medium must be finely controlled. In other words, it has been pointed out that there is a problem that the image quality is remarkably deteriorated by causing minute gloss unevenness.

In order to solve this problem, there is a configuration in which gloss control means is provided on the downstream side in the sheet passing direction of a normal fixing device (see, for example, Patent Documents 1, 2, 3, and 4). In these configurations, the recording material is assumed to be attached to the recording paper by the first fixing member, and before the recording material is completely cooled, the recording material is passed through the nip of the gloss control means and cooled while applying pressure. The surface is smoothed and gloss is controlled. There is also a configuration in which the surface of the recording material is cooled while being in contact with the fixing member by stretching a fixing belt having a heating element in part and lengthening the time of contact of the surface of the recording material with the fixing member ( For example, see Patent Document 5.)
JP 2004-139039 A JP 2004-139040 A JP 2004-198482 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-194684 JP 2001-154516 A

  However, in the configuration of Patent Document 1, since the gloss control means is not provided with a heating source, the gloss control means is cooled depending on the ambient environmental temperature immediately after the start-up of the apparatus, and is heated by the fixing device. It is difficult to obtain the desired glossiness continuously because the recording material that has been put in is excessively cooled and solidified and aggregated at the moment of entering the nip of the gloss control means, and smoothing of the recording material is not promoted.

  In Patent Documents 2, 3, and 4, a halogen heater heating source is provided inside a gloss control roll, which is a gloss control means provided on the downstream side of the fixing device, and a cooling fan is provided outside the gloss control roll. By controlling to a predetermined temperature, an image having a continuously stable glossiness is obtained. However, since a heating source is provided inside the gloss control roll, it takes time to bring the gloss control roll surface to a desired temperature, and printing cannot be performed immediately after the apparatus is started up. In order to start printing quickly, the gloss control roll had to be preheated, and wasted energy when not in use. Furthermore, it is necessary to have a plurality of heating sources in the fixing roll and the gloss control roll, which is costly.

  In addition, in the configuration of Patent Document 5, when a configuration in which the belt is clamped is adopted, the recording material is skewed due to a difference in belt conveyance speed, a difference in friction coefficient between each belt surface to be clamped and the recording material, or the like. Or, there has been a problem that wrinkles occur in the recording material. Further, since the belt with which the heat generating element comes into contact directly contacts the surface of the recording material, the temperature gradient on the belt surface is small and the cooling effect is reduced. As a result, there is a problem that the glossiness is not sufficiently controlled.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a fixing device capable of obtaining a high-quality image in which glossiness is controlled and gloss unevenness is prevented at an energy saving and low cost, and an image forming apparatus including the fixing device.

  In order to achieve the above object, a fixing device of the present invention includes a plurality of fixing rotators that are in contact with an image surface on a recording medium, and a pressure rotator that forms a nip portion facing the fixing rotator. The fixing device includes heat transfer means for moving heat to the fixing rotator, and the heat transfer means includes a downstream surface on the downstream side of the nip portion of the fixing rotator on the upstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction, and a downstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction. The gist is to come into contact with the upstream surface of the nip portion of the fixing rotator on the side.

  According to the present invention, the heat transfer means is in contact with the nip portion downstream surface of the fixing rotator on the upstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction and the nip portion upstream surface of the fixing rotator on the downstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction. Since the temperature of the image on the recording medium exiting from the nip portion of the fixing rotator on the upstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction is maintained, the influence of the ambient environmental temperature can be reduced. Even when the ambient environmental temperature is low, the fixing rotator on the downstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction is heated to a desired temperature by supplying heat from the fixing rotator on the upstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction, and recording is performed. It is possible to smooth the unevenness of the surface of the toner image at the nip portion of the fixing rotator on the downstream side in the medium conveyance direction. Further, since the fixing rotator on the downstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction is heated from the surface side, the temperature can be quickly raised to a desired temperature.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 shows an outline of a fixing device to which the present invention is applied and an image forming apparatus having the fixing device. The image forming apparatus is a known apparatus such as a copying machine, a facsimile machine, or a printer, and may be any type of image forming apparatus that can use a fixing device to which the present invention is applied. The image forming apparatus of this embodiment can form a color image.

  The image forming apparatus 20 includes image forming apparatuses 21Y, 21M, 21C, and 21BK that form an image for each color according to a document image, and a transfer apparatus 22 that is disposed to face the image forming apparatuses 21Y, 21M, 21C, and 21BK. Sheet feeding cassettes 23 and 24 serving as sheet-like medium feeding means for feeding various sheet-like media to the transfer areas where the image forming devices 21Y, 21M, 21C and 21BK and the transfer device 22 face each other; , 24 and a registration roller 30 for supplying the sheet-like medium in accordance with the timing of image formation by the image forming devices 21Y, 21M, 21C, and 21BK, and fixing for fixing the sheet-like medium after transfer in the transfer region. Device 1.

  The image forming apparatus 20 includes plain paper (hereinafter simply referred to as plain paper) generally used for copying, 90K paper such as an OHP sheet, cards, and postcards, thick paper having a basis weight of about 100 g / m 2 or more, an envelope, and the like. Any so-called special sheet (hereinafter simply referred to as a special sheet) having a larger heat capacity than that of the paper can be used as the sheet-like medium.

  Each of the image forming devices 21Y, 21M, 21C, and 21BK develops each color of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black, and uses different toner colors, but the configuration is almost the same. The configuration of 21Y will be described as a representative of the image forming devices 21Y, 21M, 21C, and 21BK. The image forming device 21Y includes a photosensitive drum 25Y as an electrostatic latent image carrier, a well-known charging device (not shown), a developing device, a cleaning device, and the like that are sequentially arranged in the rotation direction A of the photosensitive drum 25Y. This is a known configuration in which exposure light 29Y is received between a charging device and a developing device by scanning means having a known polygon mirror (not shown). The electrostatic latent image carrier may be a belt shape instead of a drum shape. However, the exposure light 29BK in the black image forming device 21BK can be two beams, and the image forming device 21BK can perform image formation faster than the other image forming devices 21Y, 21M, and 21C. It has become.

  A4 size paper is placed in the paper feed cassette 23, and A3 size paper is placed in the paper feed cassette 24 so that the horizontal direction in the figure is the longitudinal direction. The transfer device 22 is disposed in an oblique direction so that the image forming apparatus 20 is small in the left-right direction in the drawing, and the sheet conveyance direction indicated by an arrow B is an oblique direction. Thus, in the image forming apparatus 20, the width of the casing 26 in the left-right direction in the figure is slightly longer than the length in the longitudinal direction of the A3 size paper. That is, the image forming apparatus 20 is greatly reduced in size by being the minimum size required to accommodate the paper inside. An upper portion of the housing 26 is a paper discharge tray 27 for stacking sheets that have passed through the fixing device 1 and have a toner image fixed thereon.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the fixing device 1 according to the present exemplary embodiment includes a heating roller 3 as a fixing rotating body on the upstream side in the conveyance direction of the paper P that is a recording medium, and a pressure that is installed to face the heating roller 3. A nip portion 2A composed of a pressure roller 4 as a rotator, an image quality control roller 5 as a fixing rotator on the downstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction, and a pressure rotator installed opposite to the image quality control roller 5 And a nip portion 2 </ b> B constituted by the pressure roller 6. The image quality control roller 5 is configured to have a smaller diameter than the heating roller 3. By configuring the diameter of the image quality control roller 5 to be small, the heat capacity of the image quality control roller 5 can be kept low, the thermal response is improved, and the temperature of the surface of the image quality control roller 5 can be quickly adjusted to a desired temperature. It becomes.

  Further, a heat pipe array 8 is provided as heat transfer means whose end contacts the downstream surface of the nip 2A of the heating roller 3 and the upstream surface of the nip 2B of the image quality control roller 5, and the end is not shown. A contact member is provided. The contact member is preferably made of a material such as Teflon (registered trademark) having high heat conductivity and excellent heat resistance. Further, a cooling fan 9 is provided in the circumferential direction of the image quality control roller for cooling the surface of the image quality control roller 5 with wind. The cooling fan 9 operates when the surface of the image quality control roller 5 becomes higher than a desired temperature, and applies wind to the surface of the image quality control roller 5 to lower the surface temperature of the image quality control roller 5 to the desired temperature. . In addition, a paper guide 10 is provided below the paper passing path.

  The heating roller 3 and the pressure roller 4, and the image quality control roller 5 and the pressure roller 6 are pressed by springs (not shown) to form nip portions 2A and 2B. The heating roller 3 has a hollow cylindrical cored bar 3a made of metal such as Al or Fe as a base material, and an elastic layer 3b made of silicon rubber is provided on the outside thereof. On the further outer side of the elastic layer, a release layer 3c such as PFA or PTFE, which is a fluorine-based resin for obtaining release properties from the toner T, is coated. A halogen heater 7 is built in the cored bar as a heating source.

  The pressure roller 4 has substantially the same configuration as the heating roller 3, and a silicon rubber elastic layer 4 b is provided on a hollow core metal 4 a, and a release layer 4 c of PFA or PTFE that is a fluorine resin is provided on the outermost layer. It is done. Further, the heating roller 3 may be configured such that the release layer 3c is provided directly on the cored bar 3a without providing the elastic layer 3b in order to shorten the temperature raising time. In this case, by using foamed silicon rubber for the elastic layer 4b of the pressure roller 4 instead of solid silicon rubber, the heat capacity can be further reduced and the temperature raising time can be shortened.

  The image quality control roller 5 and the pressure roller 6 are made of metal cores 5a and 6a made of Al, Fe or the like and release layers 5c and 6c in which silicon rubber elastic layers 5b and 6b and fluorine resin PFA or PTFE are coated. Composed.

  Next, the operation will be described. When receiving the print signal, the heating roller 3 and the pressure roller 4, the image quality control roller 5 and the pressure roller 6 start to rotate at a predetermined speed. Further, the heating roller 3 is heated by the halogen heater 7 inside the heating roller 3, and the surface of the heating roller 3 is heated to a predetermined temperature by a temperature sensor (not shown) for detecting the surface temperature of the heating roller. The surface of the heating roller 3 is maintained at a desired temperature by on / off control of the heater 7. At this time, the heat pipe array 8 heats the image quality control roller 5 by transferring heat from the surface of the heating roller 3 to the image quality control roller 5. At the time of non-sheet passing, the surface temperature of the image quality control roller 5 is attached to the end of the heat pipe array 8 so as to be saturated at about 50 to 90 ° C. when the surface temperature of the heating roller 3 is 130 to 170 ° C., for example. The contact area between the contact member (not shown) and the image quality control roller 5 is adjusted in advance.

  When the sheet is continuously passed and a temperature sensor (not shown) detects that the surface temperature of the image quality control roller 5 exceeds a predetermined temperature, the cooling fan 9 is driven to cool the image quality control roller 5. To do.

  The unfixed toner image T transferred onto the paper P is conveyed to the fixing device and fixed on the paper P by heat and pressure by the nip portion 2A. Further, the toner image T on the paper P is conveyed to the nip portion 2B in a state where the temperature of the toner image T is higher than the temperature at which the deformation of the toner due to pressure is maintained, and the toner image T on the paper P is again deformed and cooled in the nip portion 2B. Is done. As the toner image T is cooled while being deformed in the nip portion 2B, the toner image T is discharged in a state cooled to a temperature at which the toner image is not deformed at the exit portion of the nip portion 2B.

  According to the configuration of the present embodiment, the heat pipe array 8 moves heat from the surface of the heating roller 3 to the surface of the image quality control roller 5, so that the surface of the image quality control roller 5 can be heated to a desired temperature. Become. Then, since the unevenness of the toner image surface at the nip portion between the image quality control roller 5 and the pressure roller 6 can be smoothed, the unevenness generated on the surface of the semi-molten toner image at the time of release can be suppressed. . By suppressing unevenness on the surface of the toner image, it is possible to suppress uneven gloss of the fixed image and control the gloss of the fixed image.

  In this embodiment, the heating roller 3 including the halogen heater 7 is used as the fixing rotating body on the upstream side in the transport direction. As the fixing rotator on the upstream side in the conveyance direction, in addition to the heating roller 3, a heating roller including a halogen heater, a fixing auxiliary roller, or a fixing belt stretched around a fixing auxiliary pad may be used. Here, instead of the heating roller including the halogen heater, a heating roller or a heating pad that generates heat by an induced current may be used. Or you may take the structure which heats a heating roller or a fixing belt from the outside. In this embodiment, a single halogen heater is used as a heating source. A plurality of halogen heaters may be used as the heating source.

  FIG. 3 shows a fixing device having a configuration substantially the same as that of the first embodiment and replacing the heat pipe array 8 with a heat transfer roller 11. The heat transfer roller 11 is provided between the shafts of the heating roller 3 and the image quality control roller 5, and the diameter of the heat transfer roller 11 is configured to be equal to or smaller than the diameters of the heating roller 3 and the image quality control roller 5 in order to reduce the heat capacity. Yes. The diameter of the heat transfer roller 11 is larger than the shortest distance between the surface of the heating roller 3 and the surface of the image quality control roller 5, and the heat roller 3 and the image quality control roller 5 are pressed by the elasticity of the heat transfer roller 11 itself. ing. The heat transfer roller 11 is provided with a silicon core around a metal core such as Al or Fe, or a heat insulating material such as a hollow bead, ceramic fiber, or an embossed film laminated member. It has a configuration in which a metal Ni or SUS layer having a high rate is provided.

  By using a rotating body such as the heat transfer roller 11 as heat transfer means from the heating roller 3 to the image quality control roller 5, wear of the surfaces of the heating roller 3 and the image quality control roller 5 due to contact of the heat pipe array 8 or the like. It becomes possible to prevent the deterioration due to.

  FIG. 4 shows a fixing device in which the heat transfer roller 11 of Example 2 is replaced with an endless belt. A heat transfer belt 21 as a heat transfer means is stretched around a plurality of support rollers 12 and 13, and the support rollers 12 and 13 are respectively connected to the heating roller 4 and the image quality control roller 5 by a spring (not shown) via the heat transfer belt 21. Pressed. The heat transfer belt 21 is preferably made of a metal material having high thermal conductivity such as Ni or SUS, and the thickness is about 30 to 70 μm in consideration of flexibility. In consideration of durability against bending, a heat-resistant resin belt such as polyimide or polyamide may be used. The support rollers 12 and 13 are provided with silicon rubber around the core metal, or provided with a heat insulating material such as hollow beads, ceramic fibers, or an embossed film laminated material, and are configured so that the apparent heat capacity is reduced. ing.

  By using the heat transfer belt 21 which is a rotating body as the heat transfer means, it is possible to prevent deterioration due to friction of the surfaces of the heating roller 3 and the image quality control roller 5 due to friction. In addition, the heat capacity can be further reduced and the temperature raising time can be shortened by using the heat transfer belt 21 as compared with the configuration of the second embodiment. Further, since the degree of freedom of the installation positions of the support rollers 12 and 13 is high, the layout can be easily changed.

  The halogen heater 7 is provided in the heat transfer roller 11 as shown in FIG. 5, and the halogen heater 7 is provided in the heat transfer belt 21 as shown in FIG. By adopting the configuration, it is possible to heat from the surfaces of the heating roller 3 and the image quality control roller 5, and the temperature raising time can be shortened. In this case, the heat transfer roller 11 is preferably thin and made of metal such as Al.

  The heat transfer belt 21 shown in FIG. 6 receives heat from the halogen heater 7 inside the heat transfer belt 21 and accumulates heat in the heat transfer belt 21 itself. Since the heat transfer belt 21 is configured to have a higher thermal conductivity than air, as the contact area with the heat transfer belt 21 increases, the heat per unit time for the member that contacts the heat transfer belt 21 is increased. The amount of transmission will increase.

  Therefore, as shown in FIG. 7, among the support rollers 12, 13, and 15, the support rollers 12 and 15 are opposed to the heating roller 3, and the support roller 13 is opposed to the image quality control roller, so that the heat transfer belt 21 and the image quality control are performed. The contact area with the roller 5 is configured to be smaller than the contact area between the heat transfer belt 21 and the heating roller 3. Then, more heat is transmitted to the heating roller 3 than to the image quality control roller 5 as compared with the configuration shown in FIG. 6, and the temperature on the heating roller 3 side is increased and the temperature on the image quality control roller 5 side is decreased. Can be set as follows.

  As shown in FIG. 8, at least one of the support rollers 12, 13, and 16 that stretch the heat transfer belt 21 is movably provided with the same configuration as that of the fourth embodiment. For example, a tension roller 17 is provided to prevent the heat transfer belt 21 from slackening when the support roller 16 moves. Surface temperatures of the heating roller 4 and the image quality control roller 13 are monitored by a temperature sensor (not shown). By moving the support roller 16 along the surface of the heating roller 3 and changing the contact area between the heat transfer belt 21 and the heating roller 3 and the image quality control roller 5, the amount of heat transferred from the halogen heater 7 is increased. Since control can be performed on the 3 side and the image quality control roller 5 side, the surface temperature of each roller can be controlled to be a predetermined temperature.

  9, the surface temperature of the image quality control roller 5 is controlled by fixing the support rollers 12 and 16 and separating the support roller 18 from the image quality control roller 5 so that no heat transfer occurs. You may make it do. As a result, finer temperature control is possible than in the configurations shown in the first to fourth embodiments, and glossiness is controlled more accurately with respect to the ambient environmental temperature, paper thickness, and surface roughness. Alternatively, uneven gloss can be prevented.

1 is a side view illustrating an outline of a fixing device to which the present invention is applied and an image forming apparatus including the fixing device. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a fixing device in Embodiment 1. FIG. FIG. 6 is a schematic configuration diagram of a fixing device in Embodiment 2. FIG. 6 is a schematic configuration diagram of a fixing device in Embodiment 3. FIG. 9 is a schematic configuration diagram of a fixing device in which a heat transfer member in Example 4 is a heat transfer roller. FIG. 9 is a schematic configuration diagram of a fixing device in which a heat transfer member in Example 4 is a heat transfer belt. FIG. 10 is a schematic configuration diagram of a fixing device in Embodiment 5. FIG. 10 is a schematic configuration diagram of a fixing device in Embodiment 6. 10 is a schematic configuration diagram of another type of fixing device according to Embodiment 6. FIG.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Fixing device 2A, 2B Nip part 3 Heating roller 3a Core metal 3b Elastic layer 3c Release layer 4 Pressure roller 4a Core metal 4b Elastic layer 4c Release layer 5 Image quality control roller 5a Core metal 5b Elastic layer 5c Release layer 6 Pressure roller 6a Core 6b Elastic layer 6c Release layer 7 Halogen heater 8 Heat pipe array 9 Cooling fan 10 Paper guide 11 Heat transfer roller 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19 Support roller 17 Tension roller 21 Heat transfer belt T Toner, toner image P Paper

Claims (10)

A plurality of fixing rotators in contact with the image surface on the recording medium;
In a fixing device provided with a pressure rotator that forms a nip portion facing the fixing rotator,
A heat transfer means for transferring heat to the fixing rotator,
The heat transfer means
A fixing device that contacts a downstream surface of a nip portion of the fixing rotator on the upstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction and an upstream surface of the nip portion of the fixing rotator on the downstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction. The fixing device according to claim 1,
A fixing device comprising a heating source for heating a fixing rotator on the upstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction. The fixing device according to claim 1 or 2,
The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein the heat transfer means includes a heat pipe. The fixing device according to claim 1 or 2,
The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein the heat transfer means comprises a roller. The fixing device according to claim 1 or 2,
The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein the heat transfer means includes an endless belt stretched around a plurality of support members. The fixing device according to claim 1, 2, 4, or 5.
A fixing device, wherein a heat source is provided inside the heat transfer means. The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein:
The fixing device is characterized in that a contact area between the heat transfer means and the downstream surface of the fixing rotator on the upstream side in the conveyance direction of the recording medium is variable. The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein:
The fixing device is characterized in that a contact contact area between the heat transfer means and the upstream surface of the fixing rotator on the downstream side in the conveyance direction of the recording medium is variable. The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein:
The contact area between the heat transfer means and the nip portion downstream surface of the fixing rotator on the upstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction is equal to the heat transfer means on the nip portion upstream surface of the fixing rotator on the downstream side in the recording medium conveyance direction. A fixing device characterized by being larger than the contact area.   An image forming apparatus comprising the fixing device according to claim 1.

Images