JP3440976B2 - Cleaning equipment - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a cleaning device used in an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a facsimile machine, a printer, etc., and more specifically, an elastic blade for removing residual toner remaining on the surface of an image carrier. And a cleaning device having an inlet seal member provided at a lower end edge of an opening of a casing facing the image carrier and an end seal member provided at an end portion in a longitudinal direction of the elastic blade. Is.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as the above-mentioned cleaning device, there is known a cleaning device provided with a discharging member for carrying the toner scraped off from the image bearing member into the casing by a blade in one direction and discharging it to the outside of the device. (For example, JP-A-3-
39986).

FIG. 1A is a schematic diagram showing an example of an image forming apparatus equipped with this type of cleaning device.
Photoconductor drum 1 as a latent image carrier that rotates in the direction of the arrow
A charging device 2, an exposure device 3, a developing device 4, a transfer device 5, a cleaning device 7 and the like are arranged around the area.

The cleaning device 7 is held by a casing 8 having an opening toward the photosensitive drum 1 and a blade holder 10, and an elastic blade (hereinafter referred to as a blade) 9 for scraping off the residual toner on the photosensitive drum 1, An inlet seal 11 which is held by an inlet seal holder 12 and prevents the toner scraped off the photosensitive drum 1 by the blade 9 from scattering outside the device, and the toner in the casing 8 is conveyed in one direction to outside the device. It is composed of a discharge screw 13 for discharging to. Further, as shown in FIG. 1B, an end seal member 14 for preventing toner leakage from the end is provided at the end of the blade 9 in the longitudinal direction.

The cleaning device 7 cleans the surface of the photosensitive drum 1 by scraping off the residual toner remaining on the photosensitive drum 1 after the transfer of the toner image onto the transfer paper 6 with a blade 9. Then, the toner scraped into the casing 8 is conveyed in the direction of the arrow by the discharge screw 13 and discharged to the outside of the apparatus.

[0006]

However, in the cleaning device 7, as shown in FIG. 1B, the amount of toner in the casing 8 is large, and the large amount of toner is conveyed in the direction of the arrow by the discharge screw 13. If done,
The toner that has abutted on the side wall 8a at the inner end of the casing 8 on the downstream side in the transport direction at a position near the photosensitive drum 1 is
The blade moves to the side of the photoconductor drum 1 along the side wall 8a and is reattached to the photoconductor drum 1 and carried to the blade 9, or forms a toner pool toward the blade 9 to form a blade. There is a problem that toner leaks from the gap n between the end seal member.

The toner leakage from the gap n between the blade 9 and the end seal member is not limited to the cleaning device having the discharging member as described above, but also occurs in the cleaning device not having the discharging member. May occur. This is because the toner tends to migrate toward the longitudinal end of the blade 9 when it is scraped off the photosensitive drum 1 by the blade 9, and even in a cleaning device that does not include a discharging member. The phenomenon in which the toner that has moved toward the end is scraped off by the blade 9 in the vicinity of the inlet seal 11 and again adheres to the photosensitive drum 1 and is supplied to the blade is repeated. When the toner is conveyed to the inner end portion of the casing 8 facing the end portion in the longitudinal direction of the toner, the toner that strikes the side wall 8a of the inner end portion of the casing 8 at a position near the photosensitive drum 1 is also the toner. This is because it is re-attached to No. 1 and is carried to the blade 9, or a toner pool toward the blade 9 is formed.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a simple method for the toner removed in the casing to face the inner end of the casing facing the end in the longitudinal direction of the blade. To reattach to the image carrier,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a cleaning device capable of suppressing the formation of a toner pool toward the blade and reducing toner leakage from the gap between the blade and the end seal member.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the invention of claim 1 is directed to an elastic blade for removing the residual toner remaining on the surface of the image carrier, and to the image carrier. and an inlet seal member provided on the lower edge of the opening of the casing, the cleaning device having a end seal member provided in the longitudinal end of the elastic body blade, the longitudinal direction of the upper Symbol elastic blade At the inner end of the casing facing the end , the toner inside the casing is
Close to the inner wall of the casing in the longitudinal direction along
It is characterized in that a guide member for guiding so as to move in a direction away from the image carrier is provided.

In the cleaning device of claim 1,
The residual toner remaining on the surface of the image carrier is scraped off from the surface of the image carrier by the elastic blade. In order to prevent the toner scraped off from the surface of the image carrier from scattering outside the apparatus, an inlet seal member provided at the lower end edge of the opening of the casing facing the image carrier is the casing and the image carrier. The gap with is closed. When the toner is scraped off from the image bearing member by the blade, the toner migrates toward the longitudinal end of the blade, which causes a large amount of toner at the inner end of the casing facing the longitudinal end of the blade. Even when transported, the guide member provided at the inner end portion of the casing guides the toner so as not to hit the side wall of the casing at a position close to the image carrier, so that the blade and the end seal member are The reattachment of the toner to the image carrier and the formation of the toner pool toward the blade, which causes the toner leakage from the gap, are suppressed.

The invention of claim 2 is the same as that of claim 1.
In Ningu device, a discharge member for discharging to the outside of the apparatus to convey the toner in one direction in the casing, the toner discharge direction of the discharge member inside the casing end opposite the longitudinal end of the upper Symbol elastic blade The guide member is provided on the downstream side.

In the cleaning device of claim 2,
The residual toner remaining on the surface of the image carrier is scraped off from the surface of the image carrier by the elastic blade. In order to prevent the toner scraped off from the surface of the image carrier from scattering outside the apparatus, an inlet seal member provided at the lower end edge of the opening of the casing facing the image carrier has the casing and the image carrier. The gap with is closed. The toner scraped into the casing is conveyed in one direction by the discharging member so as to be discharged to the outside of the apparatus. Here, even if the amount of toner in the casing is large and the large amount of toner is conveyed toward the side wall of the casing inner end portion by the discharging member, the discharging member at the casing inner end portion facing the longitudinal end portion of the blade A guide member provided on the downstream side in the toner discharge direction guides the toner so as not to hit the side wall of the inner end of the casing at a position close to the image carrier.
It is possible to prevent re-adhesion of toner to the image carrier and formation of a toner pool toward the blade, which causes toner leakage from the gap between the blade and the end seal member .

[0015] Also, the invention of claim 3, in claim 1 or the cleaning device, is characterized in that the guide member is a polyester film flexibility.

In the cleaning device of claim 3 ,
The guide member is made of a flexible polyester film. The guide member comes into contact with the inlet seal member without any gap and prevents the toner from entering from the contact portion.

The invention of claim 4 is the same as claim 1, 2 or
In the cleaning device of No. 3 , the distance between the elastic blade and the guide member is 0.1 mm or more and 2.0 mm or more.
mm or less, preferably 0.1 mm or more and 1.0 mm or less.

In the cleaning device of claim 4 ,
Set the distance between the elastic blade and the guide member to 0.1 mm.
Or more and 2.0 mm or less, preferably 0.1 mm or more and 1.0
It is set to mm or less. Here, as a result of examination by the present inventors, it was found that there is a relationship shown in FIG. 3 between the distance between the blade and the guide member and the amount of toner leakage from the gap between the blade and the end seal member. . Assuming that the amount of toner adhering to the image carrier when forming a normal solid image is 0.8 mg / cm 2 and the amount of residual toner is 1/10 of that amount, about 0.08 mg / cm 2 of toner is applied to the blade. I typed in the full width. The upper limit value m of the allowable range is the toner leakage amount that does not cause a problem in the surrounding units. According to this graph, when the distance between the blade and the guide member is 0.1 mm or more and 2.0 mm or less, preferably 0.1 mm or more and 1.0 mm or less, the blade does not malfunction in the surrounding units. Also, it can be seen that the amount of toner leakage from the gap between the end seal members can be suppressed.

[0019]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a cleaning device of an electrophotographic copying machine (hereinafter referred to as copying machine) which is an image forming apparatus will be described below. Figure 1
FIG. 1A is a schematic configuration diagram of a copying machine according to the present embodiment. The photosensitive drum 1, which is a latent image carrier that rotates in the direction of the arrow, is uniformly charged by the charging device 2 and then subjected to image exposure 3 by an exposing unit (not shown). As a result, an electrostatic latent image is formed on the surface of the photosensitive drum 1. This electrostatic latent image is developed by the developing device 4 into a toner image, which is transferred by the transfer device 5 onto the transfer paper 6 as a transfer material fed from a paper feeding device (not shown). This transfer paper 6 is
After the toner image is fixed by a fixing device (not shown), the toner image is discharged to the outside of the machine. Further, residual toner remaining on the photosensitive drum 1 after the toner image is transferred onto the transfer paper 6 is removed by the cleaning device 7.

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of the cleaning device 7. The cleaning device 7 includes a casing 8 having an opening toward the photosensitive drum 1, a blade 9 as a cleaning member for scraping off the residual toner on the photosensitive drum 1, a blade holder 10 for holding the blade 9, and a blade 9 for the cleaning member 7. An inlet seal 11 for preventing the toner scraped off from the photosensitive drum 1 by the outside to be scattered to the outside of the apparatus, an inlet seal holder 12 for holding the inlet seal 11, and a toner in the casing 8 is conveyed in the arrow direction to convey the toner. The discharge screw 13 is configured to discharge to the outside. An end seal 14 is provided at the end of the blade 9 in the longitudinal direction to prevent toner leakage from the end.

As described above, the amount of toner in the casing 8 is large, and the large amount of toner is discharged by the discharge screw 1.
3 is conveyed in the direction of the arrow by the toner 3, the toner abutting the side wall 8a at the inner end portion of the casing 8 on the downstream side in the conveying direction at a position near the photosensitive drum 1 is conveyed along the side wall 8a. The photosensitive drum 1
There is a possibility that the toner may be reattached to the blade 9 and may be transported to the blade 9, or a toner pool may be formed toward the blade 9.
Therefore, in the present embodiment, a guide member 15 is provided on the downstream side in the toner discharge direction of the discharge screw 13 so as to guide the toner at a position close to the image carrier so as not to hit the side wall 8a at the inner end of the casing. There is. In this embodiment, one end of the guide member 15 is the inlet seal 1
1, and the other end near the side wall of the inner end portion of the casing 8 from the one end is arranged so as to be more distant from the photosensitive drum 1 than the one end.

FIG. 2B is a perspective view of the cleaning device 7 as viewed from the inside of the casing 8. Casing 8
A large amount of toner is contained in the guide member 15 even if the large amount of toner is conveyed in the arrow direction by the discharge screw 13.
In order to guide the toner to the discharge port 8b side so that the toner is discharged to the outside of the apparatus without hitting the inner wall 8a of the casing at a position close to the photosensitive drum 1, a gap between the blade 9 and the end seal 14 is provided. The re-adhesion of the toner to the photoconductor drum 1 and the formation of the toner pool toward the blade 9 which may cause the toner leakage from n are suppressed.

In this embodiment, the guide member 15 is made of a flexible polyester film. The guide member 15 contacts the inlet seal 11 without any gap,
The toner is prevented from entering from the contact portion. In addition, based on the above-described examination, the distance a between the blade 9 and the inlet seal 11 is set to 0.1 mm or more and 2.0 mm or less, preferably 0.1 mm or more and 1.0 mm or less, so that the peripheral unit has no problem. The amount of toner leakage from the gap n is suppressed to the extent that it does not occur.

As described above, in this embodiment, the guide for guiding the toner on the downstream side in the toner discharging direction by the discharging screw 13 so as not to hit the side wall 8a at the inner end of the casing at a position close to the image carrier. By the simple method of providing the member 15, the blade 9 and the end seal 14
It is possible to suppress the re-adhesion of the toner to the photosensitive drum 1 and the formation of the toner pool toward the blade 9, which may cause the toner leakage from the gap n between the and n, and reduce the toner leakage from the gap n.

Further, in this embodiment, the toner in the casing 8 moves along the shape of the guide member 15 in the direction in which the toner is separated from the photosensitive drum 1 as it is closer to the inner wall 8a of the casing. It can be separated from the photoconductor drum 1 without giving a large stress.

Further, in the present embodiment, the guide member 15 formed of a flexible polyester film comes into contact with the inlet seal 11 without a gap and prevents the toner from entering from the corresponding contact portion. It is possible to suppress the re-adhesion of the toner to the body drum 1 and the formation of the toner pool toward the blade 9.

Further, in the present embodiment, the blade 9
By setting the distance a between the guide member 15 and the guide member 15 within a predetermined range, it is possible to suppress the amount of toner leakage from the gap n to the extent that no malfunction occurs in the surrounding units.

In the above embodiment, the means for reducing the toner leak from the gap n in the cleaning device having the discharge member has been described, but the toner leak from the gap n is provided with the discharge member. It may occur even in a non-cleaning device. This is because, as described above, the toner tends to move toward the longitudinal end portion of the blade 9 when it is scraped off the photosensitive drum 1 by the blade 9, and toward the end portion. The phenomenon in which the transferred toner is scraped off by the blade 9 in the vicinity of the inlet seal 11 and again adheres to the photosensitive drum 1 and is supplied to the blade is repeated, and a large amount of toner is accumulated in the longitudinal end portion of the blade 9. When the toner is conveyed to the inner end of the casing 8 opposite to the toner, the toner that abuts the side wall 8a of the inner end of the casing 8 at a position near the photosensitive drum 1,
Reattached to the photosensitive drum 1 and carried to the blade 9,
This is for forming a toner reservoir toward the blade 9. Even in the cleaning device that does not include the discharge member, the guide member 1 is provided at the end of the casing 8 that faces the end of the blade 9 in the longitudinal direction, as in the above embodiment.
By providing 5, it is possible to reduce toner leakage from the gap n.

[0029]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the gap between the blade and the end seal member is formed by the simple method of providing the guide member at the end portion in the casing facing the end portion in the longitudinal direction of the elastic blade. There is an excellent effect that the re-adhesion to the image carrier and the formation of the toner pool toward the blade, which causes the toner leakage from the toner, can be suppressed and the toner leakage from the gap can be reduced.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, a simple method is provided in which a guide member is provided on the downstream side of the inner end of the casing facing the end of the elastic blade in the toner discharge direction by the discharge member. It is possible to reduce toner leakage from the gap by suppressing re-adhesion of toner to the image carrier and formation of a toner pool toward the blade, which causes toner leakage from the gap between the blade and the end seal member. There is an excellent effect .

[0032] In particular, according to the third aspect of the invention, the flexible guide member formed of a polyester film of, inlet seal member without a gap in contact, to prevent entry of toner from the abutting portion Further, there is an excellent effect that the re-adhesion of the toner to the image carrier and the formation of the toner pool toward the blade can be suppressed.

In particular, according to the invention of claim 4 , the distance between the elastic blade and the guide member is set within a predetermined range, so that the blade and the end seal member do not cause a problem in the surrounding units. There is an excellent effect that it is possible to suppress the amount of toner leaked from the gap between and.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1A is a schematic configuration diagram of an image forming apparatus according to the related art and the present embodiment. FIG. 6B is a perspective view illustrating toner leakage in the conventional cleaning device.

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of the cleaning device according to the present embodiment. FIG. 6B is a perspective view illustrating a means for reducing toner leakage in the cleaning device.

FIG. 3 is a graph showing the relationship between the distance between the blade and the guide member and the amount of toner leakage from the gap between the blade and the end seal.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 photoconductor drum 2 Charging device 3 light image 4 Developing device 5 Transfer device 6 Transfer paper 7 Cleaning device 8 casing 8a casing side wall 8b outlet 9 blades 10 blade holder 11 entrance seal 12 entrance seal holder 13 Discharge screw 14 End seal 15 Guide member

Front page continuation (72) Inventor Toshitaka Yamaguchi 1-3-6 Nakamagome, Ota-ku, Tokyo Stock company Ricoh (72) Kenzo Tatsumi 1-3-6 Nakamagome, Ota-ku, Tokyo Stock company In Ricoh (72) Inventor Hiroshi Yoshinaga 1-3-6 Nakamagome, Ota-ku, Tokyo Stock company Ricoh (72) Inventor Takeo Suda 1-3-6 Nakamagome, Tokyo Ota-ku Stock company, Ricoh (72) Inventor Ken Amamiya, 1-6-3 Nakamagome, Ota-ku, Tokyo, Ricoh Company (72) Inventor, Mayumi 1-3-3, Nakamagome, Ota-ku, Tokyo Tokyo, Ricoh Company (56) ) Reference JP-A-59-34580 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G03G 21/00

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. An elastic blade for removing residual toner remaining on the surface of an image carrier, an inlet seal member provided at a lower edge of an opening of a casing facing the image carrier, and the elastic member. in the cleaning device having a end seal member provided in the longitudinal direction end portions of the body blade, the casing end opposite the longitudinal end of the upper Symbol elastic blade, the toner in the casing, the surface shape Along
The closer to the inner wall of the casing in the longitudinal direction the image
A cleaning device comprising a guide member that guides the support member so that the guide member moves in a direction away from the carrier . 2. A cleaning device according to claim 1, and a discharge member for discharging to the outside of the apparatus to convey the toner in one direction in the casing, the upper Symbol casing end opposite to the longitudinal end of the elastic blade the toner discharge direction downstream side by the discharge member parts, the cleaning device, characterized in that provision of the guide member. 3. The cleaning device according to claim 1 or 2.
Te, the guide member is a polyester film of a flexible
A cleaning device characterized by the above. 4. The cleaning device according to claim 1, 2 or 3.
At, the distance between the elastic blade and the guide member,
0.1 mm or more and 2.0 mm or less, preferably 0.1 mm
Cleaning characterized by being 1.0 mm or less
Device.