JP5881001B2 - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a printer, a facsimile machine, or a multifunction machine having two or more of these functions, and more particularly to a holding structure of an operation unit provided in such an image forming apparatus.

  Usually, an image forming apparatus called a copying machine or a multifunction peripheral is provided with an operation unit for performing display and operation. However, in recent image forming apparatuses, for example, for a user on a wheelchair, etc. In order to provide an image forming apparatus that is very easy to operate, there is one having a mechanism for changing the angle of the operation unit.

  For example, in Patent Document 1, the operation unit is configured to be turnable in the left-right direction and the up-down direction, so that the angle of the operation surface can be changed, making it easy to check and operate the operation unit, An improved image forming apparatus is disclosed. The image forming apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1 employs a configuration (so-called in-body discharge method) that discharges paper after image formation to a discharge storage space provided between the image reading unit and the image forming unit. The operation unit is disposed on the front side of the image reading unit.

  In Patent Document 2, the operation surface of the operation unit is directed upward for the purpose of providing an image forming apparatus capable of improving the visibility and operability of the operation unit while effectively utilizing the space in the housing. A configuration is disclosed in which the display / input unit is erected vertically by being arranged at the height position of the image reading unit, horizontally pulled out to the maximum drawing position on the operation side, and then rotated downward. With this configuration, the liquid crystal display unit of the display / input unit can be visually recognized from the front side, and setting and operation can be performed through the display / input unit from a low position. In comparison, a housing without a curved surface under the drawer path of the operation unit can be adopted, and device storage efficiency in the space inside the housing is increased.

However, in the arrangement and holding configuration of the conventional operation unit described above, in order to obtain sufficient rigidity at the time of user operation, it is necessary to have a main body side structure at the lower part of the operation unit. It is necessary to connect with the operation unit. Therefore, for example, when trying to hold the operation unit equipped with a tilt hinge for enabling rotation,
(1) The number of necessary parts such as connecting members increases (2) The shape of the cover that covers the holding member becomes complicated and the appearance performance deteriorates. (3) Since there is an in-body discharge section around the holding member, (4) The fastening with the holding member has to be removed, and there are problems such as poor maintainability.

  In addition, in order to support the rehabilitation method for physically handicapped persons, the scanner part is difficult to remove due to the presence of the operation part, etc. There is also a problem that a cover that takes into account the appearance of the periphery of the portion where the operation unit and the scanner unit are connected is necessary.

  In many cases, since the operation unit can be used with other models, it is desirable that the holding structure of the operation unit does not change the configuration of the image forming apparatus main body as much as possible. That the image forming apparatus main body side should avoid.

  SUMMARY An advantage of some aspects of the invention is that it provides sufficient rigidity for holding an operation unit without a connection portion with the main body structure side of the image forming apparatus.

An image forming apparatus according to the present invention includes a scanner structure and a main body structure, and is fastened to the main body structure in an image forming apparatus provided with an operation unit held by the scanner structure via an arm-shaped bracket. holds the rotation center portion of the front Symbol bracket by the outer package, the body structure of the projections on the upper surface of the fastening the sheathing material provided on, distribution of exterior material surrounding said bracket so as to be in contact with the projecting portion And it is characterized by maintaining a predetermined distance from the exterior material fastened to the main body structure .

According to the present invention, the exterior material attached to the main body structure side is used to support the operation unit of the image forming apparatus, the projection is provided on the upper surface of the exterior material, and the exterior material that surrounds the bracket by the height dimension thereof. Even if an unexpected force is applied to the operation unit by leaving a certain interval in the operation unit exterior material, the force is transmitted from the operation unit to the bracket, the exterior material surrounding the bracket, and the exterior material on the main body structure side to the main body structure. It is possible to obtain sufficient rigidity to hold the operation unit without deforming the bracket and the like .

Sectional drawing which shows notionally the whole structure of an example of the image forming apparatus which can apply this invention FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a scanner structure and a main body structure constituting the image forming apparatus of FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an operation unit provided in the image forming apparatus of FIG. The side view which shows the relationship between a scanner structure and an operation part by the structure of FIG. The side view which shows the connection structure of a scanner structure and an operation part by the structure of FIG. The perspective view (A) and enlarged side view (B) which show one Embodiment of this invention The perspective view which shows the upper surface part of the exterior material fastened to a main body structure The side view which shows the structure of the operation part and bracket in one Embodiment of this invention

  In the image forming apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention, the holding bracket of the operation unit is held by the exterior material held on the image forming apparatus main body side, so that the operation can be performed without providing the connecting part on the main body structure side of the image forming apparatus. In addition to obtaining sufficient rigidity for holding the part, it is possible to improve the appearance performance of the operation part, the visibility of the periphery, and maintainability with a simple configuration.

  FIG. 1 is a sectional view conceptually showing the overall structure of an example of an image forming apparatus to which the present invention is applicable. The image forming apparatus according to the present embodiment mainly includes a reading unit 111 that reads a document, an image forming unit 112 that forms an image, an automatic document feeder (ADF) 113, and a document discharge tray that stacks documents sent from the ADF 113. 114, a paper feed unit 119 including paper feed cassettes 115 to 118, and a paper discharge unit (discharge tray 120) for stacking recording paper.

  In this apparatus, when the document D is set on the document table 121 of the ADF 113 and an operation on an operation unit (not shown), for example, a press operation of a print key is performed, the uppermost document D is rotated in the direction of arrow B 1 by the rotation of the pickup roller 122. And is fed onto the contact glass 124 fixed to the image reading unit 111 by the rotation of the document conveying belt 123, and stops there. The image of the document D placed on the contact glass 124 is read by a reading device 125 positioned between the image forming unit 112 and the contact glass 124. The reading device 125 includes a light source 126 that illuminates the document D on the contact glass 124, an optical system 127 that forms an image of the document, a photoelectric conversion element 128 that includes a CCD that forms an image of the document, and the like. After the image reading is completed, the document D is transported in the direction of arrow B2 by the rotation of the document transport belt 123 and discharged onto the document discharge tray 114. In this way, the document D is fed one by one onto the contact glass 124 and the document image is read by the image reading unit 111.

  On the other hand, inside the image forming unit 112, a photoreceptor 130 as an image carrier is disposed. The photoconductor 130 is driven to rotate clockwise in the drawing, and the charging device 131 charges the surface to a predetermined potential. Further, the writing unit 132 emits a laser beam L that is light-modulated in accordance with image information read by the reading device 125, and the surface of the charged photoreceptor 130 is exposed with the laser beam L. An electrostatic latent image is formed on the surface of the body 130. When the electrostatic latent image passes through the developing device 133, the electrostatic latent image is transferred to the recording material P fed between the photosensitive member 130 and the transfer device 134 by the opposing transfer device 134. The surface of the photoreceptor 130 after the toner image transfer is cleaned by a cleaning device 135.

  A plurality of paper feed cassettes 115 to 118 arranged at the lower part of the image forming unit 112 contain recording material P such as paper, and the recording material P is fed from any of the paper feed cassettes 115 to 118 in the direction of arrow B3. The toner image formed on the surface of the photoreceptor 130 as described above is transferred onto the surface of the recording material P. Next, the recording material P is passed through the fixing device 140 in the image forming unit 112 as indicated by an arrow B4, and the toner image transferred onto the surface of the recording material P by the action of heat and pressure is fixed. The recording material P that has passed through 136 is conveyed by the discharge roller pair 137, discharged to the discharge tray 120 as shown by an arrow B5, and stacked.

  When the image forming apparatus as described above is configured to include the scanner structure 1 and the main body structure 2 as shown in FIG. 2, the operation unit operated by the user is generally a machine as shown in FIG. It is attached to the front side, that is, the front surface portion 3 of the scanner structure 1. In such a configuration, when the operation unit 4 is rotatable and includes the display surface 4a, the operation unit 4 can be rotated between the scanner structure 1 and the operation unit 4 as shown in FIG. Therefore, an appropriate distance interval (gap) 5 is required. It is necessary to bridge this distance by the bracket 6.

However, the larger the interval 5 is, the smaller the holding rigidity of the operation unit 4 is, so that the user's operational feeling is also lowered. Therefore, for example, as shown in FIG. 5, a structure is conceivable in which the operation unit 4 and the vicinity 7 of the operation unit 4 of the main body structure 2 are connected via the bracket 6, thereby increasing the holding rigidity.
(1) The number of necessary parts such as connecting members increases (2) The shape of the cover that covers the holding member becomes complicated and the appearance performance deteriorates. (3) Since there is an in-body discharge section around the holding member, Visibility of (under the scanner structure) decreases (4) The fastening with the holding member has to be removed, and the maintainability deteriorates (5) A cover must be prepared for separating the scanner (6) It is not very effective to connect the bracket 6 to the vicinity portion 7 of the operation unit 4 because it becomes difficult to divert the operation unit alone to other models.

<Embodiment>
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
Therefore, in the embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 6A, the main body structure 2 and the operation portion 4 are not directly connected, but the operation portion 4 is provided by the exterior material 8 fastened to the main body structure 2. The rotation center position is held. In the illustrated embodiment, the exterior material 8 is provided so as to cover the connecting portion of the scanner structure 1 and the main body structure 2, but is not limited to this form, and maintains the rotational center position of the operation unit 4. Various structures can be adopted as long as they can be attached to the main body structure 2 so as to be able to.

  Moreover, in this embodiment, the exterior material 8 to be positioned below the operation unit 4 is fastened to the main body structure 2 with screws. For this reason, when the operation unit 4 is attached to the exterior member 8, a sufficient holding force of the operation unit 4 is provided.

  As shown in detail in FIG. 7, ribs 9 are provided on the upper surface of the exterior material 8. The rib 9 has an L-shaped planar shape in the illustrated example, but may be any other shape as long as it can support the lower surface of the operation unit 4.

  Depending on the height of the rib 9, the bracket exterior member 10 surrounding the bracket 6 and the exterior member 11 of the operation unit 4 are provided with a certain interval (or gap) 12 (see FIG. 6B). The distance dimension of the interval 10 may be zero, but is preferably not zero.

  As shown in FIG. 8, the bracket exterior material 10 and the bracket 6 are provided so as to contact each other on the lower surface side of the bracket 6, and when an unexpected force is applied downward with respect to the operation unit 4, the force is applied. The operation unit 4 communicates with the bracket 6, the bracket exterior member 10, and the exterior member 8, and is received by the main body structure 2 so that the bracket 6 and the like are not deformed.

  Furthermore, since the operation unit 4 is held with a simple configuration, the appearance performance of the operation unit 4 and its surrounding parts, the visibility of the peripheral parts, and the maintainability can be improved.

  In the illustrated embodiment, only the downward force of the operation unit 4 is received. However, the bracket exterior member 10 and the exterior member 8 are appropriately latched, that is, combined with each other so as to engage each other. A configuration in which the operation unit 4 is fixed and the operation unit 4 is held so that the bracket 6 and the like are not deformed by the force even when a vertical force is applied to the operation unit 4 may be employed.

  Note that the exterior material 8 that supports the operation unit 4 is not directly attached to the main body structure 2 having a model-dependent shape as in the present embodiment, but can be provided in a device attached to the main body structure 2.

  The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above, and many modifications can be made by those having ordinary knowledge in the art within the technical idea of the present invention.

1: Scanner structure 2: Main body structure 3: Front part 4: Operation part 4a: Display surface 6: Bracket 7: Neighborhood 8: Exterior material 9: Rib 10: Bracket exterior material 11: Exterior material 111: Reading unit 112 : Image forming unit 114: Document discharge tray 115: Paper feed cassette 119: Paper feed unit 120: Paper discharge tray 121: Document tray 122: Pickup roller 123: Document transport belt 124: Contact glass 125: Reading device 126: Light source 127 : Optical system 128: Photoelectric conversion element 130: Photoconductor 131: Charging device 132: Writing unit 133: Developing device 134: Transfer device 135: Cleaning device 140: Fixing device D: Document L: Laser beam P: Recording material

JP 2008-135918 A JP 2010-102143 A JP 2010-109458 A JP 2010-102143 A

Claims (5)

In an image forming apparatus comprising a scanner structure and a main body structure, the operation unit being held in the scanner structure via an arm-shaped bracket,
It holds the rotation center portion of the front Symbol bracket by the outer package which is fastened to the main body structure,
Protruding portions are provided on the upper surface of the exterior material fastened to the main body structure,
An exterior material that surrounds the bracket is disposed so as to be in contact with the protrusion, and is maintained at a predetermined distance from the exterior material fastened to the main body structure.
An image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1.
An image forming apparatus, wherein an exterior material surrounding the bracket and an exterior material fastened to the main body structure are in contact with each other and receive a downward force applied to the operation unit . The image forming apparatus according to claim 2.
The outer packaging material surrounding the bracket is combined with the outer packaging material fastened to the main body structure, and the vertical force applied to the operation portion is received.
An image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus according to claim 2 or 3,
The protrusion has an L-shaped planar shape,
Image forming apparatus The image forming apparatus according to any one of claims 2 to 4 ,
The protrusion is rib-shaped,
An image forming apparatus.