JPH01129279A - Toner collecting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make the removal of toner in a collecting container and the replacing operation thereof to a necessary minimum by providing a sensor for detecting the acceleration or the impulse of the collecting container and a controller for determining a time when the collecting container is full of the toner based on the detected information. CONSTITUTION:The acceleration sensor 21 is provided on a holding dish 14 and the controller 22 controls the driving of a motor 20 so as to change the position of a spring hook 16 based on the information, so that the acceleration can be kept constant regardless of the alteration of the quantity of the toner in the collecting container 13. Since a warning means such as a lamp or a buzzer, etc., issues a warning about the time when the collecting container 13 is full of the toner from the information of the moving quantity of the spring hook 16, the collecting container 13 can stably and plentifully house the toner with high concentration. Thus, it is needless to unnecessarily and frequently perform the removal of the toner in the collecting container and the replacing operation of said container.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a device for recovering toner remaining on the surface of an image carrier of an image forming apparatus such as an electrophotographic copying machine, and particularly to a device for recovering toner remaining on the surface of an image carrier using a cleaning device. The toner is removed and dropped into a collection container having a toner receiving port on one edge side, and the collection container is reciprocated in the direction of the one end edge and the opposite edge, and is prevented from moving toward the opposite edge, thereby reducing impact acceleration. The present invention relates to a toner recovery device.

[Background of the invention]

The above-mentioned toner recovery device is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-54369.
It is known from the publication no. A conventional method for knowing when to remove or replace toner in a collection container in such a toner collection device is to provide a detection means for detecting when toner has accumulated in the collection container to a certain level or higher. In this method, the amount of toner in the collection container at the time of detection varies greatly due to changes in the state of toner accumulation and toner adhesion to the detection means, which tends to result in erroneous detection. Therefore, there is a problem in that the toner must be removed or replaced from the collection container unnecessarily frequently.

Furthermore, the toner recovery device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-54369 uses a stepped eccentric cam to move the recovery container toward one end edge side where the toner receiving port is provided, against the bias of a spring. The cam is dropped onto the small diameter circumferential surface of the cam, and the movement of the collection container by the spring bias in the opposite direction repeatedly gives a large acceleration that is stopped by the small diameter circumferential surface of the cam, so the magnitude of the acceleration can be easily determined. However, if a stepped eccentric cam or spring is installed that provides a large acceleration to sufficiently fill the collection container with toner to the opposite edge of the toner receiving port, the cam or cam follower Not only will the wear and tear on the
The impact sound and the vertical vibration force of the collection container □ (because it becomes large and cannot be suppressed, the acceleration applied to the collection container is limited to a lower value than that), and therefore, toner tends to accumulate in the toner receiving opening, and the toner is not deposited into the collection container. In order to fully accommodate the toner, the height of the collection container must be increased not only at the toner receiving eye but also at the portion outside of the toner receiving eye, which poses problems such as an increase in the size of the image forming apparatus.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems in the conventional toner collection device, and its first object is to provide a toner collection device that can minimize the work of removing or replacing toner in a collection container. Another object of the present invention is to provide a toner collection device that generates less impact noise and harmful vibrations due to the reciprocating movement of the collection container, and that can provide sufficient acceleration to uniformly and densely fill the collection container with toner. 2 objectives.

[Structure of the invention]

According to the present invention, toner on the surface of an image bearing member of an image forming apparatus is removed by a cleaning device, and the toner is dropped into a collection container having a toner receiving opening on one edge side, and the collection container is reciprocated in the direction of the one edge and the opposite edge. In a toner collection device that applies impact acceleration by being prevented from moving toward the opposite edge, a toner collection device includes a sensor that detects the acceleration or impact force of the collection container, and a sensor that detects the acceleration or impact force of the collection container, and a sensor that applies toner to the collection container based on the detection information of the sensor. The second object is achieved by using a fixed member to prevent the control device for determining when the toner is full and the container from moving toward the side opposite to the edge where the toner receiving opening is provided.

〔Example〕

The present invention will be explained below using illustrated examples.

FIG. 1 is a schematic side view showing an example of an image forming apparatus equipped with the toner collecting device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a partial side view showing an example of the toner collecting device of the present invention, and FIGS. FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing different examples of the collection container; FIG. 6 is a graph showing changes in toner capacity and acceleration of the collection container; FIG. 7 is the collection container. 3 is a graph showing the acceleration of the toner and the state in which toner is filled.

The image forming apparatus shown in FIG. 1 includes a continuous light drum 1 which is an image carrier.
rotates in the direction of the arrow, the charger 2 uniformly charges the surface of the photosensitive drum 1, and the image exposure device 3 using a laser beam scanner performs image exposure by dot exposure on the charged surface of the photosensitive drum 1. to form an electrostatic image, one of the developing devices 4 to 6 develops the electrostatic image into a toner image of yellow, cyan, magenta, etc., and the surface of the photosensitive drum 1 on which the toner image is formed. When it passes through the positions of the transfer device 71, the separator 8, and the cleaning device 9, which are in an inactive state, and enters the second rotation, it is charged again by the charger 2, and an electrostatic image is formed by the image exposure device 3. Developing devices 4 to 6 separate from the
The same process is repeated even after the third rotation to form a color image consisting of a composite of three color toner images on the photosensitive drum 1, and the color image is fed by the paper feeding means 10. The recording paper on which the color image has been transferred is separated from the photosensitive drum 1 by a separator 8, and then sent to a fixing device 12 by a transfer device 11. The color image is fixed on the recording paper and the recording paper is ejected from the machine. Then, residual toner is removed from the surface of the photosensitive drum 1 onto which the color image has been transferred by the cleaning device 9, and the state returns to the state where the next color image can be formed again.

The cleaning device 9 scrapes off toner on the surface of the photosensitive drum 1 with a scraping member 9a, and removes the toner from the guide plate 9.
b, the toner conveying means 90 is guided, and the toner conveying means 9C conveys the toner to one end in the width direction of the cleaning device 9, and drops it into the collection container 13 through a drop conduit 9d provided at the end. In the illustrated example, a blade is used as the scraping member 9a and a screw conveyor is used as the toner conveying means 9C, but the present invention is not limited to this. You can.

In the example shown in FIG. 1, the collection container 13 is placed below the transfer device 11 and the fixing device 12, but in the example shown in FIGS.
It may be arranged below the cleaning device 9 as shown in the figure. However, in the arrangement shown in Figure 1,
Since the toner head is large, the toner moves to the back from the toner receiving port 13a without forming a pile in the collection container 13, and the position of the drop pipe 9d is on the side of the transfer device 11. It now comes off in the opposite direction, and the drop pipe 9
Since the connection between the drop pipe 9d and the collection container 13 is located below the transfer device 11, even if toner leaks from the connection between the drop pipe 9d and the collection container 13, the recording paper will not be damaged. It will not be contaminated, and furthermore, the collection container 13
The arrangement shown in FIG. 1 is preferable because it provides a degree of design freedom in that the image forming apparatus can be taken out from the image forming apparatus to the left in the figure, to the front, or to the back.

Although the drive mechanism of the collection container 13 is omitted in Fig. 1,
The drive mechanism is the collection container 13 shown in FIGS. 2 to 4.
Since the drive mechanism is the same as the one shown in FIG.

As shown in FIGS. 1 to 4, the collection container 13 has a toner receiving port 13a on one edge side, and as described below, is given a movement that allows it to be fully filled with toner, so that the cleaning device 9 In the image forming apparatus, the toner is integrally held in the holding tray 14 at least in the movement direction so that the toner can be installed compactly in the space created below the image forming apparatus and the collected toner can be removed from the image forming apparatus. .

The holding tray 14 is held by a fixed frame 15 of the image forming apparatus so as to be movable in the direction of one end edge having a toner receiving opening 13a in which the toner storage chamber of the collection container 13 is expanded and the opposite edge. A spring 17 tensioned between the spring hook 16 and a spring hook 16 provided on the side urges the collecting container 13 toward the edge opposite to the one end edge having the toner receiving opening 13a. Note that the holding plate 14 may come into contact with the fixed frame 15 through rollers with low friction;
In order to smoothly reciprocate and prevent the holding plate 14 from bouncing, contact is preferably made with a slider made of resin or the like having an appropriate coefficient of friction. And holding plate 1
4 is a stepped eccentric cam (Fig. 3) or a stepped surface cam (Fig. 4)
Alternatively, an actuating means 18 such as an electromagnetically driven plunger is used to resist the bias of the spring 17 and move the collection container 13 into two. When the actuating means 18 releases its operation due to the step of the cam or the de-energization of the electromagnet, the fixing frame 15 is moved to the opposite side by the bias of the spring 17. The object repeatedly collides with the fixing member 19 provided at the center. In this way, when the holding tray 14 collides with the fixing member 19, the occurrence of vertical vibrations that reduce the toner conveying effect due to collision noise and acceleration is reduced, and the toner receiving port is removed from the collection container 13 that is integrated with the holding tray 14. It becomes possible to apply a large acceleration to move the toner received from 13a to the opposite edge side and fill the toner storage chamber sequentially from the back.

Note that the acceleration can be easily controlled by moving the position of the spring hook 16 or the fixing member 19. Among them, the movement of the fixed member 19 is performed by the actuating means 18.
is limited within the maximum displacement range of the holding tray 14 given by . Therefore, in the illustrated example, the position of the spring hook 16 is moved by a motor 20 provided on the fixed frame 15, and an acceleration sensor 21 is also provided on the holding tray 14, and the control device 22 drives the motor 20 based on the information. The position of the spring hook 16 is moved under control, and the collection container 13 is moved.
The acceleration can be kept constant regardless of changes in the amount of toner inside.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned example, but may be such that the acceleration is obtained by blocking the movement due to the spring bias by the lower surface of the stepped portion of the stepped cam. However, if acceleration is applied by collision with the fixing member 19-, the rate of decrease in acceleration due to an increase in the amount of toner in the collection container 13 is reduced, even without the above-mentioned acceleration control, and the collection The container 13 can now be completely filled with toner. This point will be explained with reference to FIG.

Figure 6 shows the relationship between the toner storage capacity of the collection container and the acceleration α when the acceleration is not controlled, and the dotted curves A and B
is the case where α is given by a collision with the small diameter peripheral surface of the step 0 part of the stepped eccentric cam, and the solid line curve C is given by the collision against the fixed member 19 with a urethane rubber buffer member 19a provided on the collision surface. be. Collection container 131' - To fully fill toner from the back side, it is preferable to keep α at 1.0G (G is the acceleration of gravity) or more, and move α to the stepped lower surface of the stepped cam. It is preferable that α does not exceed 2.0G from the viewpoint of suppressing impact noise and vertical vibration, especially when the impact is caused by a collision with the stepped cam. , as shown in curves A and B, if α is maintained at 1.0G or more, α will be greater than 2.0G when the amount of toner in the collection container 13 is small, causing collision noise and vertical If vibration cannot be suppressed and α is to be kept below 2.0G, α will be below 1.0G when the amount of toner in the collection container 13 increases, and the collection container 13 will be filled with toner. The temperature drops below 0.5G, which makes it impossible to perform. On the other hand, if α is applied by collision with the fixed member 19, as shown in curve C, α can be maintained within the range of 1.0G to 2.0G without controlling it. , impact noise and vertical vibration can be suppressed, and the collection container 13 can be fully filled with toner. This point will be further explained with reference to FIG.

When α is 1.0G or more, the toner filling area F, which is shown by cross-hatching in FIG.
Since the toner grows in the direction of the edge where the toner receiving opening 13a is located while keeping it parallel to the back edge of the toner opening 13a, when the toner starts to overflow into the toner receiving opening 13a, the collecting container 13 is almost completely filled with toner. The collection container 1 is fully filled, but when α becomes 0.5G or less, the growth front Fa of the toner filling area F is separated from the toner receiving port 13a.
3 is largely receded on the side wall side, so even when toner overflows into the toner receiving port 13a, the side wall side where the growth front Fa is still receding is equivalent to the toner storage chamber of the collection container 13. A blank space will remain. Needless to say, if α is 0, even if toner overflows at the toner receiving port 13a, most of the other portions remain empty. Therefore, in order to fully fill the collection container 13 with toner, it is necessary to set α to more than 0.5G, and it is particularly preferable to set it to more than 1.0G.The hatched portion in FIG. unfilled toner existing area,
Most of the white background area is a toner-free area where there is no toner.

In addition, the upper limit of 2.0G of the above-mentioned preferable range of α is α
This is for the case where is caused by the collision of the stepped cam with the lower surface of the stepped portion. If α is applied by collision with the fixed member 19, impact noise and vertical vibration will be less generated, so α
The upper limit of this can be increased to about 3.0G.

In particular, in the example shown in FIG. 4 in which a stepped surface cam is used as the actuating means 18, force is applied in the axial direction of the cam. The generation of impact noise and vertical vibration is much smaller than in the example shown in the figure.Furthermore, in the example shown in Fig. 4, the drive system for the collection container 13 can be simplified, and the toner collection device can be made more compact in the image forming apparatus. can be incorporated.

When α is applied by collision with the fixing member 19, α can be increased as described above, so that the height of the toner storage chamber of the collection container 13 has the toner receiving opening 13a as shown in FIG. Even if you choose a shape that is higher at the back than the sides, or even wider at the back,
The collection container 13 can be filled with toner at a high density, allowing the toner storage capacity of the collection container 13 to be increased without losing the feature that it can be installed compactly in the image forming apparatus. The cycle can be lengthened.

In order to stably lengthen the period of toner removal or replacement of the collection container 13, it is necessary to accurately know when the collection container 13 is filled with toner.

Therefore, in the toner collection device of the present invention, α changes according to the toner capacity of the collection container 13 as shown in FIG. 6, or the spring hook 16 or the fixing member 19 is moved in order to keep α constant. Taking advantage of this fact, the information of the acceleration sensor 21 or the spring hook 16 or the fixing member 19
The control device 22 determines when the collection container 13 is full of toner based on the information about the movement of the toner, and issues a warning using a warning means (not shown) such as a lamp or a buzzer. Regarding this, in addition to the acceleration sensor 21, the fixed frame 15
Alternatively, an impact pressure sensor is provided at the collision part of the holding tray 14,
It is also possible to determine the warning timing based on the ratio of this information and the information from the acceleration sensor 21 to improve accuracy. As a result of the above, it is possible to minimize the amount of toner removed or replaced in the collection container 13.

Based on the above, a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention is to incorporate a toner collection device into an image forming apparatus as shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 4, the actuating means 18 uses a stepped surface cam, and the collision surface of the fixed member 19 has a rubber hardness of 65.
A buffer member 19a of ~70 degrees is provided, the stroke of the holding plate 14 stopped by the fixing member I9 is about 5ffIn1, the number of rotations of the stepped surface cam is about 5 Orpm, and α is set to 1 by controlling the position of the spring hook 16. An example is that the toner is kept constant in the range of 0G to 2.0G, and a warning is given that the collection container 13 is about to be full of toner based on the movement amount information of the spring hook 16. As a result, the image forming apparatus can be configured compactly, the recording paper is not contaminated with collected toner, impact noise and vertical vibration are reduced, and the collection container 13 can be stably filled with toner at a high density. Therefore, it is possible to stably lengthen the toner removal or replacement cycle of the collection container 13, and the durability of the toner collection device is also excellent.

In order to allow the collection container 13 to be taken in and out horizontally, the holding tray 14 has its left wall in the direction perpendicular to the reciprocating direction in the example of FIG. 1, and in the reciprocating direction in the example of FIG. The left side wall in one figure, and the right side wall (not shown) in the example in Figure 4, are configured to collapse horizontally. In addition, the collection container 13 can be taken in and out horizontally, and the drop pipe is designed so that the toner does not come out from the part where the drop pipe 9d of the cleaning device 9 is in contact with the toner receiving port 13a of the collection container 13. A flange lid is provided at the bottom of 9d. This flange lid is placed in the drop pipe 9d so as to be in contact with the upper surface of the collection container 13 rather than being fixed to the drop pipe 9d.
It is preferable to slidably engage the outer shape of d.

[Effects of the Invention] According to the present invention, it is possible to know when it is time to remove or replace toner in the collection container with less fluctuation in the amount of toner contained, and it is possible to avoid unnecessarily frequent toner removal or replacement work in the collection container. You can get the effect of saying nothing.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic side view showing an example of an image forming apparatus equipped with the toner collecting device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a partial side view showing an example of the toner collecting device of the present invention, and FIGS. FIG. 5 is a partial front view showing an example of a collection device, FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing different examples of the collection container, FIG. 6 is a graph showing changes in toner capacity and acceleration of the collection container, and FIG. 7 is acceleration of the collection container. 3 is a graph showing a state in which toner is filled. ■...Photosensitive drum, 2...Charger, 3...
Image exposure device, 4-6... Developing device, 7... Transfer device, 8... Separator, 9... Cleaning device, 9a... Scraping member, 9b... Guide plate, 9c
... Toner conveyance means, 9d ... Drop pipe, 10.
...paper feeding means, 11... receiving and passing device, 12
...Fixing device, 13...Collection container, 13a
... Toner receiving port, 14 ... Holding tray, 15 ...
Fixed frame, 16... Spring hook, 17... Spring, 18... Operating means, 19... Fixed member, 19a... Buffer member, 20... Motor, 21... Acceleration sensor, 22...
Control device. Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 2oo 400 600 800 Tona 11 Bunsan Ft (%) 7th rf! i

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) Toner on the image bearing surface of the image forming apparatus is removed by a cleaning device, and the toner is dropped into a collection container having a toner receiving opening on one edge side, and the collection container is reciprocated in the direction of the one edge and the opposite edge. In a toner collection device that applies impact acceleration by being prevented from moving toward the opposite edge, there is a sensor that detects the acceleration or impact force of the collection container, and a sensor that detects whether the collection container is full of toner based on the detection information of the sensor. 1. A toner collection device characterized by comprising: a control device for determining when toner is to be collected. (2) The toner recovery device according to claim 1, wherein movement of the recovery container toward the opposite edge is prevented by a fixing member.