JPH02261558A - Developer coating applicator - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To apply the necessary and sufficient amount of a developer to a supporting body in a shorter time by constituting a carrying body for the granular developer of a nearly cylindrical roller wherein the recessed groove parts are formed in a range over the nearly whole surface of the carrying body. CONSTITUTION:A granular developer S is applied to the surface of a supporting body P carried by a carrier device 2 via a carrying body 6 with the granular developer carried thereon while forming an electric field between the carrying body 6 and the supporting body P. This carrying body 6 is constituted of a nearly cylindrical roller wherein the recessed groove parts 6c are formed in a range over the nearly whole surface of the carrying body 6. In other words, large amounts of the developer are carried on the carrying body and thereby the necessary and sufficient amount of the developer is applied to the supporting body such as plain paper in a shorter time.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a color developer coating device for applying granular color developer to a support such as plain paper that supports the color developer in image recording.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, there are microcapsule paper that encapsulates a dye precursor and supports microcapsules whose mechanical strength changes in response to light, and is exposed to light according to image information, and plain paper selected by the user. An image forming medium prepared by attaching a color developer to the surface of an arbitrary support is brought into close contact with the surface of the support, and then the microcapsules on the microcapsule paper with lower mechanical strength are destroyed by a pressure phenomenon. There is an image forming apparatus that forms an image on the support by reacting the dye precursor discharged by the color developer with a color developer. In order to apply a color developer to a support such as plain paper, a carrier such as a roller carrying charged particulate color developer is placed in a non-contact state on the support. A developer coating device is known in which a color developer is disposed so that a developer is caused to fly toward a support by electrostatic force generated by an electric field between a carrier and a support.

As a developer carrier in this type of device, a roller is generally used which has a structure in which a cylindrical metal core is used and the outer peripheral surface of the core is covered with a sleeve-shaped insulating material made of epoxy resin or the like. Here, the particulate color developer is charged by friction with the surface layer made of an insulating material of the roller, and is supported on this surface layer by electrostatic force.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, in the developer carrier having the above structure, since the developer is supported by electrostatic force, a layer thickness of the developer corresponding to the size of the particle is deposited on the surface of the carrier. The problem is that only a small amount of the color developer is supported, and the amount of color developer that flies toward the support such as plain paper due to the electrostatic attraction caused by the electric field is insufficient. There was a point.

Therefore, in order to apply the necessary and sufficient amount of color developer to the support, it is necessary to make the conveyance speed of the support significantly slower than the peripheral speed of the color developer carrier, and the color developer is coated. The current situation is that it takes a lot of time.

The present invention was made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and the present invention is made to carry more color developer on a color developer carrier,
The purpose of this invention is to provide a support material such as plain paper that can be coated with a necessary and sufficient amount of color developer in a shorter time.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the color developer coating device according to the present invention coats the surface of the support conveyed by the conveyance device with the support and the above-mentioned color developer via the carrier carrying particulate color developer. In a developer coating device that applies color developer while forming an electric field between supports, the carrier is coated with a substantially cylindrical roller having a concave groove formed over almost the entire surface of the carrier. It is composed of

[Effect]

According to the present invention having the above-mentioned configuration, when the color developer carrier constituted by the substantially cylindrical roller is rotationally driven, the grooves provided on the surface thereof come into contact with the particulate color developer. As a result, the frictional force acting between the roller and the color developer is much greater than that of conventional rollers without grooves, and a large amount of color developer can be carried within the grooves on the surface of this roller. .

〔Example〕

An embodiment embodying the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a color developer application device embodying the present invention. The color developer application device 20, which has an outlet 12 and an insertion port 13, has a space inside it for forming an image. A support transport device 15 for transporting a support P such as plain paper to which a color developer S is applied and a developer supply device 11 are provided.

The support conveyance device 15 includes an electrode roller 1 for applying a high voltage of a predetermined polarity to the support P, a DC voltage power source 5, and a conveyance roller 3 for conveying the support P.
A conveyor belt 2 is provided. The developer supply device 11 also includes a developer carrier 6, a developer supply roller 8 which is auxiliary provided to cause the carrier 6 to carry the developer S, and A uniformizing blade 7 is used to adjust the thickness of the layer of the color developer S carried thereon to a predetermined thickness, and the color developer S carried on the carrier 6 is removed immediately before it comes into contact with the supply roller 8. A removing blade 10 is provided, and particulate color developer S is stored in a color developer case 9.

Furthermore, the support P held and conveyed by the conveyance belt 2 and the carrier 6 are configured to face each other with a gap d in the transfer area 14.

The carrier 6 includes a cylindrical core member 6a made of metal such as aluminum, and a sleeve-shaped covering member 6b made of an insulating material such as epoxy resin that covers the outer peripheral surface of the core member 6a.
The surface of the covering member 6b has a pitch of about 0.5 to 5 degrees and a depth of about 0.1 to 5.
As shown in FIG. 2, a groove 6c of about 1 mm is formed parallel to the longitudinal direction.

By providing the groove 6C in this manner, when the carrier 6 is rotationally driven and brought into contact with the color developer S, the frictional force acting between the surface of the carrier 6 and the color developer S increases, and the developer The electrostatic force for supporting the colorant S is increased, and a large amount of the color developer S can be supported within the grooves 6c on the surface of the carrier 6.

Of course, this groove portion 6c may be a knurled flat groove defined in JIS B 0951, for example.

FIG. 3 shows a carrier 6' that is different from the carrier 6 described above, in which grooves 60' are formed on the entire surface of a covering member 6b' that covers the outer peripheral surface of the core member 6a'. They are formed parallel to each other with a twist.

FIG. 4 shows a still different carrier 6', in which a groove 60' is formed parallel to the axis with a certain twist on the entire surface of a covering member 6b'' that covers the outer peripheral surface of a core member 6a''. To,
Moreover, they are formed so as to intersect with each other.

In this case, it can be easily formed by knurling grooves specified in JIS B 0951.

In the above, the carriers 6, 6', 6' are the core members 6a', 6a' and the covering member 6b, respectively.

6b' and 6b', but it goes without saying that they may be integrally made of metal such as aluminum.

The operation of the above embodiment will be explained below.

When a motor (not shown) is driven, the carrier 6 and the supply roller 8 rotate, and the particulate color developer S stored in the developer case 9 is conveyed to the vicinity of the carrier 6 by the supply roller 8. . Here, the carrier 6 has grooves 6 on its surface.
c is formed, the frictional force between the carrier 6 and the color developer S is large, and the developer S is taken into the groove 6c, and the surface layer of the coating member 6b of the carrier 6 is charged. Since the electrostatic force is large, a large amount of color developer S is supported on the carrier 6. Further, the color developer S is shaped into a layer of a predetermined thickness by a uniformizing blade 7 provided on the downstream side of the carrier 6 in the rotational direction, and is supported on the surface of the carrier 6.

At this time, since the color developer S is made of a dielectric material,
Individual particles or aggregates between the color developer S are charged by contacting or rubbing against other particles or aggregates. In this state, the amount of charge of the entire color developer S is neutralized to zero because the same number of color developers S of opposite polarity are present. By coating the contact surface with an insulating polymer material, the color developer S can be uniformly charged positively or negatively.

In this way, the color developer S is charged and carried on the surface of the carrier 6, and is conveyed toward the transfer area 14.

On the other hand, a support P such as plain paper to which the developer S is applied is inserted into the developer coating device 2o from the insertion port 13, supported by the conveyor belt 2, and rotated by the electrode roller 1 and the conveyor roller 3. It is conveyed toward the transfer area 14 along with the movement. Here, the electrode roller 1 is made of metal, and a high voltage of several hundred to several kilovolts is applied by a power source 5, so that an electric field is present in the transfer region 14.

Then, in this transfer area 14, the charged color developer S supported in a layer on the surface of the carrier 6 flies toward the electrode roller 1 according to the electric field existing here, and is developed on the support P. Colorant S is applied.

Thereafter, the color developer S that was not blown away by the electric field is present on the surface of the carrier 6, but these are removed by the tip of the grounded removal blade 10 coming into contact with the surface of the carrier 6. At the same time, the electric charge is also neutralized.

On the other hand, the support P coated with the color developer S is transferred to the transport device 15.
The color developer coating device 20 is conveyed according to the operation of the color developer application device 20 and is discharged from the extraction port 12 to the outside of the developer coating device 20 .

〔Effect of the invention〕

As is clear from the detailed description above, according to the present invention, a large amount of particulate color developer can be held in the grooves provided on the surface of the color developer carrier, so that The electric field that exists between the support and the carrier can cause a large amount of color developer to fly toward the support, which has the effect of allowing a large amount of color developer to be applied to the support in a short period of time. be.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 and 2 show one embodiment of the present invention, in which FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram, FIG. 2 is a front view of the carrier, and FIGS. 3 and 4.
The figures are front views showing other embodiments of different carriers. 1... Electrode roller, 2... Conveyance bell 1-16.6'
6'...Carrier, 6c, 6c', 6c...Same groove, 8...Supply roller, 11...Developer supply device, 14...Transfer area, 15...Support Conveying device, 2
0... Color developer coating device, P... Support, S... Color developer.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A color developer that is applied to the surface of a support conveyed by a conveyance device via a carrier carrying particulate color developer while forming an electric field between the carrier and the support. A color developer coating device characterized in that the carrier is constituted by a substantially cylindrical roller having a concave groove formed over almost the entire surface of the carrier.