JPH02298982A - Recovery device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the recovery capacity efficiency by providing a partition plate in front of a detection member. CONSTITUTION:Toner which is cleaned away from a photosensitive drum 5 by a cleaning means 13 is sent from a direction (b) to a direction (c) in order by the (a)-directional rotation of a feeding means 14. When collected toner is one-sided at a part (d) in the recovery container 15, motion in a direction (d) is suppressed by the partition plate 16 and the toner moves around in directions (e) and (f) to push up a detection member 17 toward a photointerrupter 18; and the toner moves in directions (g) and (h) and fills the container 15 sufficiently. Further, if the collected toner is one-sided at a part (i), the toner is sent in directions (j) and (k) in order to move in a direction l along the slanting surface of the partition plate 16, thereby pressing up the means 17 toward a photointerrupter 18. The tilt angle of the plate 16 is preferably 60 - 120 deg.. Consequently, the recovery capacity efficiency can be improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a printing apparatus using an electrophotographic process, and particularly relates to cleaning and recovery of residual toner on an image carrier.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, this type of recovery device has a configuration in which the toner cleaned by the image carrier by a cleaning device is sent to a recovery container using a feeding device, and when a predetermined amount of toner accumulates in the recovery container, a detection device detects the amount of toner. It was configured to detect fullness.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, with conventional technology, when high-density printing is performed that is partially offset in the printable width of the recording paper, the toner in the collection container is not collected evenly, but is collected in an offset state, especially when the detection When the detection means is biased towards the means part, the detection means operates even if there is sufficient space left in the collection container, resulting in a problem of extremely poor volumetric efficiency. Furthermore, there is a major problem in that the detection means may not operate if the toner is concentrated in areas other than the detection means.

Therefore, the present invention is intended to solve these problems, and its purpose is to prevent abnormal operation or malfunction of the detection means even when high-density printing is performed that is partially offset in the printable width of recording paper. By providing collection equipment.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a cleaning means that comes into contact with an image carrier, a rotating feeding means that is disposed near the cleaning means, a toner collection container, and a toner amount detecting device disposed in the collection container. and a partition plate disposed to engage with the detection means, and further characterized in that the partition plate has an inclined surface with respect to the detection means. do.

[For production]

According to the above structure of the present invention, the toner cleaned by the cleaning means from the top of the image carrier is sent to the collection container by the feeding means and collected. The partition plate prevents the moving force of the toner from directly operating the detection means, and the toner can bypass the partition plate and then operate the detection means, so that the toner can be collected into the collection container almost completely. In addition, when toner is collected unevenly in areas other than the detection means, the toner moves toward the detection means after the toner becomes full in areas other than the detection means. The moving force of the sensor can be changed in the direction of the detection means to operate the detection means.

〔Example〕

To explain the present invention based on the drawings, FIG. 1 is a main sectional view of a printing apparatus according to the present invention, which uses an electrophotographic process, in which recording paper 1 is fed from a paper feed tray 2 to a registration roller 4 by a paper feed roller 3. be done. Further, from the registration roller 4, a photoreceptor drum 5, which is an image carrier, a heat fixing device 6,
The sheets are sequentially conveyed to a discharge roller 7.8. At this time, information such as characters is optically written as an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum 5 by a laser head 9 serving as a writing head. Next, toner adheres from the developing device 10 to the writing area on the photosensitive drum 5, making the electrostatic latent image visible, and the toner is further transferred onto the recording paper 1 as a visible image by the transfer device 11. . Furthermore, the toner image on the recording paper 1 is thermally fused and fixed by a thermal fixing device 6, thereby completing the printing operation. At this time, not all the toner from the photoreceptor drum 5 is transferred onto the recording paper 1, but a small amount of toner remains on the photoreceptor drum 5, so a collection device is installed to clean and collect the remaining toner. In this embodiment, reference numeral 12 is a collection device.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the collection device 12, in which 13 is a cleaning means made of an elastic member that comes into contact with the photoreceptor drum 5 to clean residual toner on the photoreceptor drum 5, and 14 has an irregular cross-sectional shape. It is a feeding means and rotates in the direction of arrow a. Reference numeral 15 denotes a collection container, 16 a partition plate, and 17 a detection member for detecting when the collection container is almost full of collected toner, which constitutes a detection means together with the photodigital adapter 18. ing. 19.20 is a sealing member.

Next, to explain the movement of the toner, the toner cleaned from the top of the photoreceptor drum 5 by the cleaning means 13 is sent in the direction indicated by the arrow A by the rotation of the feeding means 14 in the direction of the arrow a, and then sequentially in the direction of the arrow C. However, if there is uneven printing at this time, the toner collected in the collection container 15 is also collected in a lopsided state in the collection container 15 because the feeding direction by the feeding means 14 is a constant direction.

As shown in FIG. 3, when the collected toner is offset in the direction of the arrow d, the movement of the toner in the direction of the arrow d is suppressed by the partition plate 16, and the toner goes around in the direction of the arrow e1f, causing the detection member 17 to be exposed to the photo. Push up towards the interrupter 18. At this time, the toner also moves in the direction of the arrow gSh, so that it is sufficiently grooved in the collection container 15. Furthermore, if the toner collected is unevenly distributed in the direction of the arrow i, the toner is sent sequentially in the direction of the arrow jSk, and then the toner is transferred to the partition plate 1.
It moves in the direction of arrow g along the inclined surface 6, and finally pushes up the detection means 17 toward the photointerrupter 18.

Although the inclined surface of the partition plate 16 used in this example had the θ degree of 90 degrees in FIG. 3, good results could be obtained even with the θ degree in the range of 60 degrees to 120 degrees. In this embodiment, when the above-mentioned θ degree is 60 degrees or less, if the toner collection is biased toward the arrow d portion in FIG. The detection member 17 operated before the groove was sufficiently large in the collection container 15, resulting in poor volumetric efficiency and the desired amount could not be obtained.

In addition, when the θ degree is 150 degrees or more, if the toner collection is biased toward the arrow i portion, the movement of toner in the arrow direction cannot be sufficiently converted to the arrow g direction, causing the detection member 17 to malfunction. The desired sloped surface effect of the partition plate 16 could not be obtained.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, even if the toner collected in the collection container 15 is collected in a partially offset manner in the collection container 15, the partition plate 16 having an inclined surface with respect to the detection member 17 is used as the detection member. 17, there is a great effect that even if the toner collection is uneven, there is no malfunction of the detection means, and a collection device with good collection volume efficiency can be provided.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a main sectional view of a printing device incorporating an embodiment of the collection device of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a sectional view of the collection device 12. Third
The figure is a front view of the collection device 12 and is a diagram illustrating the movement of toner. 5... Photosensitive drum 12... Recovery device 13... Cleaning means 14... Feeding means 15... Recovery container 16... Partition plate 17... Detection member 18, fist, photointerceptor

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In a collection device that cleans and collects toner on an image carrier, a cleaning means that comes into contact with the image carrier;
a rotating feeding means disposed near the cleaning means;
The present invention is characterized in that it is composed of a toner collection container, a detection means for detecting the amount of toner disposed in the collection container, and a partition plate disposed to engage with the detection means. Collection device. (2) The collection device according to claim 1, wherein the partition plate has an inclined surface with respect to the detection means.