JPH0262563A - Conductive brush electrostatic charger - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent an irregularity in electrostatic charging by constituting the conductive brush electrostatic charger which is used to charge a body to be charged electrostatically by implanting conductive fibers so that loops are formed almost at right angles to the moving direction of the body to be charged electrostatically. CONSTITUTION:The conductive brush electrostatic charger 10 is constituted by fixing a conductive brush 13 which is implanted so that the conductive fibers 12 form the loops almost at right angles to the moving direction of the body to be charged electrostatically by using an adhesive agent and the tips of the conductive brushes 13 contact the body 1 to be charged electrostatically. The conductive fibers 12 of this brush 13 are woven by implanting four fibers shown by solid lines, dotted lines, alternate long and short dash lines, and alternate long and two short dashes line alternately. Then an organic photosensitive body on the surface of the body 1 to be charged electrostatically is charged negatively, so a negative voltage is impressed to the electrostatic charger. Then the fibers 12 are made conductive by dispersing carbon particles in, for example, rayon fibers. The fibers 12 form the loops in the moving directions of the body 1 to be charged electrostatically and come into line contact at right angles to prevent the irregularity in electrostatic charging.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] Regarding a conductive brush charger formed by flocking conductive fibers and used for charging an object to be charged in an electrophotographic recording process, it is possible to reduce the streaks seen when charging a conventional brush. In a conductive brush charger that is formed by flocking conductive fibers and is used for charging a charged object in an electrophotographic process, the conductive fibers are The hairs are implanted to form a loop in a direction substantially perpendicular to the moving direction of the charged object.

[Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to a conductive brush charger formed by flocking conductive fibers and used for charging an object to be charged in an electrophotographic process.

Electrophotographic recording processes are widely used in laser printers, copying machines, and the like. This recording method uses a photoconductor such as a photoconductor drum as a recording medium, and performs recording through the steps of charging, image exposure, development, transfer, fixing, neutralization, and cleaning. The charging step is a step of uniformly charging the photoreceptor prior to forming a latent image by image exposure, and generally a corona charger is used. This corona charger applies a high voltage of several KV to the corona wire, so the voltage is 5 to 10 KV.
It requires a high-voltage power source and is easily affected by humidity, dust, etc., so it has the disadvantage of low reliability. In addition, ions generated during corona discharge generate odor and accelerate the deterioration of the characteristics of the photoreceptor. Furthermore, in recent years, the toxicity of ozone to the human body has become a problem.

Recently, as a solution to the above-mentioned problems, a conductive brush charging method has been attracting attention, in which a conductive brush charger made of conductive fibers is brought into contact with a photoreceptor to charge the photoreceptor instead of a corona charger.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a conductive brush charging method using a conventional conductive brush charger. In the figure, 1 is a charged object (photosensitive drum), 2 is a conductive brush charger, and 3 is a conductive brush charger 2.
This is a power supply that applies voltage to the

As shown in detail in FIG. 4, the conductive brush charger 2 includes a conductive brush 6 made by weaving conductive fibers 7 on a conductive substrate 4 made of a conductive material such as aluminum, by conductive adhesive. The conductive brush 6 is configured to be fixed with an agent 5, and the tip of a conductive brush 6 is placed in contact with the charged object 1.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

For boat fishing, the conductive brush 6 is made by cutting off the tip and folding independent conductive fibers into a base fabric. Therefore, the conductive brush 6 has a weak stiffness (if used for a long time, it may become stale and cannot be charged uniformly, or the bristles may break and fall off due to the sagging).

In order to solve this problem, a proposal has been made to prevent the conductive fibers from becoming sag by weaving conductive fibers 9 into the base fabric in a loop to form a conductive brush 8, as shown in FIG. ing.

However, in these conventional methods, streak-like charging unevenness occurs. This is because only the portion of the conductive brush that is in contact with the object to be charged is charged, and the entire area of the object to be charged cannot be completely covered. This charging unevenness appears relatively prominently in the case of FIG. 4, in which independent conductive fibers with cut ends are used. Even in the case of FIG. 5, in which the conductive fibers are implanted in a loop shape, since the conductive fibers are conventionally implanted casually, streak-like charging unevenness often occurs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a conductive brush charger that can prevent the occurrence of streak-like charging unevenness that is conventionally seen during brush charging.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a conductive brush charger formed by flocking conductive fibers and used for charging an object to be charged in an electrophotographic recording process.
The conductive fibers are flocked to form a loop in a direction substantially perpendicular to the moving direction of the charged object.

[Effect]

Conventionally, when the tip of a conductive brush is cut off, the tip of the conductive brush is in point contact with the object to be charged, resulting in streak-like charging unevenness. Furthermore, even in the case of a method in which conductive fibers are woven into a base cloth in a loop shape to form a conductive brush, since the conductive fibers are randomly flocked, although there is a line contact with the charged object, there is some movement of the charged object. There is a line contact in the direction parallel to the direction, and if the former conductive brush is used, streak-like charging unevenness may occur as in the case of using a conductive brush with the tip cut off.

In contrast, in the present invention, since the conductive fibers are flocked to form a loop in a direction substantially perpendicular to the moving direction of the charged object, the conductive fibers and the charged object are always connected to each other when the charged object moves. Line contact is made in the direction perpendicular to the direction, and the streak-like charging unevenness that has been a problem in the past does not occur.

〔Example〕

The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of the structure and arrangement of a conductive brush charger according to the present invention, and in the figure, 10 is a conductive brush charger.

The conductive brush charger 10 has conductive fibers 12 arranged on a conductive substrate 11 in a direction substantially perpendicular to the moving direction of the charged object 1 (a first
The conductive brush 13 is constructed by fixing the conductive brush 13 with bristles so as to form a loop in the left-right direction in the figure with a conductive adhesive 14, and the tip of the conductive brush 13 is placed in contact with the charged object 1. .

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the method of weaving the conductive fibers 12, in which four fibers indicated by solid lines, dotted lines, -dot-dashed lines, and double-dashed lines are alternately flocked. A voltage is applied to the conductive brush charger IO from a power source (not shown), but the object to be charged (photosensitive drum)
Since the charging characteristic of the organic photoreceptor on the surface of (2) is negative, a voltage of -IKV, for example, is applied to the conductive brush charger IO. As the conductive fiber 12, for example, a rayon fiber with conductivity imparted by uniformly dispersing carbon particles ("Leg" manufactured by Unitika) is used, and the fiber thickness is 10-15 μm. The resistance value is chosen to be 103Ω per fiber. Moreover, this conductive fiber 12
is Kanebo's "Beltron" (conductive nylon)
You may also use The conductive brush 13 is constructed by implanting these conductive fibers with a length of 12 mm at a density of 155 fibers/2 mm in the woven part, and the width of the conductive brush charger 10 is 1 mm.
5 dragons.

By using the conductive brush charger 1o having such a configuration, it was possible to prevent uneven charging, which has been a problem in the past. As mentioned above, this effect is caused by the conductive fiber 1
2 are flocked to form a loop in a direction substantially perpendicular to the moving direction of the charged object 1, and the conductive fibers 12 and the charged object 1 are always in line contact in the direction perpendicular to the moving direction of the charged object 1. It is obtained by doing.

Note that if one conductive brush 13 having a width of 1/n of the width of the conductive substrate 11 is adhered to the conductive substrate 11 with respective phases shifted in the longitudinal direction to configure a conductive brush charger, -Layer effective.

In addition, although not shown, a conductive brush similar to that described above,
A conductive brush charger may be constructed by pasting it on an aluminum cylinder or cylinder with a conductive adhesive, but in this case, the conductive brush charger is rotated over the object to be charged by a power transmission system. In this case, in addition to preventing streak-like charging unevenness as described above, charging efficiency can be improved.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, by planting the conductive fibers so as to form a loop in a direction substantially perpendicular to the moving direction of the charged object, the conductive fibers and the charged object are always connected to each other. In order to make a line contact in the direction perpendicular to the direction of body movement,
It is possible to prevent streak-like charging unevenness that occurs during conventional brush charging.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is an explanatory diagram of the structure and arrangement of a conductive brush charger according to an embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the procedure for weaving conductive fibers according to an embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 3 is a conventional conductive brush charger. FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure of the conductive brush charger shown in FIG. 3; FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view showing another example of the conventional conductive brush charger. In the figure, (2) is a charged body (photosensitive drum), 10 is a conductive brush charger, 11 is a conductive substrate, 12 is a conductive fiber, and 13 is a conductive brush. Figure 1 Figure 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a conductive brush charger formed by flocking conductive fibers (12) and used for charging a charged object (1) in an electrophotographic recording process, the conductive fibers (12) are used to charge a charged object (1). (1) A conductive brush charger characterized in that the bristles are flocked to form a loop in a direction substantially perpendicular to the direction of movement.