JPH03157172A - Device for cleaning drum - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To surely execute cleaning to the outer peripheral face of a drum by making a photo-sensitized drum so as to be sequentially brought into sliding contact with plural roll brushes provided with brush wire group on outer peripheral face while rotating the drum. CONSTITUTION:Plural roll brushes 10 provided with the brush wire group 11 on the outer peripheral face arranged in parallel and rotating at high speed and a drum driving means 20 for conveying the drum 30 cleaning the outer peripheral face with the roll brushes 10 to the horizontal direction while rotating the drum, are provided. Then, the drum driving means 20 has one pair of endless belts 21 symmetrically arranged by holding each roll brush 10 therebetween from both sides and the drum 30 is horizontally travelled along the paralleled setting direction of the roll brushes 10. Further, rack gear 25 is horizontally arranged along the endless belts 21 and made so as to engage with the drum 30 through the supporting shaft 32 and the rotation is given to each drum 30 and during horizontally shifting, the outer peripheral face of drum is rotating brought into contact with each roll brush 10 at lower part so as to be repeatedly cleaned.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a drum cleaning device for cleaning the outer peripheral surface of a drum such as a photosensitive drum used in an image forming apparatus.

(Prior Art) Photosensitive drums used in image forming apparatuses such as electrophotographic copying machines and printers are manufactured by forming a photosensitive layer on the outer peripheral surface of an aluminum tube. Before the manufactured photoreceptor drum is incorporated into an apparatus as a product, it is installed in an electrophotographic copying machine to perform image generation to form a copy of a predetermined original image. Based on this, product inspection is performed. In this image production, first, the photoreceptor drum carried in is set in an electrophotographic copying machine for testing, an actual image is formed, and the properties of the outer peripheral surface of the photoreceptor drum are inspected. If the photoreceptor drum is determined to have no abnormality on its outer circumferential surface, the toner adhering to the outer circumferential surface of the photoreceptor drum is wiped off, and the photoreceptor drum is transported out of the image display inspection process.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) In such image inspection of photoreceptor drums, toner adhering to the outer peripheral surface of the photoreceptor drum is manually wiped off after the inspection. Therefore, work efficiency is poor, and if toner is firmly adhered to the outer peripheral surface of the photoreceptor drum, there is a possibility that such toner cannot be removed. Therefore, it is difficult to uniformly clean the outer peripheral surface of the photoreceptor drum, and uneven wiping is extremely likely to occur. Furthermore, there is also the problem that toner removed from the outer peripheral surface of the photoreceptor drum is scattered around, deteriorating the working environment.

The present invention solves the above-mentioned conventional problems, and its object is to provide a drum cleaning device that can mechanically clean the outer peripheral surface of the drum strongly and uniformly.

(Means for Solving the Problems) The drum cleaning device of the present invention has a group of brush bristles on the outer peripheral surface, a plurality of roll brushes arranged in parallel, and a brush of each roll brush. A drum driving means for supporting the drum so that the group of bristles comes into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the drum to be cleaned, and for rotating the drum and moving it in the direction in which the roll brushes are arranged side by side,
This achieves the above objective.

(Example) The present invention will be described below with reference to Examples.

The drum cleaning device of the present invention is used to remove toner adhering to the outer circumferential surface of a photoreceptor drum used for copy image formation in an image inspection process when manufacturing photoreceptor drums.

As shown in FIG. 1, the drum cleaning device includes a plurality of roll brushes 10, 10, . It includes a drum drive means 20 that transports the drum in the horizontal direction while rotating it.

A plurality of roll brushes 10, 10, . . . are arranged horizontally at slight intervals in the collection tank 41 whose upper surface is open. As shown in FIG. 2, each roll brush 1o has a group of bristles 11 provided on the entire outer peripheral surface of a cylindrical support 12 on the outer surface side. Dust collection tank 41
A suction duct 43 is provided therein for suctioning and removing toner adhering to the brush bristles 11 of each roll brush 1o.

The drum 30 whose outer peripheral surface is cleaned by each roll brush 10, 10... is closed with flanges 31 and 31 attached to both ends, respectively.
The support shaft 32 is inserted between and 31.

Each end of the support shaft 32 extends from each flange 31, and a pinion gear 33 is attached to one end of the support shaft 32 extending from one flange 31.

The drum driving means 20 that transports the drum 30 in the horizontal direction while rotating it includes a pair of endless belts 2 symmetrically disposed with each roll brush 10, 10... sandwiched between them from both sides.
1 and 21. Each endless belt 21 has a support shaft 3
drum 30 and rack gear 33 supported by
is the interval that can be located between them. Each endless belt 21 is wound around four pulleys 22 in a trapezoidal shape so that it runs horizontally along the direction in which the roll brushes 10, 10... A slope is formed in the section. The respective pulleys 22 that make the endless belts 21 run are connected to each other by connecting shafts 23, and the pairs of pulleys 22 are rotated by a motor (not shown), so that the endless belts 21 are synchronized with each other. It will be run.

Each endless belt 2! A drum 30 is provided on the outer peripheral surface of each of the drums 30
A plurality of holding blocks 24, 24, into which each end of the support shaft 32 inserted is fitted, are attached at predetermined intervals in the traveling direction. The holding blocks 24 attached to each endless belt 21 are in a mutually interrogated state. Each holding block 24 is made of an elastic material such as hard rubber plastic. The holding block 24 has a slit 2 on its upper surface.
4a opens upward, and the slit 24a communicates with a holding portion 24b, which is a horizontal space inside. Then, the end of the support shaft 32 is inserted into the slit 24.
By pushing the support shaft 32 into the holding portion 124b from the position a, the end portion of the support shaft 32 is rotatably held within the holding portion 24b. Thus, each interlocking holding block 24 and 24 attached to a pair of endless belts 21 and 21 has
By fitting each end of the support shaft 32, the drum 30 supported by the support shaft 32 is connected to a pair of endless bells 1-2.
The hook is in a state where it is freely rotatable between 1 and 21.

By synchronously driving the endless belts 21 and 21 in this state, the drum 30 is
0... are conveyed in the horizontal direction between parallel directions.

Near one of the endless belts 21, a rack gear 25 that engages with a pinion gear 33 attached to a support shaft 32 that supports the drum 30 is arranged horizontally along the endless belt 21. When the support shaft 32 is conveyed in the horizontal direction by each endless belt 21, the rack gear 25 has a
The pinion gear 33 attached to the support shaft 32 rotates, thereby rotating the support shaft 32. Therefore,
The drum 30 supported by the support shaft 32 rotates integrally with the support shaft 3z while being transported in the horizontal direction. While each drum 30 is being rotated and conveyed in the horizontal direction, its outer circumferential surface is rolled into contact with each of the roll brushes 10 below.

The rotational speed of the drum 30 during horizontal transportation is made sufficiently slower than the rotational speed of each roll brush 10. The rotation direction of each roll brush IO is the same as the rotation direction accompanying horizontal conveyance of the drum 30 so that the brush bristle group 11 of the roll brush/10 and the outer peripheral surface of the drum 30 move in different directions at the sliding contact portion thereof. has been done.

The drum cleaning device having such a configuration rotates each roll brush 1O and synchronizes the pair of endless belts 21 and 21 in the drum driving means 20 when removing toner adhering to the outer peripheral surface of the photoreceptor drum. drive. By synchronously driving each endless belt 21, each holding block 24 attached to each endless belt 21 rotates together with the endless belt 21. And each endless bell) 21
holding blocks 24 and 2 arranged opposite to each other;
4 reach the slope of each endless belt 21 that moves from the bottom to the top, both ends of the support shaft 32 that supports the drum 30 are fitted into the respective holding blocks 24 and 24, respectively. Each end of the support shaft 32 is supported. Thereby, each holding block 24 supports the drum 30 horizontally.

A drum 30 supported horizontally between each holding block 24
When each holding block 24 is rotated by the endless belt 21, it is conveyed horizontally after climbing the slope. At this time, the pinion gear 33 attached to the support shaft 32 that supports the drum 30 meshes with the rack gear 25, and the drum 30 begins to rotate together with the support shaft 32.

When the drum 30, which is horizontally conveyed while rotating, is moved directly above the roll brush 1O closest to you, the bristles 11 of the roll brush 1O begin to come into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the drum 30. The contact of the brush bristles L1 is with the drum 30.
continues until it moves slightly away from directly above the roll brush 10.

During this time, the drum 30 is rotating, and the roll brush 10 is rotating at a sufficiently faster speed than the drum 30. Therefore, while the bristles 11 of the roll brush 10 are in contact with the outer peripheral surface of the drum 30, the toner adhering to the outer peripheral surface of the drum 30 is swept away by the bristles 11 of the roll brush 10. Most of the toner removed from the outer peripheral surface of the drum 30 falls into the 'J4 dust fQu, and the toner adhering to the bristle group 11 of the roll brush IO is also removed from the bristle group 11 through the suction duct 43.

In this way, each time the drum 30 passes above each roll brush 10, the outer peripheral surface of the drum 30 is repeatedly cleaned.

The drum 30, whose outer circumferential surface has been cleaned by the plurality of roll brushes 10, 10..., is moved down the slope from the top to the bottom on the endless belts 21 and 21, at both ends of the support shaft 32 that supports the drum 30. is the holding block 24
and 24, and transported out of the drum cleaning device.

When each holding block 24 is conveyed from the bottom to the top of each endless bell 21 on the same slope, each end of the support shaft 32 that supports the drum 30 is sequentially fitted to the plurality of drums. 3° is cleaned continuously.

In such drum cleaning, there is no risk of damaging the drum 30 even if the brush bristles of the roll brush 0 are strongly pressed against the outer circumferential surface of the drum 3o. Adhering toner can also be reliably removed. Since the load with which the brush bristles 11 of the roll brush 1° are pressed against the outer peripheral surface of the drum 30 is uniform in the axial direction of the drum 30, there is no risk of uneven wiping.

Furthermore, the operator attaches the support shaft 32 to each holding block 24.
All you have to do is fit the ends of the support shafts 32 into each other and detach the ends of the support shafts 32 from each holding block 24 (therefore, the outer peripheral surface of the drum 30 can be cleaned away from the operator). , the working environment of the worker is the same as above.

Further, since the endless belt 21 and two slopes are used to attach and detach the drum 30, work efficiency is improved. Each holding block 24 can easily attach and detach each end of the support shaft 32 that supports the drum 30, and there is no fear that both ends of the support shaft 32 will come off even if it is strongly pressed by the roll brushier 0.

In addition, although the above-mentioned embodiment explained the case where the drum 30 of a single dimension was cleaned, for example, a pair of endless belts 2
By varying the spacing between I and 21, drums of different sizes can also be cleaned.

In the above embodiment, the suction duct 43 is disposed below each roll brush 10, but a large number of through holes are formed in the support 12 of each roll brush IO, and the support 12
2 may be sucked from within.

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, the drum cleaning device of the present invention sequentially slides into contact with the group of brush bristles provided on the outer circumferential surface of a plurality of roll brushes while rotating the drum. can be cleaned reliably.

4. 1 [I Figure 1 is a perspective view showing an example of the drum cleaning device of the present invention,
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the roll brush portion.

10... Roll brush, 11... Brush hair group, 20
... Drum drive means, 21 ... Endless belt, 24.
...Holding block, 25...Rack gear, 30...
Drum, 32... Support shaft, 33... Pinion gear.

that's all

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A plurality of roll brushes each having a group of brush bristles arranged in parallel on the outer circumferential surface, and a group of bristles of each roll brush disposed on the outer periphery of the drum to be cleaned. A drum cleaning device comprising: drum driving means for supporting the drum so as to make contact with a surface thereof, rotating the drum and moving the drum in the direction in which the roll brushes are arranged side by side;