JPH03157683A - Cleaning device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To extend a service life of a blade and to prevent generation of redevelopment by providing the rotatable shaft blade, a cleaning blade of a plate state, a blade pressure contact means and a horizontal shaft traveling hole of the shaft blade in a cleaning box. CONSTITUTION:When the solenoid 9 is turned on, a pin 4a of the shaft blade 4 is in a position A of a shaft hole 16. The force of pressure contact of the blade 3 is made a specified pressure by a gravity on weight 8. Remaining toner is scraped off into a box 2 from the peripheral surface of a rotating photosensitive body drum 1. When the solenoid is turned off, the pin 4a is brought to the position B of the hole 16. The surface of the blade 3 is a brought into weak pressure contact with the peripheral surface of the drum 1. Therefore, the residue toner in the drum periphery surface is not rotated to the front surface of the blade 3. Therefore, no image noise appears in a copy. Further, with the blade 3 being brought into a weak pressure contact, the life span of the blade is extended.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Industrial Application Field The present invention relates to a cleaning device, and more particularly, to a cleaning device for removing residual toner from a photoreceptor drum on its peripheral wall surface in an image forming device such as a copying machine or a facsimile machine. It is related to the device.

(B) Conventional Technology Since toner remains on the photosensitive drum after transfer in an image forming apparatus, it is necessary to clean it with a blade, brush, web, etc.

In this case, the following types of blade-type cleaning devices are known. That is, a cleaning box is disposed next to the photoreceptor drum, a plate-shaped cleaning blade held by a blade holder is attached to the cleaning box, and the cleaning blade is pressed against the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum. There is a known device that scrapes residual toner on the peripheral wall surface of a rotating photoreceptor drum into a cleaning box.

The method of pressing the cleaning blade can be broadly classified into the following two methods.

One of them is a blade fixing method in which the cleaning blade is fixed and is always pressed against the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum with a constant pressure contact force. The other type is a blade movable method in which the cleaning blade is attached to a rotating shaft via a blade holder 12 and is pressed against the circumferential wall surface of the photoreceptor drum by a solenoid, a coil spring, or the like so as to be able to separate from the cleaning blade.

(c) Problems to be Solved by the Invention The above blade fixing method has a simple structure and low cost, but requires high accuracy in positioning the cleaning blade. Furthermore, since the blade is always in pressure contact with the photoreceptor drum, the blade is easily damaged and has a short lifespan, as well as being subject to large stress on the photoreceptor drum.

On the other hand, in the above-mentioned blade movable method, by pressing and separating the cleaning blade, the photoreceptor drum 1 is attached to the front surface of the blade 3 (opposed to the photoreceptor drum l) as shown in FIG. The residual toner 30 on the peripheral wall surface wraps around. The toner 31 that has gone around and adhered to the blade is attracted by the electric charge existing on the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum 1 and becomes a reproduced image 32, which is again subjected to development.

As a result, there is a problem in that image noise appears in formed images such as copied images.

This invention was made in view of the above circumstances, and
To provide a cleaning device in which positioning of a cleaning blade is simple, the life of the cleaning blade is long, there is little stress on a photosensitive drum, and the possibility of occurrence of a reproduced image can be prevented.

(d) Means for Solving the Problems and Their Effects This invention provides a cleaning box disposed adjacent to a photoreceptor drum, a cleaning box disposed within the cleaning box,
A shaft blade has a horizontal shaft and is rotatable up the horizontal shaft, and is attached to this shaft blade via a blade holder, and is always in sliding contact with the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum, and is strongly pressed against the peripheral wall surface. a plate-shaped cleaning blade that scrapes residual toner on a peripheral wall surface of the rotating photoreceptor drum into a cleaning box by scraping off residual toner on the peripheral wall surface of the rotating photoreceptor drum; and a blade pressure contact means for strongly pressing the cleaning blade against the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum. A cleaning device further comprising a shaft support hole that allows the horizontal shaft of the shaft blade to be moved to a position higher than the position at the time of activation and closer to the photosensitive drum side when the blade pressure contact means is released. It is.

In other words, this cleaning device replaces the conventional shaft blade that can move up and rotate on a horizontal shaft, but the position of the horizontal shaft remains unchanged. In this method, a sleeve blade is provided to adjust the pressing force of the cleaning blade against the photoreceptor drum.

Here, as the blade pressure contact means, a combination of a solenoid and a coil spring as shown in the following embodiments is used. Further, the shaft support hole is provided in the side plate of the cleaning device, the side plate of the cleaning box, etc. as in the following embodiments.

Thus, in this cleaning device, when the blade pressure contact means is released, the horizontal shaft of the shaft blade is moved to a position higher than its operating position and closer to the photosensitive drum side. Then, the front surface of the cleaning blade comes into surface contact with the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum.

Therefore, there is almost no possibility that the residual toner on the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum will get around to the front surface of the cleaning blade. Further, when the residual toner gets around, the toner adhering to the edge and front surface of the cleaning blade is rubbed toward the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum and removed.

(E) Example Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on one example shown in the drawings. Note that this invention is not limited to this.

1 to 4, the cleaning device C of the copying machine includes a cleaning box 2 disposed adjacent to the photoreceptor drum 1, and a cleaning device C installed in the cleaning box 2 and attached to the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum 1. A plate-shaped cleaning blade 3 is provided which scrapes off residual toner on the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum 1 into the cleaning box 2 by constantly sliding into contact with the photoreceptor drum 1 .

The cleaning blade 3 is made of urethane rubber, and is fixed to the blade holder 6 with adhesive or the like. The blade holder 6 is fixed by a fixing pin 5 to a shaft blade 4 rotatably disposed within the cleaning box 2 .

Axial blade bins 4a serving as horizontal shafts are provided on both sides of the axial blade 4, respectively. Further, a balance weight 8 is attached to the shaft blade 4 via a weight attachment plate 7.

The weight mounting plate 7 is rotatable below the road by a lever 12 which is rotated about a support shaft 11 by a solenoid 9 as a blade pressure contact means and a coil spring IO. Note that 13 is a toner collection roller disposed at the bottom of the cleaning box 2, and 14 is a lower blade disposed between the lower part of the cleaning box 2 and the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum.

The two shaft blade pins 4λ and 4a are movably fitted into shaft support holes 16 provided in the cleaning front side plate 15 and shaft support holes 16 provided in the cleaning back side plate 17, respectively. These shaft support holes 16, 16 are of the same shape and size, and are about the same size as the shaft blade pin 4a when the blade pressure contact means is activated! (Position A) and the position of the shaft blade bin 4a when the blade pressure contact means is released (Position B). In FIGS. 1 and 2, it is shaped like an ellipse upward to the right.

In addition, t8 is a toner collection nozzle attached to the outside of the cleaning front side plate 15, 19 is a main body front side plate of the copying machine,
Reference numeral 20 designates a solenoid mounting plate disposed on the inner surface of the front side plate 19 of the main body of the copying machine.

Next, the operation of this cleaning device C will be explained. FIG. 1 shows a state in which the blade pressure contact means is activated and normal cleaning is performed.

That is, when the solenoid 9 is turned on, the shaft blade pins 4a, 4a of the shaft blade 4 are at position A (lower end) within the shaft support holes 16, 16. At this time, the pressure force of the cleaning blade 3 is maintained at a predetermined level by the weight of the weight 8. Further, the cleaning blade 3 is in pressure contact with the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum 1 at the front ridgeline of its leading edge. Therefore, the cleaning blade 3 scrapes off the residual toner on the peripheral wall surface of the rotating photoreceptor drum l into the cleaning box 2.

On the other hand, FIG. 2 shows a state in which the blade pressure contact means is released. That is, the solenoid 9 is turned off, and the shaft blade pins 4a, 4& come to position B (upper end) within the shaft support holes 16, 16. Then, the front ridgeline of the leading edge of the cleaning blade 3 separates from the photoreceptor drum l. However, the front surface of the cleaning blade 3 is
It is in a so-called flat contact state where it is lightly pressed against the peripheral wall surface of.

Therefore, there is almost no possibility that the residual toner on the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum 1 will get around to the front surface of the cleaning blade 3. Further, when the residual toner gets around, the toner adhering to the edge and front surface of the cleaning blade 3 is rubbed toward the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum 1 and removed. Therefore, it is possible to prevent image noise from appearing in the copied image due to the reproduced image. Furthermore, due to the above-mentioned contact, the pressing force of the cleaning blade 3 against the photoreceptor drum 1 is dispersed.
Compared to the conventional blade fixing method, the cleaning blade 3 has a longer lifespan, and the stress on the photoreceptor drum 1 can be reduced.

Furthermore, since the cleaning blade 3 is brought into strong or weak pressure contact with the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum 1, it is not necessary to position the cleaning blade 3 with high accuracy as in the conventional blade fixing method.

(F) Effects of the Invention Since the cleaning device of the present invention is configured as described above, the cleaning blade can be easily positioned, the cleaning blade has a long life, there is less stress on the photoreceptor drum, and the reproducibility is improved. This can prevent the possibility of image formation.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 to 4 show one embodiment of the invention. That is, FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of the cleaning device when the blade pressure contact means is activated, and FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of the cleaning device when the blade pressure contact device is released.
FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of the main parts of the cleaning device, and FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of the structure of the main parts of the cleaning device. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of the main part configuration for explaining the generation of a reproduced image in a conventional cleaning device. 4a... Axis blade bin (horizontal axis), 6...
...Blade holder, 9...Solenoid (blade pressure contact means), 10
・・・・・・Coil spring (blade pressure contact means), 16・
...Shaft support hole. ! ...Photoreceptor drum, 2...Cleaning box, 3...
Cleaning blade, 4...Axis blade, 1Z Fig. 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A cleaning box disposed adjacent to the photoreceptor drum, and a shaft blade disposed within the cleaning box having a horizontal axis and being rotatable by the horizontal axis. , is attached to this shaft blade via a blade holder and is always in sliding contact with the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum, and is strongly pressed against the peripheral wall surface to remove residual toner on the peripheral wall surface from the rotating photoreceptor drum. The apparatus includes a plate-shaped cleaning blade for scraping into the cleaning box, and blade pressure contact means for strongly pressing the cleaning blade against the peripheral wall surface of the photoreceptor drum. A cleaning device equipped with a shaft support hole that allows the cleaning device to move to a position higher than the operating position and closer to the photoreceptor drum.