JPH0339763A - Developing supplying container - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To surely carry out the fusing of both edge parts of a tear tape without restricting heat-fusing conditions by heat-fusing a sealing member to the opening part of a container by a fusing jig whose part of fusing surface made abut on the tear tape is formed into a recessed shape. CONSTITUTION:As for the part, which is made abut on the surface of the tear tape 3, of the surface of the fusing jig 1 used for heat-fusing the sealing member composed of a cover film 2 and the tear tape 3, the width and thickness of the tear tape are shaved off from the width and thickness direction thereof, respectively, and a recessed part 8 is formed thereon. Therefore, heat and pressure are almost uniformly applied to the center part and both edge parts of the sealing member. Thus, the sealing member can be stably and uniformly stuck to the periphery of the opening of the container 5 even without restricting the heat-fusing conditions specially.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a developer supply container, and more specifically, a container used to supply developer to a developing device of an image forming apparatus such as an electrostatic copying machine or a printer. The present invention relates to a developer supply container.

(Prior Art and its Problems) Conventionally, powdered toner has been used as a developer in image forming apparatuses such as electrostatic copying machines and printers. This toner supply container generally has a cylindrical or rectangular body made of synthetic resin or cardboard, and a seal that closes the opening of the body for supplying powdered toner from the body to the developing device. It is composed of members.

Conventional sealing members are easy-peel type, and generally require a large amount of force to open the seal because the film that is attached around the opening of the main body is peeled off using adhesive or heat sealing. In some cases, diagonal cuts may occur due to scratches on the edges of the film or damage during heat sealing.

On the other hand, in the toner cartridge disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 56-21166, a seal member lined with a guide member is used as a sealing band.

In this example, the guide member is used to prevent the seal member from coming into contact with the toner, and its width is approximately equal to the opening of the container.

Furthermore, in the developer replenishment container disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 63-49290, the sealing member has tear directionality for the purpose of reducing the strength when opening (improving operability) and preventing the film from being cut diagonally. It consists of a cover film that seals the opening of the container for supplying the agent, and a tear tape that is narrower in width than the cover film and whose free end is pulled when the package is opened, tearing the cover film and creating an opening.

As mentioned above, the sealing member at the opening of the developer supply container is
When heat welding a sealing member to a container, when it is composed of a cover film and tear tape, the main body is made of a metal such as aluminum (HEβ) or brass, and the welding surface is flat with a flatness of 0.1 or less. A welding jig was used.

FIG. 3 shows a cross-sectional view of a sealing member consisting of a cover film 2 and a tear tape 3 being thermally welded around the opening of a container 5 using the conventional heat welding jig 1 described above.

As shown in Figure 3, if a welding jig 1 with a flat welding surface is used, the welding surface of the welding jig 1 will hit the center part of the sealing member that is raised by the thickness of the tear tape 3 most strongly, causing a step. In order to sufficiently weld both sides of S, it was necessary to further increase the thermal pressure of the welding jig 1 and to tighten the welding conditions.

The above conventional example has several problems as follows.

■The welding of both sides of the tear tape 3 (part 3 in Figure 3) to the container 5 is weak, and when the package is opened, a portion of the tip of the cover film 2 is widely peeled off as shown in Figure 4, which increases the tearing strength. . The opening width becomes unstable.

■If you tighten the heat welding conditions to increase the welding strength,
The heat and pressure applied to the tear tape 3 become thicker, leading to a decrease in the mechanical strength of the tear tape 3, and there is a risk that the tear tape 3 may break halfway.

(2) The adhesive layer of the tear tape 3 may melt and flow out into strings, which may mix into the developer in the container and adversely affect the image.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a developer supply container that solves the problems of the prior art described above.

(Means for Solving the Problems) That is, the present invention includes a developer container having an opening, and a sealing member that seals the opening, and the sealing member seals the opening of the container. It consists of a cover film that is attached to the container and a tear tape that is narrower in width than the adhesive part in the direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the cover film and that has a free end that corresponds to the handle at one end. In the developer supply container, the cover film can be torn to the width of the tear tape by pulling the handle of the tear tape. This developer supply container is characterized in that it is thermally welded to the opening of the container using a welding jig formed in a concave shape.

(for production) The configuration of the present invention will be explained with reference to the accompanying drawings.

As shown in the first figure, in the present invention, the welding surface of the welding jig l used for thermally welding the sealing member consisting of the cover film 2 and the tear tape 3 to the periphery of the opening 6 of the container 5 includes:
A recess 8 is formed in the portion of the sealing member that corresponds to the tear tape 3 by the width of the tear tape in the width direction and by the thickness of the tear tape in the depth direction.

Conventionally, when using a welding jig 1 with a flat welding surface,
As shown in Figure 3, the welding surface hits the center part of the sealing member (2+3) that is raised by the thickness of the tear tape 3 most strongly, eliminating the space near S in Figure 3 and covering the entire surface of the sealing member. The heat welding conditions have become severe because the heat welding is carried out around the opening of the container 5, and as a result, various problems as described above have occurred.

On the other hand, if the welding jig 1 (shown in FIGS. 1 and 2) used in the present invention is used, the welding surface of the welding jig 1 has a recess 8 that is recessed by the shape and thickness of the tear tape 3. Since the central part of the seal member also has parts on both sides (
S) in Figure 3 also applies heat and pressure almost uniformly, so
Even if the heat welding conditions are not particularly strict, the sealing member can be attached to the container 5.
It can be stably and uniformly bonded around the opening.

Therefore, since the adhesion of both sides (S) of the tear tape 3 is reliably performed, the cover film 2 is
A part of the tip of the tear tape 3 is peeled off, and the area to be peeled off becomes larger, which increases the opening strength and makes it difficult to operate.
The width of the opening is widened, and there is very little risk that the amount of developer supplied will become unstable, or that the tear tape will not be able to be pulled out when opening the package at the contact area with the end seal that prevents developer scattering.

Furthermore, when the welding conditions are made stricter, the mechanical strength of the tear tape, especially the tensile strength, decreases, causing the tear tape to break mid-way, and the adhesive layer of the tear tape melts and flows out, becoming thread-like and getting mixed into the developer, causing damage to the image. There is a very low possibility that any adverse effects such as adverse effects will occur.

(Example) Next, the present invention will be explained in more detail with reference to Examples.

Example 1 The following laminated film was used as a sealing member.

fJ)<-7)Iyb: width 16.5mm, length 213m
M-mounted wood 2a: Stretched foamed polypropylene layer 120gm2b: Ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer adhesive layer 0um Tear tape: Width 5.0mm, length 500mm The layer 30LLm cover film and the tear tape were previously heat welded and integrated, and this sealing member was heat welded to the container with a width of 3.5 mm.

The following heat welding jig was used.

Material: AI2 Width: 16.5mm Length: 214mm Recess: Width: 5.5mm Depth: 1100u Using the above sealing member and welding jig, as shown in Figures 1 and 2
As shown in the figure, a sealing member was heat-welded to the developer supply container.

10,000 containers were actually made and an opening test was conducted by pulling the free end of the tear tape and tearing the cover film. As a result, the force required to tear the cover film when opening the package (opening strength) is 0.3 to 0.5 kg.
The opening width was very stable, and the opening width was 5.0 to 5.3 mm compared to the tear tape width of 5IIIm.

Furthermore, there were no tears or diagonal cuts in the tear tape, no openings were closed midway, and almost no developer was supplied to the developing machine.

In addition, as environmental and logistics tests, we conducted a vibration test, a pressure reduction test, a drop test, and a high-temperature test using 10 samples of developer supply containers for each condition. No abnormalities such as lifting or peeling of the tear tape, leakage of developer, etc. were observed.

Example 2 A developer supply container was produced using the same method as in Example 1 except that the cover film had the following layer structure.

Layer composition Polyethylene terephthalate layer: 124m Aluminum layer: 7μm Polyethylene adhesive layer: 30μm The force required to tear and open this cover film is 0.3 to 0.5Kg.
, and the aperture width varies slightly compared to Example 15.
．． Although it was 0 to 5.5 mm, there was no diagonal cut or the like, and there was no practical problem at all. Further, environmental and physical distribution tests were conducted in the same manner as in Example 1, but no abnormalities were observed.

Comparative Example 1 A sealing member was welded to a container in the same manner as in Example 1, except that the welding surface of the thermal welding jig 1 was entirely flat and had no recesses, as shown in the third figure.

When 10,000 containers were made and opened in the same manner as in Example 1, most of the containers had an opening strength of 0.3.
It was small at 0.5 kg, and the opening width was stable at 5.0 to 5.3. However, two of them have an opening strength of 0.
．． Some of them were large, weighing 5 to 0.8 kg, and had unstable opening widths of 5.0 to 8.0 mm.

Furthermore, when we conducted an actual image reproduction test, we found that the adhesive layer of the tear tape melted and became thread-like, which got mixed into the developer.
There was only one item that adhered to the developing machine and caused white streaks on the image. Environmental and logistics tests were also conducted, but no abnormalities were found.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, according to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained.

■ Both sides of the tear tape can be reliably welded without strict heat welding conditions.

■ The opening width can be stabilized by reducing the strength when opening the package.

■ Applying even heat and pressure to the cover film
Therefore, there is extremely little risk of reducing the mechanical strength of the tear tape.

■ There is also less chance of the adhesive layer of the tear tape melting and flowing out, which would adversely affect the image.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1: A perspective view showing the positional relationship between a heat welding jig, a seal member, and a container body in a developer supply container of the present invention. Fig. 2...Cross-sectional view during thermal welding of Example 1 Fig. 3...
FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a conventional comparative example during thermal welding; FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a developer supply container of a conventional comparative example in which the opening width is widened when the seal is opened; 1: Heat welding jig 2: Cover film 3: Tear tape 4: Heat welding part of cover film and tear tape 5: Developer supply container body 6: Developer supply container opening 7: Heat welding between seal and container body Part 8: Concave part on welding surface

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) Consisting of a developer container having an opening and a sealing member that seals the opening, the sealing member is perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the cover film that seals the container opening and the cover film. The width of the tear tape is narrower than the adhesive part in the direction, and the tear tape has a free end corresponding to the handle part at one end, and the tear tape is sealed when placed between the container and the cover film, and the handle of the tear tape is sealed. In the developer supply container, the cover film can be torn to the width of the tear tape by pulling the tear tape. A developer supply container characterized by being thermally welded.