JPH04173176A - Apparatus for regenerating ink sheet - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the scattering of the powder ink once bonded to an ink sheet by arranging a free ink recovery means at the ink sheet feed-out position of an electrode. CONSTITUTION:Since the insulating support 2 of an ink sheet is separated from an electrode 7 when the ink sheet passes an ink sheet feed-out position 3, the electrostatic force acting on powder ink 8 becomes small and the electrostatic force sufficient to continuously bond the powder ink 8 to the ink sheet becomes absent in the powder ink 8 of the second layer low in bonding strength from the first and the separation of the powder ink from the ink sheet is generated. The separated ink is recovered to make it possible to always keep the interior of the apparatus clean. Since a magnetic powder is mixed with the powder ink, the separated ink can be recovered using a magnet. For example, a magnet 142 is arranged to the under surface of the bottom plate part of a non-magnetic ink recovery box 141. The ink recovery box 141 has opening width of 2cm or more and, when the mounting position thereof is set so that the mouth of the box becomes 1cm or less with respect to the ink sheet, the scattering of the powder ink can be prevented.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an improvement of the ink sheet recycling device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-295876.

[Prior Art] An example of an ink sheet recycling device for recycling an ink sheet onto which a part of an ink layer has been transferred is SID1985D.
There was an ink sheet regeneration device that uses an ink layer direct regeneration method, which melts hot melt ink using a heat source and supplies the molten ink to an ink sheet to regenerate the ink layer, as disclosed on pages 143 to 145 of the Japanese Patent Application Publication. In addition, as an ink sheet recycling device using powder ink, we have the USP'
There was a device disclosed in -4467332. moreover,
As related technology, the present inventors have disclosed Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-29587.
The ink sheet recycling device disclosed in No. 6 was proposed.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the device disclosed in pages 143 to 145 of 3ID1985 Digest requires a warm-up time to melt the ink, and consumes a large amount of power to keep the ink melted. , it is not possible to selectively supply ink only to the transfer portion of the ink layer,
There have been problems in that an additional mechanism is required to make the thickness of the recycled ink layer constant, maintenance is complicated, the device becomes large, and the mechanism is complicated.

Further, the device of USP-4467332 has an ink sheet configuration in which an ink layer is formed on a conductive base,
The amount of powder ink that adheres to the transferred and untransferred parts of the ink layer can be changed, but the amount of powder ink that adheres to the transferred and untransferred parts of the ink layer can be changed, because the voltage drop corresponding to the residual ink layer occurs in the untransferred part of the ink layer. Powder ink also adheres to untransferred areas. Further, a potential distribution occurs at the interface between the transferred portion and the untransferred portion of the ink layer (so-called edge effect), and the adhesion of powder ink near the interface increases. That is, it is difficult to selectively adhere the powder ink to the ink layer transfer portion, and uneven adhesion of the powder ink occurs. Therefore, there have been problems in that it is difficult to control the thickness of the ink layer of the recycled ink sheet, and unevenness occurs in the ink layer.

However, the apparatus of JP-A-1-295876 selectively applies powdered conductive ink only to the ink layer transfer portion of the ink sheet and is simple. It was an epoch-making device that could be applied using a slide.

Therefore, the present invention is a further development of JP-A-1-295876, and its purpose is to prevent the powder ink once attached to the ink sheet from scattering, and to keep the inside of the device clean at all times. An object of the present invention is to provide an ink sheet recycling device.

[Means for Solving the Problems] An ink sheet recycling device of the present invention is an ink sheet recycling device using conductive powder ink, and is characterized in that a free ink recovery means is disposed at an ink sheet delivery position of an electrode. shall be.

[Function] According to the above structure of the present invention, since the free ink collecting means is disposed at the ink sheet carrying out position of the electrode, the powder ink released from the ink sheet at the ink sheet carrying out position of the electrode is collected by the free ink collecting means. Since the particles are collected by the above, they are not scattered inside the device, and therefore, the inside of the device can be kept clean at all times.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to Examples.

[Example 1] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an ink sheet recycling apparatus of the present invention.

An ink sheet 3 composed of an ink layer 1 and an insulating support 2 is being conveyed in the direction of arrow 4. Further, in the ink sheet 3, a part of the ink layer 1 is transferred to a recording medium such as plain paper according to an image pattern by a printing means such as a thermal head, and the insulating support 2 is exposed. . Therefore, the ink sheet 3 has a portion 5 to which the ink layer has been transferred (hereinafter referred to as the transferred portion 5) and a portion 6 to which the ink layer has not been transferred (hereinafter referred to as the untransferred portion 6). There is.

The electrode 7 is placed in contact with the insulating support 2 of the ink sheet 3.
is located. Further, a powder conveying member 9 for conveying the powder ink 8 to the ink sheet side is arranged at a position facing the electrode 7 with the ink sheet 3 in between. The powder conveyance member 9 has a built-in multi-pole magnetized magnetic roller, and the powder ink 8 contains magnetic powder, and the powder ink 8 is held on the powder conveyance member 9 by magnetic force. There is. Further, the electrode 7 and the powder conveying member 9 are arranged horizontally as shown in the figure so that the powder ink 8 can be easily supplied to the powder conveying member 9. Then, the powder conveying member 9 supplies the powder ink 8 to the ink sheet 3 by rotating in the direction of the arrow 10. Although not shown in the figure, the supply amount of the powder ink 8 is regulated by a blade.

When the powder ink 8 is supplied to the ink sheet 3 with the voltage V applied between the electrode 7 and the powder conveying member 9 by the power supply 11, the powder ink 8 that has come into contact with the transfer portion 5 of the ink sheet 3 is , an amount of charge QO corresponding to the product of the capacitance of the insulating support 2 and the voltage V is injected, and it adheres to the insulating support pair 2 by electrostatic force. Here, the voltage V must be set to a value such that the electrostatic force Fe acting on the powder ink 8 is greater than the magnetic binding force Fm.

The powder ink (hereinafter referred to as the powder ink of the second layer) that came into contact with the untransferred area 6 of the ink sheet 3 and the powder ink that adhered to the insulating support 2 (hereinafter referred to as the - layer powder ink) Since the ink layer and the powder ink are electrically conductive, the powder ink (described as "powder ink") theoretically merely serves as a path for electric charge and does not provide any adhesive force. However, in reality, the powder ink of the second layer may adhere to the powder ink of the -th layer for the following reasons.

FIG. 2(a) and FIG. 2(b) are explanatory diagrams showing the adhesion of the second layer of powder ink. The second layer of powder ink adheres to the two layers shown in Figures 2(a) and 2(b).
It seems that there are cases where this is the case. In addition, in FIG. 2, the shape of the electrode 7 is not a cylinder but a rectangular parallelepiped to simplify the explanation.

FIG. 2(a) shows that when a slight gap is created between the powder ink 81 of the first layer when the powder ink 81 of the negative layer adheres to the insulating support 2, the powder ink of the second layer This is a case where ink 82 adheres. The width of the gap is the second layer of powder ink 82
Since the second layer powder ink 82 does not directly adhere to the insulating support 2 as shown in the figure, it adheres with an air gap 12 present. Therefore, the adhesion force is smaller than that of the powder ink 81 of the negative layer due to the presence of the air gap 12.

Moreover, FIG. 2(b) shows a case where the powder ink 82 of the second layer adheres even if there is no gap between the powder ink 81 of the negative layer. In FIG. 2(b), the reason why the second layer of powder ink 82 adheres is due to the contact resistance of the powder ink (
This is due to the resistance between the powder inks when they are in contact with each other. The contact resistance of a powder ink depends on the individual shape of the powder ink, the individual conductivity treatment state of the powder ink, and the electric field in which the powder ink exists.
- The greater the contact resistance between the powder ink of the second layer and the powder ink of the second layer, the more difficult it is for charge to be injected from the powder ink of the second layer into the powder ink of the first layer. Therefore, there are cases where the charge in the second layer powder ink does not completely transfer to the first layer powder ink, and the second layer powder ink 82 adheres to the ink sheet side due to the electrostatic force due to the residual charge. .

The adhesion force of the second layer of powder ink 82 is also shown in Fig. 2(a).
As in the case of , the adhesion force is thought to be much smaller than that of the first layer of powder ink.

The explanation will be given by returning to FIG. 1 again.

When the ink sheet 3 is in contact with the electrode 7, Qo is induced on the electrode 7 side of the insulating support 2, so that the powder ink 8 attached to the insulating support 2 also has a size. There exist charges -Qo of opposite polarity with equal values. However, after passing the ink sheet discharge position 13 of the electrode indicated by the wavy line, the insulating support 2 separates from the electrode 7, so the insulating support 2
The charge existing on the electrode side of is transferred from the electrode 7 to the insulating support 2
Only the charge Q injected into it becomes. Its size is Q
+<Qo. Therefore, the electrostatic force acting on the powder ink 8 becomes smaller after the ink sheet discharge position 13, and the second layer powder ink 82, which originally has a small adhesion force, has enough static electricity to continue adhering to the ink sheet side. The force no longer exists, and something comes loose from the ink sheet side.

Such powder ink contaminates the inside of the device, but in the present invention, the free ink collection means 14 is disposed at the ink sheet delivery position 13 of the electrode, so that the free ink is collected.
The inside of the device can always be kept clean. Figure 3(a)
, FIG. 3(b) shows an example of the free ink recovery means. FIG. 3(a) is an example in which a magnet is used as the free ink collecting means 14, and shows a sectional view thereof. In this embodiment, since magnetic powder is mixed in the powder ink, free ink can be collected using a magnet. In Fig. 3(a), the non-magnetic first
A magnet 14 is placed under the bottom plate of the ink collection box 141 in the example.
2 is placed. Ink collection box 141 of the first example
The opening width of the box was 2 cm or more, and the scattering of the powder ink could be prevented by arranging the box so that the mouth of the box was within 100 LAN with respect to the ink sheet. Figure 3 (a
), the box and the magnet are configured separately, but an ink recovery box may also be provided in which part or all of the bottom plate of the box is a magnet. FIG. 3(b) is an example in which a fan 143 is used as the free ink collecting means 14, and the arrow 14
Free ink can be collected by sending air in four directions. In this case, at least the entire bottom plate portion or a portion of the bottom plate portion of the ink recovery box 145 of the second example needs to be structured so that air passes through but powder ink does not pass therethrough. Since the volume average particle diameter of the powder ink used in the ink sheet recycling apparatus of the present invention is about 10 μm, this can be carried out by using an air filter that fits the size. At this time, a passage must be provided so that the air generated by the fan 143 passes through the bottom plate of the ink collection box 145. The opening width of the ink collection box 145 in the second example was 2 an or more, and the powder ink could be prevented from scattering by arranging it so that the opening of the box was within 1 cm from the ink sheet. .

The powder ink 8 adhering to the insulating support 2 is melted and fixed onto the insulating support 2 by the powder ink fixing means 15, thereby regenerating the ink sheet.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, in an ink sheet recycling device using conductive powder ink, a free ink recovery means is disposed at the ink sheet discharge position of the electrode, so that the ink of the electrode is removed. Since the powder ink released from the ink sheet at the sheet delivery position is collected by the free ink collecting means, it is not scattered inside the apparatus, and therefore the inside of the apparatus can be kept clean at all times.

The image forming apparatus of the present invention can be widely applied to image output apparatuses such as facsimile machines, copying machines, and printers.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an ink sheet recycling device of the present invention. FIG. 2(a) and FIG. 2(b) are explanatory diagrams showing the adhesion of the second layer of powder ink. Figure 3(a), Figure 3(b)
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of free ink recovery means. 1... Ink layer 2... Insulating support 3... Ink sheet 7... Electrode 8... Powder ink 9... Powder conveyance member 13... Ink sheet delivery position 14. ... Free ink recovery means (a) (b) Figure 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] An ink sheet recycling device using conductive powder ink, characterized in that a free ink recovery means is disposed at an ink sheet delivery position of an electrode.