JPH04318883A - Cleaning device for electrophotographic copying device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a compact cleaning device whose constitution is simple, which is realized at low cost and which is suitable for maintenance by a user by dividing the cleaning device to a unit (cleaning unit) provided with a cleaning body and a unit (carrying unit) provided with a carrying member. CONSTITUTION:This device is a bias cleaning device which electrically attracts electrostatically charged toner by rotating and bringing a conductive brush on which voltage is impressed into contact with a surface to be cleaned. Then, the cleaning device which is provided with the carrying member for carrying the toner collected by a 2nd cleaning body which performs cleaning to remove the toner on the brush to a recovery container and has a function that the brush of the cleaning body contacts to and separates from the surface to be cleaned in specified timing is constituted so that it can be divided to the attachable/detachable cleaning unit 16 and the carrying unit 22 which is fixed to a main body. A rotary shaft 12a for executing the function that the cleaning body contacts to and separates from the surface to be cleaned is rotatably supported as the supporting means of the cleaning unit 16.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a cleaning device for image forming equipment in an electrophotographic apparatus such as a copying machine or a laser beam, and more particularly to improved handling for color printing and user maintenance.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art An electrophotographic apparatus develops a recording medium on which a latent image is formed with toner, and transfers the developed toner image onto a transfer material such as paper. Therefore, when using the above recording medium repeatedly, it is necessary to remove the residual toner on the transfer device and the paper dust that adheres during transfer, and this type of device requires cleaning of the fur brush, magnetic roll, blade, etc. There is a cleaning device used as a body, and a conveying member that conveys toner collected by the cleaning device to a collection container. In addition, the cleaning body of the cleaning device has a function of coming into contact with and leaving the surface to be cleaned at a predetermined timing to improve functionality, but the cleaning body for collecting toner is housed inside the case. It is configured. As such a cleaning device, there is a cleaning device as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 61-62092.

0003

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In this conventional device, the toner collected by the cleaning body is conveyed in one direction by the conveying member to the collection container, so the collection container must be placed outside the image forming section. In addition, in order to convey the toner to that point, only the conveying member of the cleaning device has been configured to be long in the conveying direction. Therefore, in order to attach and detach the cleaning device, it was necessary to remove a large amount of peripheral equipment. In addition, the cleaning body of the cleaning device has a function of coming into contact with and separating from the surface to be cleaned at a predetermined timing in order to improve its functionality, but in order to make the cleaning body housed inside the case movable, it has a complicated structure. There was a problem that the collected toner was scattered inside the case in the form of a mist and the entire cleaning body was contaminated. Further, in recent years, there has been a growing demand for user maintenance, and units with short lifespans are now being required to be easily replaceable and not dirty when replaced. Conventionally, it was necessary to replace the entire cleaning device.

An object of the present invention is to eliminate problems in attaching and detaching the cleaning device, to easily configure the movable structure of the cleaning body, and to facilitate user maintenance by providing a structure with good replaceability. An object of the present invention is to provide a cleaning device for an electrophotographic device which has a compact structure and is low in price.

[0005]

[Means to solve the problem] To achieve the purpose,
The cleaning device can be divided into a unit having a cleaning body such as a brush or blade, and a unit having a conveyance member, and the unit having the conveyance member is fixed to the main body, and the unit having the cleaning body is configured to be detachable. As a support means for a unit having a cleaning body and a unit having a conveying member, a rotary shaft is rotatably supported so that the cleaning body can come into contact with and leave the surface to be cleaned at a predetermined timing.

[0006]

[Function] By configuring the cleaning device so that it can be divided into two units, one having the cleaning body and the other having the conveying member, the unit having the conveying member is fixed to the main body, and the unit having the cleaning body is detachably configured. The user can easily replace only the cleaning body with a short lifespan. Here, in order to transport the collected toner to the collection container, the transport member is configured to be long in the transport direction and is connected to the collection device.
Removal and attachment of this unit is very complicated, and the significance of leaving this unit in the main body is very great. In addition, the unit of the conveying member has a longer lifespan than the cleaning body, and conventionally it was discarded at the end of the cleaning body's lifespan, but according to this method, only the cleaning body can be disposed of, which has a great cost advantage. Further, in order to attach and detach the cleaning device, it was necessary to remove the peripheral devices to a large extent, but this is not necessary and the structure is simple.

[0007]As a support means for the unit having the cleaning body and the unit having the conveyance member, a simple method is used to rotatably support the rotary shaft for the function of the cleaning body coming into contact with and leaving the surface to be cleaned at a predetermined timing. The configuration provides a detachable configuration. In addition, with this configuration, the cleaning body housed inside the case was conventionally made movable, which required a complicated configuration, but since the cleaning body is attached from the outside, it can be rotated with a simple configuration, and the collected toner can be moved. There is very little contact with the inside of the case floating on the mist, and there is no problem of contamination of the cleaning body.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

In FIGS. 1 and 2, 1 is a recording medium such as a drum-shaped photoreceptor or an insulator as an image carrier;
10 is a bias cleaning unit serving as a cleaning device. The cleaning device 10 is a device that cleans residual toner 2 after a toner image formed on the recording medium 1 by a developing device (not shown) is transferred to a recording paper or the like, thereby making the recording medium 1 capable of forming an image again.

The detailed structure of the cleaning device 10 is such that a conductive brush 11 as a cleaning body and a collection roller 12 are rotatably supported, and a blade 13 is attached to a case 14 so as to apply uniform contact pressure to the collection roller 12. mounted on. A cover 15 prevents toner from blowing out of the cleaning device 10 and contaminating the inside of the cleaning device 10 during cleaning. Also, case 14
A push spring 14a is attached to. The above configuration is the unit 16 having a cleaning body.

A conveyance member 17 that conveys the toner collected by the unit 16 having the cleaning body to the collection container 40.
, conveyance guide 18, base 19, seal members 20, 21
A unit 22 having a conveying member 17 composed of etc.
is constructed and fixed to unit fixed side plates 38 and 39.

The conductive brush 11 and collection roller 12 are connected to power sources 23 and 24, and the conductive brush 11
are arranged on the recording medium 1 and the collecting roller 12 with a pressure of about 1 mm, respectively.

By controlling the rotation of the eccentric cam 25 about the rotating shaft 12a of the collection roller 12 as a fulcrum, the roller 26 disposed on the rotating shaft of the brush 11 is pushed up.
The unit 16 with the cleaning body moves like 16',
The brush 11 is separated from the recording medium 1.

Furthermore, the unit 16 having the cleaning body and the unit 22 having the conveying member 17 are configured to be separable. The support arrangement consists of a unit 22 with a conveying member 17;
The brush 11, which is a cleaning body, is attached to the receiving parts 30 and 31 formed by the supporting part 18a provided on a part of the conveyance guide 18 and the supporting springs 28 and 29 respectively provided on the supporting plate 27 fixed to the base. A metal 3 provided on the rotating shaft 12a of the collection roller 12, which is the center of rotation for contact and separation.
By fitting 2 and 33, the unit 16 having the cleaning body and the unit 22 having the conveyance member 17 can be combined and separated.

[0015] Furthermore, the transport member drive gear 35 and the collection roller drive gear 36 are configured to engage with each other when the units are combined. Reference numeral 37 denotes a brush drive gear, which is engaged with the collection roller drive gear 36 in advance. Reference numeral 34 denotes a drive gear, which is engaged with a conveying member drive gear 35 in advance. In the above configuration, the drive gear 34 is rotationally controlled by a drive source (not shown).

Next, the operation will be explained. Recording medium 1
The residual toner 2 on the top is negatively charged,
By applying a positive charge from a power source 23 connected to the conductive brush 11, residual toner 2 is attracted onto the brush 11 and the recording medium 1 is cleaned. The residual toner 2 on the brush 11 is removed by the collection roller 1 by the rotation of the brush 11.
After the brush 11 is conveyed to the point of contact with the brush 11, a power supply 24 connected to the collection roller 12 applies a charge larger than the positive charge applied to the brush 11.
The residual toner 2 is transferred from the brush 1 to the collecting roller 12.
1 is cleaned. A blade 13 is pressed against the collection roller 12, and the rotation of the collection roller 12 cleans the collection roller 12. Thereafter, the residual toner 2 falls onto the conveying member 17, is conveyed by the rotation of the conveying member 17, and is deposited in the collection container 40. The cleaning operation is completed by the above operation.

Here, the residual toner 2 may be charged with a positive charge, and in that case, the charge applied to the brush 11 and the collection roller 12 may be set to a negative charge.

According to experiments, the brush 11 can print approximately 100,000 A4 sheets of recording paper due to shedding or falling of the flocked hair, and the blade 13 pressed against the collection roller 12 is made of a wear-resistant material such as urethane. When printing on tens of thousands of sheets of A4 recording paper, poor cleaning occurs due to abrasion of the edges. On the other hand, the conveying member can operate normally for several hundred thousand sheets if only attention is paid to the bearing structure of the rotating part. Conventionally, as described above, parts with different lifespans are integrally constructed, and depending on the lifespan of the blade 13, it has been necessary to discard the entire cleaning device 10 or to have the blade replaced by a specially trained service person.

According to the present invention, the unit 16 having the cleaning body and the unit 22 having the conveying member 17 are configured to be separable and can be replaced by the user with one touch, and only the unit 16 having the cleaning body has a short life. can be replaced, which has a great cost advantage.

Furthermore, the transport member 17 needs to be transported to the collection container 40, but since the collection container 40 must be placed outside the unit fixed side plate 38, the transport member 17 must be transported to the collection container 40.
7 has no choice but to straddle the unit fixed side plate 38. This conveying member 17 does not require replacement in terms of its lifespan,
On the other hand, the unit 16 having the cleaning body has fixed side plates 38, 3
Since the unit 16 with the cleaning body and the unit 22 with the conveyance member 17 are configured to be separable as described above, only the unit 16 with the cleaning body, which has a short life span, can be replaced by the user with a single touch. It becomes possible.

[0021] Furthermore, when performing color printing on the printing medium 1 multiple times and then transferring it, the brush 11 of the cleaning device 10 is kept in constant contact when the residual toner 2 is cleaned, or when the cleaning device 10 is not in operation. In this case, the bristles of the brush 11 may be deformed, so it may be necessary to move the brush 11 away. Therefore, the unit 16 having the cleaning body is moved as shown by 16' by the eccentric cam 25 described above, and the brush 11 is separated from the recording medium 1. By supporting the unit at the center of rotation of this operation, the support body can also be used as the axis of the recovery roller 12, and the gears 35 and 36 can be positioned with high precision when coupled. Further, in the past, only the brush 11 inside the case 14 was driven, resulting in a complicated configuration, or the entire cleaning device 10 was retracted, but the above configuration can be easily configured.

Next, a second embodiment will be explained with reference to FIG.

Reference numeral 10 denotes a blade cleaning unit, which is a cleaning device, and has a configuration in which a blade 50 of a cleaning body is brought into direct contact with the recording medium 1. 51 is a blade support plate, 51' is a handle, and 52 is a rotating shaft of the blade support plate. The above configuration is the unit 53 having a cleaning body. A conveyance member 55 and a conveyance case 56 scrape off the residual toner 2 on the recording medium 1 with the blade 50, slide down on a recovery film member 54, and convey it to a recovery container.
, a conveying member 5 constituted by a blade pushing spring 57, etc.
A unit 58 having 5 is constructed.

Further, the blade support plate 5 is rotated by controlling the rotation of the eccentric cam 25 about the rotating shaft 52 of the blade support plate 51 as a fulcrum.
By making contact with the blade 1 and pushing it up, the unit 53 having the cleaning body moves as shown at 53', and the blade 50 is separated from the recording medium 1.

Furthermore, the unit 53 having the cleaning body and the unit 58 having the conveyance member 55 are configured to be separable. The support structure is based on a support section 56 provided in the transport case 56.
A cleaning body is formed by fitting a metal 61 provided on a rotating shaft 52, which is a rotation center for contacting and detaching a blade 50, which is a cleaning body, into a receiving part 60 constituted by a and a support spring 59. Unit 53 and conveyance member 55
The unit 58 having the unit 58 is configured to be connectable or separable. 53' indicates a unit 53 having a separate cleaning body.

Also in this configuration, as in the first embodiment described above, the unit 53 having the cleaning body and the conveying member 5
The unit 58 having the cleaning element 5 is configured to be separable and can be replaced by the user with a single touch, making it possible to replace only the unit 53 having the cleaning body with a short lifespan, which has a great cost advantage.

Further, the conveying member 58 needs to be conveyed to the collection container, and this can be easily accomplished by configuring the unit 53 having the cleaning body and the unit 58 having the conveying member 55 to be separable, as in the first embodiment. The structure is as follows.

Further, as in the first embodiment, development is performed on the printing medium 1 multiple times during color printing, and then the image is transferred.
When cleaning the residual toner 2, or when the blade 50 of the cleaning device 10 is kept in contact with the cleaning device 10 during non-operation, it may be deformed, so it may be necessary to retract the blade 50. Therefore, the unit 53 having the cleaning body is moved as shown by 53' by the eccentric cam 25 described above, and the blade 50 is detached from the recording medium 1. By supporting the unit at the rotation center of this operation, the support body can also serve as the rotation axis of the blade 50. Furthermore, in the past, since the blade 50 was disposed inside the transport case 56, the configuration was complicated due to contamination caused by collected toner and driving the blade 50, and the entire cleaning device 10 had to be evacuated. This makes it possible to configure it easily.

[0029]

According to the present invention, the cleaning device can be easily separated into a unit having a cleaning body and a unit having a conveying body, and only the unit having a short-life cleaning body can be replaced, thereby reducing user maintenance. This has the effect of making it possible to achieve a simple configuration, compactness, and low cost, and to provide a cleaning device for an electrophotographic device.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a cleaning device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the cleaning device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of a cleaning device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Recording medium, 2... Residual toner, 10... Cleaning device, 11
... Conductive brush, 12 ... Collection roller, 13 ... Blade, 16 ... Unit having cleaning body, 17 ... Conveying member, 2
2... Unit having a conveyance member, 25... Drive cam, 40
...Recovery container, 50...Blade, 51...Blade support plate,
52...Rotating shaft, 53...Unit having a cleaning body, 55...
A unit having a conveyance member, 56...conveyance case, 57...blade push spring, 58...conveyance member.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A bias cleaning device in which a conductive brush is brought into rotational contact with a surface to be cleaned, a voltage is applied to the brush, and charged toner is electrically attracted, the bias cleaning device having a second device for cleaning the toner on the brush. A cleaning device for an electrophotographic apparatus, which includes a cleaning body and a conveyance member that conveys toner collected by the cleaning body to a collection container, and has a function in which a brush of the cleaning body comes into contact with and leaves a surface to be cleaned at a predetermined timing. In , the unit is configured so that it can be divided into two parts: a unit having a cleaning body such as a brush, and a unit having a conveyance member, and the unit having the conveyance member is fixed to the main body, and the unit having the cleaning body such as a brush can be attached and detached with a single touch. A cleaning device for electrophotographic equipment. 2. In claim 1, as a support means for the unit having the cleaning body and the unit having the conveying member, a rotating member is provided for a function in which the brush of the cleaning body comes into contact with and leaves the surface to be cleaned at a predetermined timing. A cleaning device for an electrophotographic device, characterized in that a shaft is rotatably supported. 3. A cleaning body, comprising: a cleaning body whose blade contacts the surface to be cleaned with a predetermined contact pressure to clean the surface to be cleaned; and a conveying member that conveys toner collected by the cleaning body to a collection container. A cleaning device for an electrophotographic apparatus has a function in which a blade is brought into contact with and detached from a surface to be cleaned at a predetermined timing, and the cleaning device is configured so that it can be divided into two units: a unit that has a blade that is a cleaning body, and a unit that has a conveyance member. A cleaning device for an electrophotographic apparatus, characterized in that a unit having members is fixed to a main body, and a unit having a blade serving as a cleaning body can be attached and detached with a single touch. 4. According to claim 3, as a support means for a unit having a blade serving as a cleaning body and a unit having a conveying member, the blade of the cleaning body has a function of contacting and separating from the surface to be cleaned at a predetermined timing. A cleaning device for an electrophotographic device, characterized in that a rotating shaft is rotatably supported.