JPH05201059A - Recording device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a high quality recording device free from failure at low cost wherein vibration of an aperture electrode is stable and clogging of toner at openings is restrained, by transferring stable vibration to the aperture electrode effectively. CONSTITUTION:An aperture electrode 20 is adhered to a vibrating body 42 consisting of an elastic body equipped with exposure holes 41. Openings 24 of the aperture electrode 20 are exposed from the exposure holes 41. At the both ends of the vibrating body 42, an exciter 43 and a vibration absorber 44 are provided, and progressive wave runs in the vibrating body 42. The minimum width at the center of an exposure hole is shorter than a wave length of the vibration to be generated at the vibrating body.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording apparatus applied to a copying machine, a printer or the like, and more particularly, it has an opening and is provided with a means for modulating and controlling the flow of charged toner passing through the opening. Recording device

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a recording apparatus of this type has a toner supply source, an aperture electrode having an opening, and a counter electrode. The aperture electrode is composed of a reference electrode and a large number of control electrodes via an insulating layer, and an opening is provided in a portion where the reference electrode and the control electrode overlap each other. Then, when the charged toner is supplied from the toner supply source to the reference electrode side of the aperture electrode, the aperture electrode modulates the passage of the toner flow through the opening. As a result, the modulated toner is attracted toward the counter electrode and adheres to the support conveyed to the counter electrode to form an image. This recording device is disclosed in, for example, US Pat. No. 3,689,935 and the drawings.

This recording apparatus has a fatal problem that the opening of the aperture electrode is clogged with toner. Therefore, the present applicant has filed Japanese Patent Application No. 2-1
In the specification and the drawings attached to the application of No. 96781, by providing an excitation means to the aperture electrode, the aperture electrode is vibrated, and the toner clogged in the opening is filtered out, thereby dramatically improving the recording stability. Proposed. Furthermore, the applicant of the present invention is the Japanese Patent Application No. 2-288.
In the specification and drawings attached to the application No. 204, it has been proposed that the aperture electrode is provided with excitation means including an elastic body and an excitation body to vibrate the aperture electrode.

[0004]

However, in the above-described conventional recording apparatus, the way of transmitting ultrasonic vibration waves is largely different between the aperture electrode and the elastic body. Therefore, the vibration generated in the elastic body by the exciter is not efficiently transmitted to the aperture electrode, and the vibration of the aperture electrode is non-uniform. As a result, there is a problem in that vibration nodes are generated everywhere in the aperture electrode, and the opening at that portion is clogged with the toner.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-described problems, and stabilizes the vibration of the aperture electrode by efficiently transmitting the stable vibration to the aperture electrode, thereby preventing the clogging of the opening with toner. It is an object of the present invention to provide a high-quality recording apparatus that is suppressed, is inexpensive, and does not cause recording failure.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a recording apparatus of the present invention has an aperture electrode for modulating and controlling the flow of toner passing through the aperture, and the aperture electrode. A vibrating body having an exposure hole that can expose the opening, an exciting body that excites the vibrating body, a toner supply unit that supplies toner charged in the opening of the aperture electrode, and the aperture electrode. And a counter electrode that is disposed on the opposite side of the toner supply unit so as to be opposed to, and the shortest distance width in the center of the exposure hole of the vibrating body is shorter than the wavelength of vibration generated in the vibrating body. It has a feature.

Furthermore, the shortest distance width in the center of the exposed hole is shorter than the wavelength of vibration generated in the aperture electrode.

[0008]

According to the recording apparatus of the present invention having the above structure, the shape of the exposure hole of the vibrating body can be ignored with respect to the vibration generated in the vibrating body. That is, since the aperture electrode portion in the exposed hole can be neglected vibrationally as compared with the aperture electrode in the portion other than the exposed hole that vibrates following the vibration of the vibrating body, the vibration Efficiently transmitted to the aperture electrode. Furthermore, if the shortest distance width in the center of the exposed hole is shorter than the wavelength of the vibration generated in the aperture electrode in the exposed hole portion, no vibration node is formed near the opening inside the exposed hole.

[0009]

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

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the mechanical structure of a recording apparatus to which the present invention is applied.

The insertion opening 3 is provided on the left and right sides of the apparatus housing 5.
And a take-out port 4, and a recording unit 1 and a heat fixing unit 2 adjacent to the recording unit 1 are provided inside the apparatus.
An image is recorded on the support P that has entered from the insertion port 3 by the recording unit 1, and then the image on the support P is thermally fixed on the support P by the heat fixing unit 2. Then, the support P is taken out from the take-out port 4 via the guide 33.

A brush roller 11 is provided inside the recording unit 1.
An aperture electrode 20 and a counter electrode 25 are provided. Around the brush roller 11, the brush roller 1
1, a scraping member 15 for scraping the brush roller 11 and a supply roller 12 are provided in contact with the brush roller 11 on the upstream side in the rotating direction of 1. The supply roller 12 and the brush roller 11 are in the area surrounded by the toner case 14. Further, the toner T is stored inside the toner case 14. Further, at a position close to the supply roller 12, a layer thickness regulating member 13 is provided to make the toner T attached to the supply roller 12 into a uniform layer of the toner T. The brush roller 11 is connected to the ground.

An aperture electrode 20 is arranged above the brush roller 11. As shown in detail in FIG. 2, the aperture electrode 20 is formed by sandwiching an insulating layer 21 between a reference electrode layer 22 and a large number of control electrode layers 23, and further has a large number of openings 24 arranged in rows. .. Reference electrode layer 2
2 is provided on the entire surface of the insulating layer 21 on the brush roller 11 side, and each control electrode layer 23 is arranged around the opening 24 on the upper surface of the insulating layer 21. The insulating layer 21 has a thickness of 25
It is made of a polymer resin film of μm, for example, polyimide. The reference electrode layer 22 and the control electrode layer 24 are formed of a metal film such as copper having a thickness of about 1 μm formed by a thin film forming method, for example, a sputtering method. The opening 24 is a through hole having a hole diameter of about 80 μm. The reference electrode layer 22 is grounded, and each control electrode layer 23 is the image signal S.
Respectively connected to.

Further, as shown in FIG. 2, the aperture electrode 20 is bonded to a vibrating body 42 made of an elastic body having an exposure hole 41. The exposure hole 41 is the aperture electrode 2
The zero opening 24 is exposed and is provided at a position where toner can be supplied. An exciter 43 and a vibration absorber 44 are provided at both ends of the vibrating body 42 so that traveling waves travel in the vibrating body 42.

As the excitation body 43 and the vibration absorber 44, for example, a Langevin oscillator having a structure in which a piezoelectric element is sandwiched is used. The excitation body 43 is configured to excite the vibration body 42 by applying an appropriate vibration voltage to the piezoelectric body of the Langevin vibrator. In addition, the vibration absorber 4
A resistor is connected to the piezoelectric element of the Langevin vibrator of No. 4, and the electromotive force due to the distortion of vibration can be consumed. An elastic body made of a metal such as aluminum or stainless steel is used for the vibrating body 42. The exposed hole is 1mm
The aperture electrode 2 of the vibrating body 42 formed with the following diameter
The surface area should be sufficiently smaller than the bonding surface with 0. Furthermore, the thickness of the vibrating body 42 is made sufficiently thicker than the thickness of the aperture electrode 20, and for example, an aluminum plate having a thickness of 1 mm is used.

The counter electrode 2 is provided above the aperture electrode 20.
5 are arranged. Further, a space through which the support P can pass is provided between the counter electrode 25 and the aperture electrode 20. The counter electrode 25 is connected to, for example, a minus (−) power source E.

The support P is conveyed by the guide 33 and the pair of guide rollers 34 from the insertion port 3 to the thermal fixing section 2 via the counter electrode 25.

A heat roller 31 having a heat source inside and a press roller 32 are provided in contact with each other inside the heat fixing section 2, and a support P is provided between the heat roller 31 and the press roller 32. Is configured to pass through.

Next, the operation of the recording apparatus configured as described above will be described.

In the recording unit 1, the toner T carried on the supply roller 12 is formed into a certain layer by the rotation of the supply roller 12 and supplied to the brush roller 11.
At this time, the toner T is rubbed while being in contact with the supply roller 12 and the brush roller 11, and is charged positively (+), for example. The positively charged toner T is carried by the brush roller 11 and supplied to the aperture electrode 20.

On the other hand, the support P inserted into the apparatus through the insertion port 3 is conveyed to the counter electrode 25 by the guide 33 and the guide roller 34.

At this location, an image signal voltage is applied from the image signal S to the control electrode layer 23 of the aperture electrode 20. The flow of the toner T is modulation-controlled based on the image signal voltage. That is, minus (-) from the image signal S
When a voltage is applied to the control electrode layer 23, an electric field in which the toner T positively (+) charged from the reference electrode layer 22 to the control electrode layer 23 is generated inside the opening 24, and the toner T is opened. Pass through. When no voltage is applied from the image signal S, the electric field is not generated inside the opening 24, so that the toner T does not pass through the opening 24.

Here, the aperture electrode 20 vibrates following the vibration of the vibrating body 42. Then, most of the toner T attached to or about to be attached to the aperture electrode 20 due to the image force and the Van der Waals force is given a vibration acceleration by this excitation and falls.

Here, the vibration generated in the aperture electrode 20 will be described in detail. A vibration voltage of, for example, 40 kilohertz is applied to the piezoelectric element of the excitation body 43 so that the vibration body 42 can resonate. Then, the vibrator 42 has 40
A traveling wave of kilohertz is generated. When aluminum having a thickness of 1 mm is used for the vibrating body 42, the wavelength of ultrasonic vibration propagating through the aluminum is about 15 mm. The length of this wavelength is generally an expression expressing the wavelength of a transverse wave propagating in a metal elastic body.

[0025]

[Equation 1]

According to the above, it is known that waves are generated.

The aperture electrode 20 has a thickness of 0.1 mm for a thickness of 1 mm of the vibrating body 42 except the exposed hole 41.
Since it is sufficiently small as 025 mm, it vibrates following the vibrating body 42. Since the shape of the exposed hole 41 is a hole having a diameter of 1 mm, it is sufficiently small for a vibration wavelength of 15 mm that can be formed on an aluminum plate. Therefore, the behavior of the vibration at the boundary portion of the exposed hole is almost uniform. As a result, the vibration generated in the vibrating body 42 vibrates as if the existence of the exposure hole 41 was ignored. Then, as the vibrating body 42 vibrates, the aperture electrode is efficiently excited and vibrates stably.

On the other hand, the aperture electrode in the exposed hole 41 is almost made of polyimide. According to the above formula, the wavelength of the 40 kHz wave excited on the polyimide is about 1.4 mm. Since the size of the exposed hole is 1 mm in diameter, it is smaller than the wavelength of the generated wave, so that uneven waves such as nodes are not generated.

According to the mechanism described above, the aperture electrode 20 is efficiently excited and vibrates.

A negative (-) voltage is applied to the counter electrode 25 by the power source E. An electric field is formed between the counter electrode 25 and the aperture electrode 20 by this voltage,
The toner T modulated along this electric field is attracted to the counter electrode 25. Then, the toner T is applied to the support P.

After that, the support P is conveyed from the recording section 1 to the heat fixing section 2, and the image on the support P is heat fixed. Then, the support P that has passed through the heat fixing section 2 is conveyed to the take-out port 4 via the guide 33 and taken out.

As described above, according to this embodiment, since the shape of the exposed hole of the vibrating body is negligible with respect to the vibration generated in the vibrating body, the aperture electrode of the exposed hole is not affected. The portion can be neglected in terms of vibration as compared with the aperture electrode in the portion other than the exposed hole that vibrates following the vibration of the vibrating body. Furthermore, if the shortest distance width in the center of the exposure hole is shorter than the wavelength of vibration generated in the aperture electrode in the exposure hole portion, no vibration node is formed near the opening inside the exposure hole.

Since the exposed hole 41 has a shape that can be ignored with respect to the vibration generated in the aperture electrode 20, the vibration generated in the aperture electrode 20 is not disturbed.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described in detail above, and various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention.

For example, as shown in FIG. 3, it is possible to use a vibrating body 52 having slit-shaped exposure holes 51. In a recording apparatus capable of achieving high resolution recording, such a vibrating body 52 can be used when the pitch of the apertures of the aperture electrodes becomes narrow. In this case, the slit width of the slit-shaped exposed hole 51 is set to, for example, 1 mm. With this shape, since the vibrating body 52 has a slit width that is sufficiently shorter than the wavelength of the wave formed in the vibrating body 52, it is possible to eliminate vibration unevenness in the lateral direction of the vibrating body 52. Further, a traveling wave is generated in the longitudinal direction of the vibrating body 52, and there is no vibration unevenness in the longitudinal direction. As a result, the vibrating body 52 and the aperture electrode can be uniformly vibrated.

Further, when a large resolution is required,
An aperture electrode 60 having a matrix structure as shown in FIG. 4 is used. Such an aperture electrode 6
For 0, the vibrator 6 as shown in FIGS.
2, 64 can be used. These vibrators 62,
The exposure holes 61 and 63 are provided in the position 64 corresponding to the row of apertures of the aperture electrode.

Further, with respect to the matrix type aperture electrode shown in FIG. 4 and the vibrating body 62 of FIG. 5, as shown in the sectional view of FIG. By providing the vibrating body 65, it is possible to divide the vibrations generated in the rows of adjacent openings, prevent mutual interference of vibrations, and vibrate the aperture electrode more stably.

[0038]

As is clear from the above description, in the recording apparatus of the present invention, the shortest distance width in the center of the exposure hole formed in the vibrating body is shorter than the wavelength of vibration generated in the vibrating body. Since the aperture electrode can be efficiently excited and stably vibrated, the toner adhering to the opening of the aperture electrode can be completely removed.

Furthermore, by making the shortest distance width in the center of the exposure hole shorter than the wavelength of the vibration generated in the aperture electrode, no node is formed in the vicinity of the opening inside the exposure hole.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a mechanical configuration of a recording apparatus embodying the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view around an aperture electrode mounted on the recording apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a modified example around the aperture electrode mounted on the recording apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a modified example of the aperture electrode mounted on the recording apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a vibrating body mounted in the recording apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing a modified example of the vibrating body mounted on the recording apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line AA of FIG. 4 showing a modified example around the aperture electrode mounted on the recording apparatus of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 12 Supply Roller 20 Aperture Electrode 24 Opening 41 Exposure Hole 42 Vibrating Body 43 Exciting Body

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An aperture electrode having an opening for controlling modulation of a toner flow passing through the opening, and a vibrating body having an exposure hole attached to the aperture electrode and capable of exposing the opening. An excitation body that excites the vibrating body, a toner supply unit that supplies toner charged in the opening of the aperture electrode, and a counter electrode that faces the aperture electrode and is arranged on the opposite side of the toner supply unit. In the recording device, the recording device is characterized in that the shortest distance width in the center of the exposure hole of the vibrating body is shorter than the wavelength of vibration generated in the vibrating body. 2. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the shortest distance width in the center of the exposed hole is shorter than the wavelength of vibration generated in the aperture electrode.