JPH054659B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an automatic developing machine that passes a film through a drying section and discharges the film out of the machine after processing such as development. [Background of the Invention] Automatic processors such as those described above are also used for developing general film, but they have become particularly popular in hospitals and other places for developing X-ray films, where it is necessary to know the imaging results quickly. ing. In many conventional automatic developing machines for X-ray film, the processing time from when the leading edge of the film is fed in through the inlet until it emerges from the exit is about 90 seconds, partly due to the relationship with the film. However, there is a strong desire to obtain photographic results more quickly, and for this reason, films and automatic processors that require the above-mentioned processing time of about 45 seconds have come into use. The biggest problem in reducing the processing time of an automatic processor to about 45 seconds or less is that the film tends to be insufficiently dried. In other words, for example, if you change the developing solution and fixing solution of an automatic processing machine, which takes about 90 seconds, to one that develops and fixes in a short time and increases the film feed speed, the developing and fixing will not be done sufficiently. Also, the film that is discharged will be insufficiently dried. This is because as the film feed speed increases, less water is removed by squeezing or blotting in the pre-drying liquid removal section, and if the drying temperature in the drying section is higher than 50℃, the film may become deformed or the image quality may deteriorate. Therefore, increasing the drying temperature is mainly done by increasing the speed and volume of the moisture-unsaturated heated air that is blown onto the film. To make this easier, conventional automatic processors have slit nozzles for blowing heated air on both sides of the drying section along the film path.
With conventional nozzles, even if you try to increase the blowing speed or air volume, the back pressure will increase unnecessarily and the increase in air speed or air volume will be small, or the heated air will leave the film immediately, effectively increasing the drying speed. This is due to the fact that it did not turn out that way. As a result of repeated research on the drying section, the present inventors have found that a relatively simple and efficient method of blowing heated air allows for sufficient drying even if the drying time is shortened, and also allows for easily obtaining drying conditions that do not deteriorate the quality of the image. I found a way. [Object of the Invention] The present invention has been made based on the above-mentioned knowledge, and provides an automatic processor capable of producing developed film with sufficient dryness and good image quality in a short time even when film is processed at high speed. For the purpose of providing. [Structure of the Invention] The present invention provides an automatic developing machine in which an exposed silver halide photosensitive material is subjected to processing such as development, and then passed through a drying section and discharged outside the machine. When targeting one feed roller among the plurality of feed rollers provided for conveying the silver halide photosensitive material, the conveyance state can be determined from the slit nozzles disposed upstream and downstream of the feed roller. A part of the wall connected to the slit nozzle and covering the back side of the feed roller in the direction of transport of the silver halide photosensitive material. In contrast, the automatic apparatus is characterized in that it is equipped with a nozzle duct configured to discharge air from behind the feed roller to the outside of the drying section through an exhaust hole formed at a substantially intermediate position between the two slit nozzles. This configuration achieves the above object. [Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail using illustrated examples. FIG. 1 is a side view showing an example (schematic configuration) of an automatic processor using the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are plan and front views schematically showing the air flow path in the drying section, FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing an example of a nozzle duct according to the present invention, FIG. 5 is a view in the - arrow direction of FIG. 2 or 3, and FIGS. 6 and 7 are examples of drying curves of the drying section, respectively. This is a graph showing. In FIGS. 1 to 5, a photographed film F is inserted into the automatic developing machine through the film insertion slot 1, fed into the developing layer 3 by the feeding roller 2, and then transported to the developing tank 3 by the roller group (reference numeral 1). None)
is sent to the crossing section 4 through the developing solution processing,
The developing solution is squeezed out by a group of rollers (no reference numerals) in the transition section 4 and sent to the fixing tank 5, and then passed through the fixing solution by the roller group of the fixing tank 5 and sent to the crossing section 6. The fixer is squeezed out by a group of rollers (no reference numbers) in the transition section 6 and sent to a washing tank 7, and passed through the washing water by a group of rollers (no reference numbers) of a washing tank 7 to an exit roller (see The cleaning water is squeezed out and sent to the pre-drying liquid removal section 8, and the cleaning water is further squeezed out and sucked out by the roller group of the pre-drying liquid removal section 8 (numbers omitted). The film F is then sent to a drying section 9, and in the drying section 9, while being sent by a group of 10 feed rollers, a plurality of film rollers are formed on both sides of the film F along a path for transporting the film formed by the 10 group of feed rollers. The film is dried by being blown with heated air from each of the two slit nozzles 11a of the nozzle duct 11, and is discharged from the film discharge port 13 by a group of feed rollers 12 to the outside of the machine. The heated air from the slit nozzle 11a in the drying section 9 is blown onto the film F by the blowing fan 14 through the outside air intake 15 and the return duct 16 from the circulation hole 9a provided in the chamber wall of the drying section 9, as indicated by the arrow A. Outside air shown and arrow B
The rising duct 1 sucks the circulating air shown in
7 and heated by a heater 18 provided midway, the air enters the nozzle duct 11 extending from the riser duct 17 into the drying section 9.
This is carried out by blowing from two slit nozzles 11a provided in each nozzle duct 11 onto the front side of the film F as shown by arrow C in FIGS. 2 and 5. In order to prevent the internal pressure of the drying section 9 from increasing due to the intake of outside air by the ventilation fan 14 or the evaporation of moisture from the film F,
The amount of air in the drying section 9 is equivalent to the amount of outside air taken in and the amount of moisture evaporated from the film F.
The air is discharged to the outside of the drying section 9 as shown by the arrow D in FIG. It is discharged outside the aircraft along with the air indicated by the arrow in Figure 1. Each nozzle duct 11 in the embodiment has two slit nozzles 11a and a through hole 11b. The two slit nozzles 11a are for blowing out heated air onto the surface of the film F.
When one feed roller 10 is targeted, they are arranged at targeted positions on the upstream and downstream sides thereof, with the feed roller 10 as the center. The through hole 11b is for letting air escape from behind the feed roller 10 to the outside of the drying section, and utilizes a wall surface (no reference numerals) connected to the slit nozzle 11a that covers the back side of the feed roller 10. and both the slit nozzles 11 with respect to the transport direction of the film F.
It is formed at the middle position of a. With the above configuration, only one nozzle duct 11 is required for the two slit nozzles 11a. In addition, the heated air that is blown from the slit nozzle 11a and temporarily exhibits a turbulent flow state tends to flow along the surface of the film F, and the heated air that has captured the evaporated moisture from the film F passes through the exhaust hole 11b and enters the nozzle duct. Since the air escapes to the rear side of the fan 11, the back pressure at the air outlet does not increase unnecessarily, and the air blower fan 14
The speed and volume of air blown from the slit nozzle 11a can be easily increased by changing the rotational speed of the slit nozzle 11a, thereby effectively increasing the drying speed, shortening the drying period, and obtaining a sufficiently dried developed film. Furthermore, two slit nozzles 11 of each nozzle duct 11
a, as shown in FIG. 2, so that the directions of the heated air blown out to the film path side are directed inward from each other rather than parallel to each other.
The static pressure distribution becomes even higher and the drying ability is further improved. In addition, if the film F is to be sufficiently dried in the drying section 9, a constant rate drying stage and a decreasing rate drying stage will occur during drying of the film F. The constant rate drying stage means that most of the heat supplied to the film F by the heated air is taken away as the latent heat of evaporation of the moisture attached to the surface of the film F, and the film F
This is a drying process in which the surface temperature of the film F is kept constant at a temperature lower than the temperature of the heated air. Since the amount of moisture in the layer is limited to the amount that migrates to the surface and comes out, the amount of heat in the supplied heated air is greater than the latent heat taken away by the evaporated moisture, and the surface temperature of the film F increases. This is a step-by-step drying process. According to the drying section 9 provided with the above-mentioned nozzle duct 11, the drying speed in both the constant rate drying stage and the decreasing rate drying stage can be increased. In order to obtain a film, the drying speed of the constant rate drying stage is increased to shorten the time, and the decreasing rate drying stage is performed by increasing the drying speed of the constant rate drying stage. The drying speed should be such that evaporation stops and the surface temperature of the film F reaches the temperature of the heated air. This point will be explained with reference to FIGS. 6 and 7. FIG. 6 shows a slit nozzle 11a on the right side of the film path of the nozzle duct 11 arranged as shown in FIG. 1 (however, four nozzle ducts 11 in FIG.
The slit nozzles 11a on the left side are numbered 2, 4,...16 in order from the top, and the film is threaded at a constant slit width of 2 mm and slit length of 445 mm.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the automatic developing machine of the present invention, the nozzle duct is configured to cover the back of the feed roller, and the wall surface of the nozzle duct is used behind the feed roller with respect to the film path surface for exhaust gas. Since one opening (referred to as an exhaust hole in the example) is formed, the static pressure against the film increases due to the enclosed space, and a circulation path for the flow of heated air is formed to improve the flow. This allows the highly humid heated air used for drying to be efficiently exhausted. Furthermore, since piping resistance can be reduced, the volume of heated air blown out from the slit nozzle is increased, the drying speed can be easily increased, and developed films that have been sufficiently dried can be processed at high speed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing a schematic configuration of an example of an automatic processor using the present invention, FIGS. The figure is a perspective view showing one example of a nozzle duct according to the present invention, FIG. 5 is a view taken along the - arrow in FIG. 2 or 3, and FIGS. This is a graph showing. F...Film, 1...Film insertion slot, 2...
...Feeding roller, 3...Developing tank, 4, 6...Transition section, 5...Fixing tank, 7...Washing tank, 8...Pre-drying liquid removal section, 9...Drying section, 9a...Circulation hole , 9b
. . . Exhaust hole, 10 . Outside air intake, 16... Return duct, 17... Standing duct, 18, 21... Heater, 19...
Exhaust fan, 20...Wind guide plate.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In an automatic developing machine in which an exposed silver halide photosensitive material is subjected to processing such as development, and then passed through a drying section and discharged outside the machine, the material is disposed in the drying section. When one feed roller is targeted among the plurality of feed rollers for conveying the silver halide photosensitive material, the slit nozzles disposed upstream and downstream of the feed roller are in a conveying state. A portion of a wall that is connected to the slit nozzle and covers the back side of the feed roller, and that blows out heated air toward the silver halide photosensitive material, with respect to the conveying direction of the silver halide photosensitive material. An automatic developing machine characterized by comprising a nozzle duct configured to discharge air from behind the feed roller to the outside of the drying section through an exhaust hole formed at an approximately intermediate position between the two slit nozzles. . 2. The automatic developing machine according to claim 1, wherein the slit nozzles disposed on the upstream side and the downstream side of the feed roller blow out heated air inwardly from parallel to each other. .