JPH07325517A - Drum life integrating meter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To maintain the using amt. of a photosensitive drum with a small memory capacity and to judge the life of the photosensitive drum nearly exactly by integrating the using amt. of the photosensitive drum not as a number of revolutions but as a number of printing sheets. CONSTITUTION:A CPU 220 reads out a printing processing routine held in a ROM 251 and starts printing processing when an instruction for printing is made. Printing preprocessing is progressed by adding a 1 to the integrated value of the drum held in the drum life integrating region of an NVRAM 280 and printing is started by adding a 1 to the integrated value of the number of sheets held in the integrated value region of the number of printing sheets of the NVRAM 280. The CPU 20 makes judgment as to whether there is the next printing start or whether printing of the second sheet is to be executed or not. Next, the step is returned to the previous step if there is the instruction for the printing start. The 1 is then added further to the integrated value of the number of sheets held in the integrated value region of the number of printing sheets of the NVRAM 280. The printing of the second sheet is started and the integrated values of the number of sheet are added according to the number of printing sheets. The processing routing is ended upon completion of printing.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a drum life integrating meter for integrating the usage amount of a photosensitive drum used in a copying machine or a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a printer, a copying machine, a facsimile machine or the like, a photosensitive drum has been used for attaching toner to a portion exposed by a laser and transferring the toner onto a recording sheet. This photoconductor drum is a cylindrical member in which a photoconductor such as selenium is applied to the surface of a cylinder such as aluminum, and a cleaning blade for scraping off the toner not transferred to the recording paper is provided on the surface. The cleaning blade wears a relatively soft photoreceptor, which is always attached during rotation, and after a certain number of rotations, the photoreceptor becomes thin and beautiful printing cannot be performed.

On the other hand, the above-mentioned printer, copier, facsimile apparatus, etc. are generally equipped with a printed sheet counter for counting the number of printed sheets so as to serve as an index for the replacement timing of consumable parts. The photoconductor drum was replaced based on the number of printed sheets accumulated by the sheet totalizer.

[0004]

However, the above method has a problem that the life of the photoconductor drum cannot be properly shortened because the number of printed sheets and the number of revolutions of the photoconductor drum are not exactly proportional to each other. That is, the photosensitive drum starts rotation for pre-processing before starting printing, and stops rotation after performing post-processing for the next printing after completion of printing.
The number of rotations per sheet differs when printing one sheet and when printing a plurality of sheets. Therefore, when the life of the photosensitive drum is determined based on the number of printed sheets as described above, when a large number of sheets are printed at once in the printing apparatus, the number of rotations of the photosensitive drum is still small, When it is judged that the product that can withstand use is the end of life depending on the number of printed sheets, or conversely, when printing is done one by one exclusively in the printing device, the number of rotations of the photoconductor drum is so large that the photoconductor wears down and the product withstands use. There may be a case where it is determined that the missing one is still usable based on the number of printed sheets. For this reason, the conventional printing apparatus is generally set to perform life judgment as if it was used in the most severe condition, that is, in a situation where printing is performed one by one. Therefore, in normal use in which printing one sheet at a time and printing a plurality of sheets are performed in a mixed manner, the number of printed sheets is judged to be the end of life if the number of rotations does not reach the upper limit value yet. It was.

Therefore, in order to accurately determine the life of the photoconductor drum, a method of integrating the number of revolutions of the photoconductor drum instead of the number of printed sheets can be considered. In order to record the number of rotations of the photoconductor drum, it is necessary to use a non-volatile RAM capable of holding information even without a power source, but the non-volatile RAM has a limited number of times of writing and is very high in cost. . Further, the photosensitive drum generally makes 7 to 10 revolutions when printing one sheet of A4 recording paper, and therefore, when accumulating the number of revolutions, it is necessary to use an enormous amount of capacity, that is, to accumulate the number of prints described above. It is expected that the cost will be very high because a non-volatile RAM having an order of magnitude larger than the existing one is required.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to maintain the usage amount of a photoconductor drum with a small memory capacity and to almost accurately maintain the life of the photoconductor drum. It is to provide a drum life integrating meter that can judge

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a drum life integrating meter of the present invention is a printing apparatus for rotating a photosensitive drum in a pretreatment or a posttreatment at the start or end of a group of printing operations. An integrated value holding means, a printed number integrating means for increasing the integrated value of the integrated value holding means every time the printing device prints a predetermined number of sheets, and an integrated value of the integrated value holding means at the start or end of printing of the printing device. And a drum integration means for adding a predetermined value α, and the life of the photoconductor drum can be determined by the integration value of the integration value holding means. Further, a drum life integrating meter according to a second aspect of the present invention is characterized in that, in the above-mentioned configuration, it further comprises display means for displaying the integrated value of the integrated value holding means. Further, in the drum life integrating meter according to claim 3 of the present invention, the display means displays the integrated value of the integrated value holding means in a graph form with the integrated value corresponding to the life of the photosensitive drum as a maximum value. It is characterized by

[0008]

In the drum life integrating meter configured as described above, the value relating to the number of revolutions of the photosensitive drum relating to the number of printed sheets is printed every time the printing number of sheets is printed by the printing device by a predetermined number (preferably 1). Then, the integrated value of the integrated value holding means is added by a predetermined value (preferably 1). Then, the drum integrating means sets a predetermined value α at the start or end of printing of the printing device.
That is, the value α obtained by converting the number of rotations of the photosensitive drum to the number of prints regardless of the number of prints for the preprocessing at the start of printing and the postprocessing at the end of printing is set as the integrated value of the integrated value holding unit. to add. In this way, the number of revolutions of the photosensitive drum is not converted to the number of revolutions as it is, but is converted into the number of printed sheets and integrated, so that the capacity of the integrated value holding means can be suppressed. It should be noted that the above-mentioned predetermined value α is preferably when one sheet is printed excluding the pre-treatment and the post-treatment, where P is the number of rotations of the photosensitive drum when printing one sheet including the pre-treatment and the post-treatment of printing. Let Q be the number of rotations of the photoconductor drum, and a value corresponding to (P−Q) / Q. A value corresponding to the number of rotations of the photosensitive drum related to the number of prints accumulated by the number-of-printed-sheets accumulating unit and a value corresponding to the number of rotations of the photosensitive drum not related to the number of prints accumulated by the drum accumulating unit. Since the drum rotation speed, that is, the life is determined based on the value added with, the life of the photosensitive drum can be accurately determined. In the drum life integrating meter according to the second aspect of the present invention, it is possible to easily inform the usage amount of the photoconductor drum by displaying the integrated value on the display means. Further, in the drum life integrating meter according to claim 3, by displaying the usage amount with respect to the life of the photosensitive drum in a graph form, it is possible to easily judge that the life has been reached or the ratio of the usage amount to the life. it can.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an example of a facsimile apparatus having a printing apparatus provided with the drum life integrating meter of the present invention. This facsimile apparatus includes a casing 10, and a paper feed cassette 20 is detachably attached to the upper left portion of the casing 10 in FIG. In this paper feed cassette 20, the recording papers stacked in the paper feed cassette 20 are separated one by one, and a pair of conveyance rollers 30 and 30 are used to form a photoconductor drum 41 that constitutes a photoconductor unit 40. It is conveyed between the transfer roller 42. The photosensitive drum 4 is provided around the photosensitive drum 41.
1. A cleaning blade 4 for removing the toner remaining on the surface 1 and collecting it to the developing unit 50 side described later.
3, an erase lamp 45 for irradiating light for removing charges remaining on the surface of the photosensitive drum 41, and a charger 44 for uniformly charging the surface of the photosensitive drum 41 to about 700V are arranged. Has been done.

The developing unit 50 is a photoconductor unit 40.
Is arranged adjacent to the sheet feeding cassette 20 and at a position opposite to the photoconductor unit 40 of the developing unit 50, the heating roller 61 and the pressing roller 6 are provided.
A fixing unit 60 composed of two, paper discharge rollers 70, 70, and a paper discharge tray 72 are arranged. Paper cassette 2
0, the photoconductor unit 40, and the fixing unit 60, the scanner unit 80 is arranged on the frame 11 assembled in the casing 10, and each control board 90a, 90b, option I / F 100a, option RAM 100b. And each power supply unit 110a, 1
10b and the like are arranged in the bottom of the casing 10 below the frame 11. On the other hand, above the photoconductor unit 40 and the fixing unit 60, a cover 12 that covers the casing 10 is openably and closably provided, and a plurality of operation keys (not shown) are provided on the cover 12. ing.

In the thus constructed facsimile apparatus, the laser scanner 81 of the scanner unit 80 emits the image on the surface of the photosensitive drum 41 which is precharged by the charger 44 according to the image data transmitted from the external device. The photosensitive drum 4 by irradiating the generated light.
An electrostatic latent image is formed on the surface of 1. Next, in the developing unit 50, the powdery toner supplied from the toner cartridge 120 is magnetized, and the toner is developed.
The latent image is visualized on the photosensitive drum 41 by selectively supplying the photosensitive drum 41 via the photosensitive drum 41. After that, the photosensitive drum 41 and the transfer roller 42
An image is transferred to the recording paper supplied between the transfer roller 42 and the transfer roller 42 by applying a voltage to the transfer roller 42, and then the fixing unit 60
Then, heat and pressure are applied to fix the toner image on the recording paper, and the recording paper is ejected from the pair of paper ejection rollers 70, 70 to the paper ejection tray 72.

Next, the control board 9 of the facsimile apparatus
The circuit configuration of 0a and 90b will be described with reference to FIG. The control boards 90a and 90b have a one-chip gate array 210 and a CPU 220. The gate array 210 includes an I / F controller 211 for controlling input print data and a fuser controller 230 for controlling a fuser heating circuit 230 for heating a heater 231 arranged in the fixing unit 60. 212, a motor control unit 213 for controlling a motor drive circuit 240 that drives a single motor 241 that rotates all the rollers and the photosensitive drum 41 of the facsimile apparatus shown in FIG.
And a DRAM control unit 214 for controlling the
An address decoder 215 for decoding the addresses of 250 and the ROM 251, a laser scanner control unit 216 for controlling the laser scanner drive circuit 260 for driving the laser scanner 81, and an input / output port 2.
17 and 17. The input / output port 217 is provided with a solenoid 271 for starting the conveyance of recording sheets via the drive circuit 270, the erase lamp 45 and the charger 4.
4. Connected to a high voltage power supply circuit 272 for generating a high voltage to be applied to the transfer roller 42 and the like, giving a drive signal to these, and connected to a sensor 272 for detecting paper discharge to receive a detection signal. This input / output port 217 also has an NV
RAM (non-volatile RAM) 280 is connected to the CPU 2
Reference numeral 20 denotes a write operation for adding a predetermined value α (for example, 1) to the NVRAM 280 according to a control routine stored in the ROM 251 at the time of integration of the number of printed sheets and start or end of printing, which will be described later, from the NVRAM 280. Read out. The NVRAM 280 constitutes the integrated value holding means of the present invention, and also the CPU 220 and the ROM 25.
Reference numeral 1 constitutes a printed sheet totalizing means and a drum totalizing means for adding a predetermined value α. The predetermined value α is stored in the ROM 251. Further, the CPU 220 follows the various control routines stored in the ROM 251 and follows the gate array 21.
Various control operations for print processing are performed via 0 as described later.

Here, the CP of the above-mentioned facsimile apparatus
The print processing by U220 will be described. When a print instruction is issued (Yes in S31), the CPU 220 causes the R
The print processing routine shown in FIG. 3 held in the 0M251 is read, and the print processing is started. First, the pre-printing process is advanced before the start of printing (S32). Here, the motor 241 is driven to start the rotation of the photosensitive drum 41 in the clockwise direction in the figure, the erase lamp 45 is turned on to remove the electric charge remaining on the surface of the photosensitive drum 41, and the charger 44. To the surface of the photoconductor drum 41 by applying a high voltage to
The electric charge of 0 V is uniformly charged. And the developing roller 4
When a voltage is applied to 6 and the photosensitive drum 41 is exposed by the laser scanner 81, it is ready for development. After the completion of the pre-printing process, the CPU 220 adds the number of printed sheets 1 to the integrated value N held in the drum life integrated area of the NVRAM 280 before starting the printing (S3).
3). Then, printing is started (S34). here,
The CPU 220 drives the solenoid 271 to start the conveyance of the recording sheet and at the same time starts the emission of laser light from the laser scanner 81 to form an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the photosensitive drum 41. Then, the toner supplied from the toner cartridge 120 is magnetized via the developing roller 46 and is supplied to the photosensitive drum 41, and the electrostatic latent image is visualized on the photosensitive drum 41. Then, the developed toner is transferred onto the recording sheet supplied between the photosensitive drum 41 and the transfer roller 42. It should be noted that the toner remaining on the surface of the photosensitive drum 41 after the transfer is removed by the cleaning blade 43, and the removed toner is collected by the developing unit 50 side. Then, the toner transferred to the recording paper is fixed by the fixing unit 60.
Then, heat and pressure are applied to the recording paper to fix it. Then, the recording paper is ejected to the paper ejection tray 72 from the pair of paper ejection rollers 70, 70.

Upon completion of printing, the CPU 220 determines whether there is an instruction to start the next printing, that is, whether to print the second sheet (S35). Here, if there is an instruction to start the next printing (Yes in S35), the above step 3 is performed.
Returning to step 3, the number of printed sheets 1 is further added to the integrated value N held in the drum life integrated area of the NVRAM 280. Then, the printing of the second sheet is started (S34). By repeating the processing of steps 33 to 35, the integrated value N is added according to the number of printed sheets. Then, when all the printing of the group is completed (No in S35), the NVRAM 28
A predetermined value α = 1 is further added to the integrated value N held in the drum life integrated area of 0 (S36). After the printing is completed, the post-printing process is started to prepare for the next printing (S37). Here, the CPU 220 uses the charger 44,
The application of the voltage to the developing roller 46 and the transfer roller 42 is stopped, the erase lamp 45 is kept lit, and the photosensitive drum 41 is continuously rotated to remove the electric charge remaining on the surface of the photosensitive drum 41. To do. When the post-printing process is completed, the print processing routine ends.

In the facsimile machine of the first embodiment described above, when one sheet of A4 recording paper is printed, the above-mentioned pre-processing and post-processing are added to rotate the photosensitive drum 41 about 7 times. Then, it is rotated 10.5 to print two sheets, and is rotated 14 to print three sheets. That is, the photosensitive drum 41 rotates 3.5 times during printing, and in addition to printing, rotates 3.5 times, which is equivalent to printing one sheet. Therefore, when printing, the above step 3
2. The number of printed sheets “1” is added to the integrated value N in step 3, and the printing is not directly performed in step 36 at the end of printing.
Since 5 rotations correspond to printing one sheet, "1" is added to the integrated value N. That is, the value added in step 36 is set to P, which is the number of rotations of the photosensitive drum when printing one sheet including pre-processing and post-processing for printing, and one sheet is printed excluding pre-processing and post-processing. Q is the number of rotations of the photosensitive drum
, A value corresponding to (P−Q) / Q is selected.

Next, the status display processing by the above-mentioned facsimile apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. Cover 12
When the status display is instructed by the upper operation key (Yes in S41)
s), the CPU 220 reads the display processing routine shown in FIG. 4 stored in the R0M251 and starts the display processing. Here, first, the status is read (S4
2). That is, the value of the integrated value N held in the drum life integrated area of the NVRAM 280 is read. And FIG.
The print processing routine is read out, and the integrated value N is displayed on the recording paper 21 by printing it on the bar graph 22 as shown in FIG. 5 (S44). The pattern of this bar graph is R
It is held in the display processing routine of the OM 251.
In the bar graph 22, the integrated value set as the life of the photosensitive drum 41, for example, 30,000 sheets is set as the maximum value, that is, the maximum length of the bar graph, and the part of the integrated value N up to now is displayed in black. Further, other status indications such as character type and communication mode are simultaneously output as characters on the recording paper. In this embodiment, the CPU 220 and the ROM 25
Although 1 and the printing device constitute a display unit for displaying the integrated value, the integrated value N may be displayed on a liquid crystal display device (not shown) instead. Further, at the time of this display, when the integrated value N reaches the above-mentioned integrated value of life of 30,000 sheets, a message to that effect is displayed to prompt replacement of the photoconductor unit 40, and when the unit 40 is replaced with a new one. The integrated value N may be cleared. In addition, the number of revolutions corresponding to the printing of one sheet is 3.5 for the integrated value N.
Alternatively, the rotation speed may be calculated by multiplying by (S43), and the calculated value may be displayed. By displaying the integrated value N in the form of a bar graph, pie chart, etc., it is possible to easily visually know that the integrated value has reached the end of its life and the ratio of the integrated value to the life, but the integrated value N is a number. It does not matter even if it is displayed with.

Next, a facsimile apparatus having a drum life integrating meter according to the second embodiment of the present invention will be described.
Since this facsimile machine has the same structure as the first embodiment described above with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, the description of the structure will be omitted and the printing process in the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
Will be described with reference to. When a print instruction is issued (S51
Yes), the CPU 220 reads the print processing routine shown in FIG. 6 held in the R0M251 and starts the print processing. Here, first, 1 is added to the drum integrated value M held in the drum life integrated area of the NVRAM 280 (S52). Next, the pre-printing process is advanced in the same manner as in the first embodiment described above (S53). And NVRAM2
1 is added to the cumulative number S of sheets held in the cumulative number of printed sheets area 80 (S54). After that, printing is started in the same manner as in the first embodiment described above (S55).

Upon completion of printing, the CPU 220 determines whether there is an instruction to start the next printing, that is, whether to print the second sheet (S56). If there is an instruction to start the next printing (Yes in S56), then the step 5
Returning to step 4, 1 is further added to the total number S of sheets stored in the print number total area of the NVRAM 280. And 2
Printing of the first sheet is started (S55). From this step 54
By repeating the processing of 56, the cumulative number S of sheets is added according to the number of printed sheets. Then, when all the printing is completed (No in S56), post-printing processing is performed to prepare for the next printing as in the first embodiment described above (S5).
7) The print processing routine ends.

In the second embodiment described above, A
When one sheet of recording paper No. 4 is printed, pre-processing and post-processing are added so that the photosensitive drum 41 rotates about 16 times. Then, it is rotated 24 times to print two sheets, and is rotated 32 times to print three sheets. That is, the photosensitive drum 41 rotates 8 times at the time of printing, and makes 8 times equivalent to the printing of one sheet other than the printing. Therefore, in step 52, "1" corresponding to 8 rotations in which printing is not directly performed at the start of printing is set to the drum integrated value M.
In addition, first, at the time of printing, "1" corresponding to 8 rotations is added to the total number S of sheets at the time of printing.

Next, the status display processing by the above-mentioned facsimile apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. When the status display is instructed as in the above-described embodiment (Yes in S61),
The CPU 220 reads out the display processing routine shown in FIG. 7 held in the R0M 251, and starts the display processing. First, the state is read (S62). That is, the value of the pre-processing / post-processing integrated value M and the value of the integrated number of sheets S stored in the drum life integrated area of the NVRAM 280 are read. Then, the value of the pre- and post-process integrated value M and the value of the integrated number S of sheets are added, and the added value is multiplied by the above-mentioned rotational speed of 8 to calculate the rotational speed, if necessary (S63). After that, the print processing routine described above with reference to FIG. 6 is read out, and the value of the cumulative number S of sheets is used as the number of printed sheets, and the calculated addition value or rotation number is used as the photosensitive drum usage amount, which is shown in FIG. As described above, the status report is printed and displayed in the form of a bar graph (S64), and all processing is terminated. In both of the above embodiments, the integrated value N or M + S may be printed or displayed by a liquid crystal display device, or may be displayed by an announcement diode, voice, or the like. Further, the predetermined value added to the integrated value N or M associated with the pre-processing or the post-processing is arbitrarily determined according to the status of the pre-processing or the post-processing in each printing apparatus. Further, the number of rotations of the photosensitive drum per sheet changes depending on the length of the recording sheet, but the life value is determined from the number of sheets of the maximum size sheet that can be printed by the printing apparatus.

[0021]

As described above, in the drum life integrating meter of the present invention, the amount of information can be suppressed because the usage amount of the photosensitive drum is integrated as the number of printed sheets instead of the number of rotations. Therefore, an inexpensive small-capacity storage element can be used, so that the manufacturing cost of the drum life integrating meter can be reduced. Further, since the life is determined based on a value obtained by adding a value related to the total number of printed sheets and a value corresponding to the rotation of the photoconductor drum for pre-processing or post-processing irrespective of the number of printed sheets, the photosensitive drum is determined. Can properly determine the lifespan of.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of essential parts of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a control board of the facsimile apparatus shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a drum life integration process of the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a status display process of the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a status display example of the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a drum life integration process of the second embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a status display of the second embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a state of the second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 41 photoconductor drum 43 cleaning blade 90a control board 90b control board 210 gate array 220 CPU 280 NVRAM

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A printing apparatus in which a photosensitive drum is pre-processed or post-processed and rotated at the start or end of a group of printing operations, the integrated value holding means and the integrated value holding means for each time the printing apparatus prints a predetermined number of sheets. And a drum accumulator that adds a predetermined value α to the integrated value of the integrated value holding means at the start or the end of printing of the printing device, and integrates the integrated value holding means. A drum life integrating meter characterized in that the life of the photosensitive drum can be determined by a value. 2. The drum life integrating meter according to claim 1, further comprising display means for displaying an integrated value of said integrated value holding means. 3. The display means displays the integrated value of the integrated value holding means in a graph form with the integrated value corresponding to the life of the photosensitive drum as a maximum value. Drum life totalizer.