JPH0736168A - Carrier connecting between processing tanks of automatic developing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate the phenomenon that the guide member in the connecting carrier part between every adjacent two of the processing tanks of an automatic developing device is contaminated, to reduce the entrained processing solution on the photosensitive material as much as possible and to make the connecting carrier part compact. CONSTITUTION:In the automatic developing device for the photosensitive material, the connecting carriers of the device 1 feature in the following structure. The inner surface of the photosensitive material in the connecting carrier part between every adjacent two of the processing tanks 2 to 6 is brought into contact with the surface of the carrying roller 21 by winding the photosensitive material P around it and the surface of the emulsion, namely the outer surface of the photosensitive material P, is guided by the saw-toothed guide member 8, in which inclined faces and downwardly cut faces are repeatedly formed toward the carrying direction of the photosensitive material P. Also the photosensitive material P is connectively carried between every adjacent two of the processing tanks by driving and carrying it with the carrying roller 21 and the press rollers 22, 23 and 24 which press the photosensitive material P passing through between the carrying roller 21 and each of these press rollers. Further to minimize the amount of the entrained processing solution, a blade member is applied to the surface of the carrying roller 21 and also to make the total size of the automatic developing device 1 compact, the press rollers 22, 23 and 24 in the connecting rack 20 are arranged in a tilted state.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a transfer section in an automatic developing device for photosensitive materials.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An automatic developing apparatus is provided with processing tanks for developing, fixing, stabilizing, washing with water, etc., so that a photosensitive material can be transported through the processing tanks to perform necessary processing and be dried and collected. I am doing it.

A cross-transporting section is provided between the processing tanks so that when the photosensitive material is turned and transferred from the processing tank on the upstream side to the processing tank on the downstream side, the processing solution in the upstream tank is transferred. Some may bring it into the processing solution in the downstream tank unnecessarily, or the surface of the photosensitive material may be scratched at the transition rack. Attempts have been made to prevent the processing liquid from accumulating and depositing its components to contaminate the conveyance path of the photosensitive material by devising the shape of the guide member.

That is, it is well known that the turn guide member provided at the crossing portion is provided with ribs along the direction in which the photosensitive material is conveyed, or the rollers are arranged in a staggered manner. Accumulation continued and damage to the light-sensitive material was likely to occur. In the transfer section, it has been avoided to make the radius of curvature of the turn too small so that the photosensitive material is not broken and the emulsion surface is not scratched. For this reason, even if the processing tank is downsized, the transfer rack of the transfer portion becomes large, and it is difficult to downsize the developing device.

Further, as described above, it is important to carry out the processing liquid to the downstream processing tank as much as possible and save each processing agent, but the sufficient effect is not obtained.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a crossover transfer device for an automatic developing device, which eliminates the above problems of the prior art as much as possible.

[0007]

This object is solved by any one of the following technical means a, b, c, d and e.

(A) In an automatic developing device for photosensitive material,
The inner surface of the photosensitive material in the transfer section between the processing tanks is wound around the surface of the transfer roller and comes into contact therewith, and the emulsion surface of the outer surface of the photosensitive material is cut down with the inclined surface formed in the transfer direction of the photosensitive material. The photosensitive material is guided by a saw-toothed guide member formed by repeating the surface and is conveyed and driven by the conveying roller and a pressure bonding roller that presses the photosensitive material through the conveying roller so that the photosensitive material is conveyed between the tanks. A transfer device for an automatic developing device.

(B) In the paragraph (a), the transitional conveying device of the automatic developing device, wherein the pitch of the repeated length of the inclined surface and the cut-down surface is formed to be 2 mm or more and 10 mm or less.

(C) In an automatic developing device for photosensitive material,
A transfer rack having a transfer roller and its pressure bonding roller is provided in the transfer section between the processing tanks so that the connection with the processing rack in the processing tank is removable, and the blade member provided on the processing rack when the transfer rack is mounted is the transfer rack. The transfer roller of the automatic developing device, wherein the transfer roller and / or the pressure roller are in close contact with each other.

(D) In an automatic developing device for photosensitive material,
A transfer roller is provided on the transfer rack of the transfer section between the processing tanks, and pressure rollers that are in pressure contact with the transfer roller are provided on the input side and the output side of the photosensitive material, and one of the pressure rollers and the center of the transfer roller. A cross-transporting device of an automatic developing device, wherein a line connecting the axes is inclined with respect to the horizontal.

(E) In an automatic developing device for photosensitive material,
A transfer roller is provided on the transfer rack of the transfer section between the processing tanks, and pressure rollers that are in pressure contact with the transfer roller are provided on the input side and the output side of the photosensitive material, and one of the pressure rollers and the center of the transfer roller. The line connecting the axes is inclined with respect to the horizontal, and the pressure rollers on the loading side of one of the transition racks and the pressure rollers on the unload side of the other transition rack are adjacent to each other in the horizontal direction. A crossover transfer device for an automatic developing device, which is characterized by overlapping.

[0013]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a pressure contact roller and a guide member are provided on the outer peripheral portion of the conveying roller in the transition rack between the processing tanks of the automatic developing device, and the guide surface shape of the guide member is closer to the cut line direction with respect to the conveying direction. And a surface to be cut down in the radial direction are repeatedly formed by a sawtooth guide surface, whereby a liquid film carried with the photosensitive material is continuously formed and returned to the processing tank in a uniform flow. At the same time, when the transportation is stopped, the liquid film is broken and the water repellency is produced. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the processing liquid from accumulating on the guide surface having such a shape, the phenomenon that the liquid is dried and the components are not deposited, and the deposits and the ribs in the conveyance direction of the photosensitive material are conveyed even if the maintenance-free state is maintained for cleaning. Therefore, safe transportation can be achieved without damaging the emulsion surface of the light-sensitive material.

Further, by using the shape of the guide member and the material surface which is slippery and has high water repellency in combination, it is possible to perform a more reliable maintenance-free operation.

Further, in the second invention, the above-mentioned first invention is used.
By setting the pitch of the repeating length of the serrated blade-shaped guide surface of the invention of 2 mm or more and 10 mm or less, the emulsion surface of the photosensitive material comes into close contact with the guide surface through the liquid film when the photosensitive material is conveyed. However, since it can pass through the undercut surface immediately, smooth transportation can be achieved.

Further, in the third aspect of the invention, in order to avoid the carry-out of the processing liquid in the processing tank as much as possible and to use the processing liquid more effectively, the amount of the processing liquid adhered to the conveying roller is changed every one rotation. The amount of processing liquid carried out by the conveyed photosensitive material is always minimized by scraping it off.

Such a blade member is fixed to the upper portion of the processing rack, and when the transfer rack is mounted on the developing device, the transfer roller surface of the transfer rack comes into contact with the blade member of the processing rack and presses the blade member. The processing liquid remaining on the transport roller surface is always returned to the original processing tank.
Furthermore, since the amount of the processing liquid remaining on the surface of the transport roller is small, it is possible to prevent the photosensitive material from slipping due to the adhesion of a slippery liquid such as a color developing liquid. The effectiveness of the blade member varies greatly depending on the thickness, material, and contact angle of the blade member, and the effect of this will be described in more detail later in Examples.

As a fourth aspect of the present invention, since the developing device as a whole cannot be downsized unless the processing tank is downsized and the transfer rack is downsized, the transfer rack is improved as a means for solving the problem. is there.

However, it is desirable that the diameter of the transfer roller of the transition rack is as large as possible in order not to cause a trouble such as a break in the photosensitive material. Therefore, it is desirable to devise a bridging rack that can be connected without expanding the intervals between the processing tanks that have been downsized while keeping the diameter of the conveying roller at an appropriate size. That is, by arranging the arrangement position of the pressure-bonding rollers that are in pressure contact with the conveyance roller with being inclined with respect to the horizontal line passing through the center of the conveyance roller, the lateral length can be reduced, and according to the fifth invention, a part of the adjacent transition racks can be saved. Is achieved by horizontally overlapping. More specifically, the example will be described more clearly.

[0020]

Embodiments of the photosensitive material processing apparatus of the present invention will be described in detail below. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an automatic developing device including a cross transport unit. This photosensitive material processing apparatus develops a color photographic paper P as an exposed photosensitive material. The automatic developing apparatus 1 includes a color developing tank 2, a bleach-fixing tank 3, a first stabilizing tank 4, The processing tanks such as the second stabilizing tank 5 and the third stabilizing tank 6 are provided separately.

A treatment rack 7 is disposed in the treatment liquid of each of the treatment tanks. The treatment rack 7 is disposed so as to be connected to both sides of the plate-shaped guide member 8 and the guide member 8 at a lower portion. And a plate-shaped bottom turn guide 8A is provided to form a U-shaped guide.
Between A, for example, four transport rollers 9 are arranged at equal intervals. The color printing paper P is carried into the processing liquid from the outside by the guide members 8 and 8A and the conveying roller 9 and conveyed to the processing liquid, toward the bottom of the processing tank, and turns at this bottom to the upper part of the processing tank. A transport path leading to the adjacent processing tank is formed.
The carrying roller 9 is formed of an elastic member, and the color printing paper P is placed between the carrying roller 9 and the guide member 5 at a rate of 5 to 80 g /
The color photographic printing paper P is conveyed by sliding it on the guide member 8 by applying a conveying force to the color photographic paper P by rotation of the conveying roller 9 by pressing. In this way, the color photographic paper P is pressed against the guide member 8 by the conveying roller 9 and conveyed at both the straight portion and the turn portion. However, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the guide member 8 is pressure-bonded at the turn portion, but the turn guide 8A is not pressure-bonded and has a gap with the transport roller 9. The color photographic paper P is cut into a sheet and is conveyed with the emulsion layer thereof on the conveying roller 9 side.

A stirring nozzle 10 is provided between the conveying rollers 9 and jets the processing liquid toward the emulsion layer of the color printing paper P to stir the processing liquid to improve the processing performance and guide the processing liquid. By ejecting in the direction of the member 8, the rotation of the transport roller 9 prevents the color photographic paper P from being caught and jamming. The stirring nozzle 10 is an inclined surface that is close to the guide member 8 along the conveying direction of the color printing paper P.
The color photographic printing paper P is guided toward the guide member 8 even if it is separated from the guide member 8. Further, an insertion rack 11 is provided on the inlet side of the developing tank 2, a transition rack 20 is provided on the transition transport section between the processing tanks, and a squeeze rack 50 is provided on the unloading side of the third stabilizing tank 6.
Is provided so that the color printing paper P can be smoothly conveyed to the next step.

The conveying roller 9 is formed of an elastic member, and when a rubber roller is used as the elastic member, it is preferable that the rubber hardness is 50 ° or less because the color photographic paper P can be surely pressed against the guide member 8. Further, foaming resin may be used for the transport roller 9.

Since the material of the guide member 8 is preferably such that the frictional resistance with the color photographic paper P is smaller, Teflon resin such as PFA is preferable, but PVC or PP if the surface is a smooth surface.
Resins such as E, PBT, PE and PP may be used. The guide member may be an elastic body and independently apply a pressing force to each of the transport rollers 9. Alternatively, the guide member may be made a rigid body to apply a pressure to an appropriate place so that the pressing force to each of the transport rollers 9 becomes uniform. You may take measures to become like this. Further, the shape of the guide member 8 may be a flat smooth surface, but since it is preferable that the friction resistance at the contact surface with the color photographic paper P is small, ribs (beads) are provided in the conveying direction to reduce the contact area. May be reduced.

Since the interval between the conveying rollers 9 must be shorter than the size of the minimum color photographic paper P that can be processed, it is set shorter than the size of the E (economy size) color photographic paper.

Therefore, when the conveying roller 9 is rotated, a conveying force is applied to the color photographic paper P, and the color photographic paper P slides on the guide member 8 and is conveyed. As described above, since the conveying force is applied to the color printing paper P by pressing the conveying roller 9 against the guide member 8, the number of conveying rollers is reduced, the number of parts can be reduced, the structure is simple, and the cost is reduced. It Further, the width of each tank can be shortened as the number of transport rollers decreases, the apparatus can be downsized, and the processing rack 7 can be processed by providing the guide member 8 and the transport roller 9 facing the processing rack 7. Maintenance work such as cleaning can be done easily by taking out from the tank.

Further, a crossover rack 20 is provided in a crossover transfer section for feeding the photosensitive material into an adjacent processing tank.
The rack 20 is provided with one conveying roller 21, pressure-bonding rollers 22, 23, 24 and pressure-contacting rollers, and guide members 27, 28. The crimping rollers 22, 23, 24 are hooked at their both end shafts by a spring 38, and are hooked on an endless spring member 37, so that the crimping force is applied to the conveying rollers.

Further, a blade member 41 can be attached to the upper part of the processing rack 7 of each processing tank 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 as shown in FIG.

When the transfer rack 20 is mounted on the upper part of the processing tank and connected to the processing rack 7, the tip of the blade member 41 abuts against the peripheral surface of the conveying roller 21 and is bent, as shown in FIGS.
As shown in the front view of FIG.

Here, the photosensitive material is transferred to the adjoining processing tank by the conveying roller 21, the pressure bonding rollers 22, 23 and 24 which are in pressure contact with the conveying roller 21, and the guide members 27 and 28 on the outer periphery of the conveying roller 21, which guides the photosensitive material. The shapes of the guide surfaces of the members 27 and 28 with which the emulsion surface of the light-sensitive material comes into contact are as shown in the front views of FIGS. 3 and 4, a partially enlarged view of FIG. 5 and a perspective view of FIG.

The guide surface is a sloping surface 31 and a radius R, which are represented by a tangential surface having a radius R slightly larger than the radius of the conveying roller.
The cut-down surface 32 in the direction is repetitively formed into a sawtooth shape, and the pitch B of the repetitive length is 2 mm or more and 10 mm or less. When a guide member made with a pitch B of 13 mm was used, the photosensitive material was stuck because it was a liquid and could not be conveyed, but the pitch B was 10 mm, 8 mm, 5 mm, 2 mm.
In the experiment carried out, it was good without sticking. Depending on the radius R, when R is 20 mm, the pitch B is preferably about 8 mm.
Further, the R is set to 15 mm ≦ R ≦ 30 mm. Further, although the inclined surface 31 is a cut plane as shown in FIG. 3, it may be an arc surface as shown in FIG. 4 which is close thereto. Then, as shown in FIG. 5, it is desirable that the intersection of the tip ends of the inclined surface 31 and the cut-down surface 32 be sufficiently rounded as shown by 33. Further, if the step C in FIG. 5 is too small, the liquid adheres to the photosensitive material and may cause sticking to the photosensitive material. Therefore, it is set to 1 mm to 5 mm, preferably 2 to 3 mm.

By mounting such a transition rack between the processing tanks, the guide surface of the guide member is squeezed by the pressing roller and conveyed even if the processing liquid is brought in by the wet photosensitive material and is guided. Element
Due to the shape of the serrated surfaces of 27 and 28, it is difficult for the carry-in liquid to accumulate or adhere, and almost no precipitation of processing agent components that would cause obstacles occurs, and the repeated length of the cut-down surface By setting the pitch B to 2 mm or more and 10 mm or less, the result is obtained that the adhesion to the inclined surface 31 during the conveyance of the photosensitive material is lost. Then, in order to prevent the deposition of the treatment agent component, the guide member is molded so that there is no protrusion that faces downward in the saw tooth, and
It is desirable to place them. Here, the perspective view shown in FIG. 16 is
This is an example of a guide surface shape in the related art, in which ribs are provided at equal intervals along the photosensitive material conveyance direction. When the radius of curvature for the turn is reduced with such a guide shape, the surface of the photosensitive material is locally in strong contact with the ribs, and scratches of rib intervals occur on the entire surface of the photosensitive material. The shape eliminates the above-mentioned problems. In this way, the photosensitive material can be maintained in a stable developing process without being damaged.

Further, the guide member is made of fluororesin such as PTFE or PE, PP, PVC or the like having a smooth surface as a resin material having a small frictional resistance and an excellent water repellency, so that further cleaning is possible. I was able to obtain a stable and maintenance-free condition.

Further, a blade member 41 made of an elastic material such as a rubber material as shown in the perspective view of FIG. 10 is attached to the upper portion of the processing rack of FIG.
By bringing the roller surface of 21 into contact with the roller at an angle of θ, the processing liquid carried on the surface of the conveying roller 21 by the photosensitive material is scraped back and returned to the original processing tank. The processing liquid brought into the adjacent processing tank is drastically reduced without being accumulated.

At the same time, since the processing liquid staying on the conveying roller 21 also disappears, it is possible to prevent a slip that occurs when a liquid having a slipperiness such as a color developing solution stays, and to deposit a processing agent component. Therefore, the cleaning property will become even lower and maintenance-free cleaning will be even more thorough.

The material of the conveying roller 21 in the transfer rack 20 is preferably a rubber material, and may be a resin hard roller.

When an elastic body such as a rubber material is used as the material of the blade member 41, its hardness is preferably 30 ° or more, and when the conveying roller 21 and the blade member 41 are both made of a rubber material, the conveying roller 21 is used. It is desirable to set the hardness of the above to be larger than that of the blade member 41.

In this embodiment, the blade member was shaped like a strip as shown in FIG. 10 and the thickness t was 1 mm ≦ t ≦ 5 mm, and good results were obtained in both durability and scraping effect.

Further, the blade member may be brought into close contact not only with the conveying roller 21 but also with the pressure bonding roller 22 to exert a pressure bonding squeeze effect.

The contact angle θ between the blade member 41 and the conveying roller 21 is 0 ° C. <θ <in view of durability and scraping effect.
It may be 90 °, but preferably 30 ° ≦ θ ≦ 60 °.

Further, the conveying roller 21 and its pressure bonding roller 22,
It is the arrangement relationship of 23 and 24, but apart from the pressure roller 23,
The other two pressure bonding rollers 22 and 24 are shown in FIG. 1, FIG. 11 and FIG.
As shown in the front views of FIGS. 12, 13, 14, and 15, the lines connecting the axis of each pressure roller and the axis of the transport roller are not horizontal.

As described above, the width of each processing tank is the processing rack 7
By simplifying and rationalizing the transport system of, it was possible to make it small and compact, but if the transfer rack 20 remains large, it makes no sense to downsize the processing tanks and open a gap between the processing tanks. If you do not arrange them, you will not be able to connect with a crossover rack.

Further, the diameter of the transfer roller of the transfer rack 20 is restricted so that it cannot be made too small because it does not cause a trouble such as a break in the photosensitive material.

Therefore, in the present invention, in the crossover rack, by arranging the arrangement of the pressure bonding rollers 22 and 24 with respect to the transport roller 21 as described above, as shown in the front view of the rack of FIG. The distance P, that is, the distance between the processing tanks can be reduced to a predetermined value, and the space occupied by the transfer rack 20 can be saved.

That is, in FIG. 13, the first crossover rack forming the outlet of the first processing tank and the inlet of the second processing tank, the outlet of the second processing tank, and the inlet of the third processing tank. The second transition rack forming the above is shown in the state where they overlap at the pressure bonding rollers 24 and 22, respectively. this is,
By inclining the position of the pressure roller in this manner, it is possible to reduce the space in the width direction of the cross rack. Incidentally, the outer diameter a of the transport roller 21 is set to be larger than the outer diameter b of the pressure roller 22 by a factor of two.

In the transition rack shown in FIG. 14, two transition conveyance rollers are provided as 21A and 21B, and one pressure contact roller is provided as 22A and 24A, and the axis of each roller is set. The line connecting the lines is inclined with respect to the horizontal, and the effect of space saving of the crossover rack is enhanced as in the above example.

In this way, the entire automatic developing device can be miniaturized.

[0048]

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, the guide member of the transfer section is maintained in a maintenance-free state without being particularly washed, and the deposit of the processing solution is prevented from adhering to the guide surface. The emulsion surface of the light-sensitive material can be safely and smoothly transported and transferred to the next tank without receiving scratches or the like because it has a flat shape with no ribs or other protrusions.

Further, by bringing the blade member into contact with the transfer roller of the transfer section, it is possible to minimize the carry-out processing solution to the next step and to effectively utilize the expensive processing solution.

Further, it has become possible to realize a compact developing device by inclining the arrangement of the conveying roller and the pressure bonding roller of the crossing conveying section with respect to the horizontal line.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an automatic developing device including a cross-transporting unit of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view showing the transfer section and the upper part of the processing rack of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a front view showing the shape of an embodiment of a guide member of a cross-transport unit.

FIG. 4 is a front view showing the shape of another embodiment of the guide member of the transfer section.

FIG. 5 is a partially enlarged front view of an embodiment of a guide member of a crossing transfer unit.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a guide member of a transfer section.

FIG. 7 is a front view of a state in which a blade member is in contact with a transport roller of a transit transport unit.

FIG. 8 is a front view showing a state in which a blade member is in contact with a conveying roller of a crossing conveying unit and a pressure bonding roller thereof.

FIG. 9 is a partial view showing a contact angle between a blade member and a conveyance roller.

FIG. 10 is a perspective view of a blade member.

FIG. 11 is a front view showing an example of an arrangement of a transport roller and a pressure bonding roller in a crossover transport unit.

FIG. 12 is a front view showing another example of the arrangement of the transport rollers and the pressure bonding rollers in the cross transport unit.

FIG. 13 is a front view showing the positional relationship of the rollers in the two transit conveyance units when receiving from the upstream tank and discharging to the downstream tank.

FIG. 14 is a front view showing a case where two transfer rollers are used in the transfer section.

FIG. 15 is a front view of a specific example of the two crossover transport units shown in FIG.

FIG. 16 is a perspective view of an example of a guide member of a conventional transfer unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 automatic developing device 2 processing tank (color developing tank) 3 processing tank (bleach-fixing tank) 4 processing tank (first stabilizing tank) 7 processing rack 8 guide member 20 crossing rack 21 crossing transfer rollers 22, 23, 24 pressure bonding roller 26 Processing rack outlet guide 27, 28 Guide member

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. In an automatic developing apparatus for a photosensitive material, an inner surface of the photosensitive material in a transfer section between processing tanks is wound around and brought into contact with a transfer roller surface, and an emulsion surface of an outer surface of the photosensitive material is exposed to the photosensitive material. The material is guided by a saw-toothed guide member formed by repeatedly forming an inclined surface and a cut-down surface formed in the material conveying direction, and is conveyed and driven by the conveying roller and a pressure bonding roller that presses the photosensitive material through the conveying roller. An automatic developing device cross-transporting device, wherein the photosensitive material is transported between the tanks. 2. The crossover transfer device for an automatic developing device according to claim 1, wherein the pitch of the repeated length of the inclined surface and the cut-down surface is formed to be 2 mm or more and 10 mm or less. 3. An automatic developing device for photosensitive materials, wherein a transition rack having a conveyance roller and its pressure bonding roller is provided at a transition conveyance section between processing tanks so that connection with the processing rack in the processing tank is detachable. A blade transfer device for an automatic developing device, wherein a blade member provided on a processing rack is brought into close contact with a transfer roller of the transfer rack and / or a pressure bonding roller thereof when the rack is mounted. 4. An automatic developing device for a photosensitive material, wherein a transporting roller is provided on a transporting rack of a transporting portion between processing tanks, and pressure-applying rollers which are brought into pressure contact with the transporting roller are provided on a carry-in side and a carry-out side of the photosensitive material. A crossover conveying device of an automatic developing device, wherein a line connecting one of the pressure bonding rollers and a central axis of the conveying roller is inclined with respect to the horizontal. 5. An automatic developing device for a photosensitive material, wherein a transporting roller is provided on a transporting rack of a transporting portion between processing tanks, and pressure-applying rollers which are in pressure contact with the transporting roller are provided on a carry-in side and a carry-out side of the photosensitive material. A line connecting one of the pressure rollers and the central axis of the conveying roller is inclined with respect to the horizontal, and the pressure rollers on the loading side of one of the transition racks and the other transition rack of adjacent transition racks are provided. The transfer roller of the automatic developing device, characterized in that the pressure roller on the unloading side overlaps with each other in the horizontal direction.