JPH08146715A - Image forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To reduce space for an electrifier and the size of a device by adopting such a constitution that a high voltage member and other electric contacts are automatically connected at the time of installing the electrifier in an image forming device. CONSTITUTION: When the electrifier 2 is inserted into the device along a guiding rail formed on the side of a device main body, the positioning pin 41 of the electrifier is engaged with holes formed on side plates 93 and 94 arranged in the device main body, to set the electrifier in a fixed position. At this time, a contact for a power source 92 is abutted on a contact for a motor 52 and then, a leaf spring 95 attached to the main body is abutted on a projection 2' provided in the top part, of the electrifier, to fix it. Thus, the contact of the contacts for a high voltage part,, the detection of the insertion of the motor and its drive can be stably secured.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

[Object of the invention]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as an electrostatic copying machine and a printer.

In a well-known image forming apparatus that forms a toner image on an image bearing member by using static electricity and transfers the toner image onto a transfer material such as paper, charging for charging the surface of the image bearing member before exposure is performed. Several charging devices such as a charging device, a charging device for transferring the formed toner image to a transfer material, and a charging device for separating the transfer material adsorbed on the image carrier from the charging device are used.

In general, such a charger has a structure in which a charging wire is provided in a casing with the side to be charged open and a high voltage is applied to the charging wire for corona discharge. is there.

By the way, in the image forming apparatus using toner for image formation as described above, floating toner, dust,
There are various kinds of foreign matter such as fine paper powder generated from the transfer material paper.On the other hand, it is practically impossible for the charger to completely seal between the open side edge and the surface to be charged. Therefore, the charged wire inside the charger is inevitably contaminated by these foreign matters.

For this reason, a cleaning member for cleaning the charging line of the charger, a conveying means for conveying the cleaning member along the charging line, a driving means for driving the conveying means, etc. are provided. Is proposed.

In general, this type of charger is usually configured to be inserted into and removed from the image forming apparatus from a front side (a side where an operator operates the apparatus) at a predetermined position.

In the charger having such a structure, when the charger is inserted into the main body of the apparatus from the front side, the high voltage portion related to the charging line is electrically connected to the rear side of the main body, and the cleaning member driving section is connected to the charger. After positioning, it is usually electrically connected by a connector or the like on the front side.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a typical example of such a charger, which will be briefly described below.
The charger shown in the figure is one in which the precharger charger 21 for eliminating the residual charge on the image carrier and the primary charger 22 for uniformly charging the surface of the image carrier are combined to constitute the charger 2. so,
It is assumed that each charging unit has a charging wire arranged in the longitudinal direction. The charger 2 is provided with a conveying member 32 that is a screw rod or the like that can rotate in the longitudinal direction, and a cleaning member 31 is engaged with the conveying member 32.

The charger 2 is inserted from the front side of the main body of the image forming apparatus in the direction of the outlined arrow in the figure, and when mounted at a predetermined position, the high voltage side connector 51 is connected to the main body side connector 91. . Further, when the charger is mounted at a predetermined position, the connector 34 of the drive DC motor 33 connected to the front side of the carrying member 32 and the connector 93 of the main body side.
Shall be connected.

When the charger 2 is mounted in a fixed position, the rear-side positioning pins 43 and 44 and the front-side positioning pins 41 and 42 provided therein are engaged with holes provided at appropriate positions on the apparatus main body side. Then, the position of the charger is determined, and the holes are provided in the tab 61 to fix the charger in place in place with screws.

By using the charger having such a structure arranged at a predetermined position and used, residual charges can be removed and the surface of the image carrier can be uniformly charged, and the drive motor 33 can be timely.
The charging wire can be cleaned by the cleaning member 31 by rotating the cleaning member 31 in any direction.

Meanwhile, in the charger having such a structure, in addition to the space occupied by the original charger itself, there is a space for fixing such as the tab, a space for driving the cleaning member, etc. It is necessary and these parts have to exist outside the charger itself in a protruding form, which is an obstacle to downsizing of the charger.

Furthermore, it is necessary to insert / remove the connector of the drive motor in addition to inserting / removing the charger when inserting / removing the charger.
There is a risk that the workability will be deteriorated and that the cleaning operation will not function due to forgetting this operation at the time of mounting, or that the wiring will be damaged when forgetting this operation.

The present invention has been made to cope with such a situation, and as described above, the portion projecting from the main body of the charger is made as small as possible to achieve compactness and insertion. To remove the extra operation,
An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus including a charger having high workability.

[0014]

Configuration of the Invention

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is a member which can be inserted into and removed from the front side of an image forming apparatus and which requires an electrical connection in addition to a high voltage section. In an image forming apparatus equipped with a charger having
When the charger is mounted at a predetermined position of the image forming apparatus, it is provided with a means for completing the connection of the high voltage member and the member requiring the electrical connection, or in the above, the electrical connection is required. The connecting means of the member comprises a contact attached to the main body of the image forming apparatus and a contact provided on the charger facing the contact, or in any one of the above, the charger is A means for biasing the charger in the insertion direction when inserted in the main body of the image forming apparatus is provided, or in any one of the above, the member that requires electrical connection is the position detecting means of the charger. An image forming apparatus or its charging device.

With this structure, the space for the charger in the image forming apparatus can be saved, and the processing,
Assembly is easy and workability can be improved.

[0016]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS "FIG. 1" is a schematic side view showing an image forming apparatus suitable for using a charger according to the present invention. 1 illustrates an image forming apparatus.

Image forming sections 10a, 10a are provided on the upper end of an endless belt-shaped transfer material conveying member 8a extending in the left-right direction in the figure.
b, 10c and 10d are arranged in this order. Each of the image forming units 10a to 10d has the same configuration.

The image carriers 10a to 10d are respectively provided with image carriers 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d, and primary chargers 2a, 2b, 2c and 2d are provided around these image carriers.
Developing units 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d; cleaners 7a, 7b,
7c and 7d; image forming members such as static elimination lamps 3a, 3b, 3c and 3d are arranged. Also, the transport member 8a
The transfer chargers 6a, 6b, 6c and 6d are arranged at the positions corresponding to the respective image carriers 1a to 1d and on the opposite side.

It is assumed that the developing devices 5a to 5d contain toners of yellow, magenta, cyan and black colors, respectively.

When an image signal of each component color of the original is projected onto the image carriers 1a to 1d via the polygon mirror 4, an electrostatic latent image corresponding to each component color is formed on each image carrier. The image forming unit 10a will be described below.
When the latent image arrives at the developing position where the developing device 5a is opposed by the rotational traveling of, the yellow toner is supplied from the developing device and a yellow toner image is formed.

Further, when this yellow toner image reaches the transfer portion where the transfer charger 6a is arranged oppositely, a transfer material (not shown) is supplied to this transfer portion by this time, and by the transfer bias by the transfer charger. The yellow toner image is transferred to the transfer material.

When the transfer material reaches the image forming portion 10b, the transfer material reaches the transfer portion of the image forming portion by this time, and a magenta toner image is formed on the yellow toner image in the same manner as described above. It

Similarly, in the image forming sections 10c and 10d, after the cyan toner image and the black toner image are sequentially superposed on each other, the transfer material is separated from the conveying member 8a and reaches the fixing device 9, where each color is transferred. The toner image is dissolved and mixed to form a color image, which is fixed and fixed on the transfer material and then discharged outside the apparatus.

Residual toner that has not contributed to transfer on the image carriers 10a to 10d is removed by the cleaners 7a to 7d, and residual charges on the image carriers are eliminated by the static elimination lamps 3a to 3d. The image carrier is ready for the next image formation.

Next, referring to FIG. 2 and FIG.
The charger according to the present invention that can be used in such an image forming apparatus will be described. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the charger,
Portions corresponding to those shown in FIG. 4 are designated by the same reference numerals, and the description thereof will be omitted.

As shown in the figure, on the image forming apparatus main body side,
A contact 92, which is formed of a retractable pin and has one end connected to the drive power source of the motor 33 that drives the cleaning member feeding means 32, is provided. A contact 52 for driving a motor is provided at a position facing the contact 92. When the charger is inserted into the main body of the apparatus, the contact 92 comes into contact with the contact 52 to drive the motor and detect the position of the charger. I do.

When the charger 2 is inserted into the apparatus along a guide rail (not shown) formed on the apparatus main body side, it is inserted into the holes formed in the side plates 93 and 94 arranged in the immovable portion of the apparatus main body. Positioning pins 41, 42 and 43 on the charger 2 side,
44 is engaged, and the charger 2 is positioned.

At this time, the leaf spring 95 disposed in the immovable portion in the main body of the apparatus is the protrusion 2'formed at a proper position on the top of the charger 2.
And the charger 2 as a whole is biased to the left in the drawing,
The charger secures a fixed position by compensating for play caused by processing and assembly errors. In addition, the contact of the high-voltage portion, the detection of the insertion of the motor, and the contact for driving can be stably ensured.

[0029]

As described above, according to the present invention,
In a charger that is inserted and removed from the front side of the image forming apparatus and requires an electrical connection other than the high voltage section, fixing means for the charger to the apparatus main body is not required, and Since no space for electrical connection is required,
The charger itself can be made compact, and the workability of manufacturing, processing and assembling is improved, which also contributes to cost reduction.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic side sectional view of an image forming apparatus to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a charger used in the same apparatus.

[Fig. 3] Side view of the above

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a known charger.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Charging device 10a, 10b, 10c, 10d Image forming unit 21 Pre-electrification unit 22 Primary charging unit 31 Cleaning member 32 Conveying means 33 Motor 41, 42, 43, 44 Positioning pin 51 High voltage side connector 52 Motor driving contact 92 Contact 95 Leaf spring

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An image forming apparatus equipped with a charger which can be inserted into and removed from the front side of the image forming apparatus and has a member requiring electrical connection in addition to a high-voltage section, wherein the charger is the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus having means for completing the connection of both the high voltage member and the member requiring the electrical connection when mounted at a predetermined position. 2. The connecting means for a member requiring electrical connection comprises a contact attached to the main body of the image forming apparatus and a contact arranged on the charger facing the contact. The image forming apparatus described above. 3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for biasing the charger in the inserting direction when the charger is inserted into the main body of the image forming apparatus. . 4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the member requiring electrical connection is a position detecting means of the charger.