JPH08262944A - Cleaning device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide a cleaning device which is compact, is mass-produced, and keeps stable cleaning performance over a long term. CONSTITUTION: In this cleaning device used in an electrophotographic image forming device, plural through-holes are bored at the bonding part of a supporting member 4 for a cleaning blade 2 with the cleaning blade 2. The cleaning blade 2 is made of material having elasticity and is molded so that its projection part may be press-fitted to pierce the through-hole. Therefore, the projection part is hardly pulled out from the through-hole of the supporting member U. Besides, by additionally using adhesive, the cleaning blade is firmly bonded on the supporting member.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is provided in an image forming apparatus using electrophotography, such as a copying machine, a fax machine, a printer, etc., and after a toner image is transferred to a transfer material, it remains on the image carrier. The present invention relates to a cleaning device for removing residual toner that remains.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, an electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes an image carrier having a photosensitive layer formed on the peripheral surface of a cylindrical or belt-shaped conductor. Around the image carrier, a charger, an image exposure device, a developing device, a transfer device, etc. are provided. In such an image forming apparatus, an image is formed by the following steps. First, the photosensitive layer is uniformly charged, and then an electrostatic latent image is formed on the photosensitive layer by exposure. Then, toner is selectively transferred to the electrostatic latent image to form a toner image, and the toner image is transferred to a transfer material such as paper. The transfer material is heated and pressed by a fixing device, and the toner image is fused to the transfer material to obtain an image with the fixed image. On the other hand, after the transfer of the toner image, the image bearing member exposes the entire surface of the photosensitive layer to erase the electrostatic latent image, and the process from uniform charging to transfer is repeated again.

In the above-mentioned process, the toner that has not been transferred remains on the surface of the image carrier after the toner image is transferred to the transfer material. Therefore, in order to stably obtain a high-quality image, it is important to remove the residual toner each time, and a cleaning device is provided for that purpose. Various types of such cleaning devices have been conventionally proposed, and as the cleaning member, a brush-shaped or blade-shaped cleaning member, or a combination thereof is known.

FIG. 9 is a sectional view showing a cleaning blade which has been widely used in conventional cleaning devices. The cleaning blade 102 is made of an elastic material such as rubber and has one end bonded and fixed to the support member 104. The other end (tip) of this cleaning blade is pressed against the surface of the image carrier 101 toward the upstream side in the moving direction of the surface, and the residual toner can be scraped off as the image carrier 101 travels. It is like this. Such a cleaning blade is widely used in practice because it is compact and low-cost and has an excellent toner removing function. The cleaning blade 102
Must be pressed against the image carrier 101 with a force equal to or larger than a predetermined magnitude, and friction must be generated to some extent between the cleaning blade 102 and the image carrier 101. Therefore, during cleaning, the cleaning blade 102 is deformed as shown in FIG. 9B, and a large peeling force acts near the joint between the cleaning blade 102 and its supporting member 104. Therefore, the adhesive used for joining the cleaning blade 102 and its supporting member 104 is required to have stable adhesive strength for a long period of time.

For this reason, in JP-A-60-32079 and JP-A-61-22383, two kinds of adhesives are used, and a technique of mixing these or forming a two-layer structure, or a method of forming an adhesive between the adhesive layers is used. A technique for increasing the adhesive strength between the cleaning blade and the supporting member by disposing the joining member is disclosed. Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 61-22384 discloses a technique in which an end portion of a supporting member is provided with irregularities in advance, and the supporting member is put into a mold and integrally molded with a cleaning blade to strengthen the joint between them. Has been done.

[0006]

However, the above conventional technique has the following problems. In recent years, in order to downsize the image forming apparatus, the cleaning apparatus has been downsized, and along with this, the cleaning blade and the supporting member have been downsized, and the application area of the adhesive has been inevitably reduced. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly perform cleaning of these members and quality control before bonding. Even if the members are washed and the quality is strictly controlled, it is difficult to maintain sufficient adhesive strength for a long period of time. In addition, JP-A-61-2
In the device described in Japanese Patent No. 2384, the shape of the supporting member is complicated, and mass productivity is poor. Further, depending on the shape of the uneven end portion of the support member, it may cause distortion during molding and solidification of the cleaning blade. Due to this distortion, the force applied to the pressure contact portion between the cleaning blade and the image carrier tends to be non-uniform in the axial direction of the support member. Therefore, it becomes difficult to maintain stable cleaning performance for a long period of time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object thereof is to provide a cleaning device which is small in size, can be mass-produced, and can stably maintain its function for a long period of time. It is to be.

[0008]

In order to solve the above problems, the cleaning device of the present invention is used in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, and one end edge of a plate-like member made of an elastic material has an image carrier. In a cleaning device including a cleaning blade that is pressed against and has the other end joined to a support member, a plurality of through holes are provided at intervals in a portion of the support member joined to the cleaning blade, It is assumed that the cleaning blade is made of the same material as the plate-shaped member, and a portion that is continuous and integral with the plate-shaped member is press-fitted into the through hole and molded so as to penetrate.

In the present invention, the cleaning blade is
It consists of a plate-shaped member and a projection-shaped portion that is continuously integrated with the plate-shaped member so as to be pressed into and penetrate the through-hole of the support member, and the projection-shaped portion penetrates the through-hole of the support member. , It has an enlarged shape so that the tip does not come off.

[0010]

In the cleaning device having the above-described structure, the protrusions of the cleaning blade are press-fitted into the plurality of through holes provided in the support member, and the protrusions are molded to penetrate the support member. Cannot be easily removed from the through hole. Therefore, the cleaning blade can be firmly bonded to the support member by using an adhesive agent together therewith. For this reason, sufficient strength against peeling can be obtained even if the adhesive application area at the joint between the cleaning blade and the supporting member is small, and the cleaning blade and its supporting member need to be closely packed, which has been required with the downsizing of conventional devices. No need for quality control. Further, the shape of the supporting member is simple, and mass production is easy.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1A is a schematic sectional view showing a cleaning device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 1B is an enlarged sectional view of a cleaning blade and a supporting member used in this cleaning device. This cleaning device has a cleaning blade 2 that is brought into pressure contact with the photoconductor 1, and a cleaning brush 3 that comes into contact with the photoconductor on the upstream side of the pressure contact position of the cleaning blade 2, and is removed from the surface of the photoconductor 1. The toner is collected in the housing 6 and is carried out of the housing 6 by the carrying auger 5.

The cleaning blade 2 is made of an elastic material such as urethane rubber. As shown in FIG. 1B, one end of the cleaning blade 2 is pressed against the photosensitive member and the other end is supported by the supporting member 4. And the support member is fixed to the housing. The thickness of this cleaning blade is 2
In mm, the length from the front end that is pressed against the photosensitive member to the rear end that is joined to the support member is about 15 mm, and the length of the joint portion with the support member is 5 mm. Also,
Rubber hardness of this cleaning blade (JIS K63
01) is 73 degrees.

The support member 4 is made of a metal plate having a thickness of 1.2 mm and has a plurality of through holes 4a at the joint with the cleaning plate. As shown in FIG. 2, these through holes 4a have central points at a position 4 mm inside from the tip of the support member at intervals of 10 mm in the longitudinal direction of the support member (axial direction of the photosensitive member 1 to be pressed). , Diameter 3mm
It has a circular shape. FIG. 3 is a schematic perspective view showing a state where the cleaning blade 2 is joined to the support member 4. The cleaning blade 2 is bonded to the support member 4 with an adhesive, and a part of urethane rubber forming the cleaning blade 2 projects into the through hole 4a and penetrates to the back side to enlarge the tip portion. Such a cleaning blade 2 is manufactured by the following method and is joined to the supporting member.

As shown in FIG. 4, the cleaning blade 2
The supporting member 4 formed in advance is fixed to the molds 10 and 11 for molding, and the tip of the supporting member is set so as to face the space in the mold. At this time, the space in the mold and the through hole 4a provided in the support member 4
And the through hole 4a on the back side of the support member 4 as well.
It has a small space that is larger than the diameter. Reference numeral 12 shown in FIG. 4 indicates a magnet attached to the mold 11, and this magnet is used for fixing the support member 4 to the mold. The cleaning blade 2 is molded by injecting a synthetic resin such as thermoplastic urethane into the mold. As shown in FIG. 1B, the cleaning blade thus obtained has a part thereof press-fitted into the through hole of the support member, and the size of the tip of the press-fitting portion is larger than the size of the through hole. Therefore, the press-fitting portion has a shape that does not easily come out of the through hole.

At the time of this molding, a thermosetting adhesive (for example, Chemloc # 218, manufactured by Chemloc Co., Ltd.) is applied to the surface of the supporting member joined to the cleaning blade in advance, and the temperature is 100 ° C. for 15 minutes. After drying
The support member shall be installed in the mold. When the adhesive is applied, it may be applied not only to the surface of the support member joined to the cleaning blade, but also to the inner surface of the through hole, which is preferable because the adhesive strength is further increased. Further, the adhesive may flow from the inner surface of the through hole to the back surface together with the melted urethane rubber, but the adhesive strength is similarly increased.

The cleaning blade manufactured in this manner is joined to the support member with an adhesive, and a part of the cleaning blade is press-fitted into the through hole of the support member so as to be firmly joined mechanically. Therefore, even if a large force acts on the cleaning blade due to friction with the photosensitive member, the cleaning blade is not peeled off from the supporting member, and the function can be stably maintained.

FIG. 5 is an experiment for confirming the effect of the embodiment of the present invention, and illustrates a method for measuring the peel strength of the cleaning blade with respect to the supporting member. As shown in this figure, a force F in the vertical direction is applied to the bonding surface between the cleaning blade and the support member, and the force at which the joint between the cleaning blade and the support member begins to peel is defined as the peel strength. When the peel strength of the cleaning blade of this example was measured by the above method, it was 7.2 k.
It was g / cm.

On the other hand, the cleaning blade having the conventional shape shown in FIG. 9 was adhered to the supporting member using the same adhesive as that used in the above-mentioned embodiment, and the peel strength was examined to find that it was 5.3 kg / cm. Thus, the value is considerably smaller than that in the above embodiment. The peel strength of the cleaning blade having the same shape as that of the above-mentioned example and using no adhesive was also 2.1 kg / cm. From this, it is understood that the reinforcing effect due to the part of the cleaning blade press-fitted into the through hole of the support member is added to the strength of the conventional adhesive.
Therefore, it is possible to obtain the cleaning blade firmly bonded to the supporting member.

Next, another embodiment of the present invention will be described. In the cleaning blade shown in FIG. 6, the supporting member 1
The peripheral portion on the back surface side of the through hole 14a provided in FIG. 4 is cut into a continuous groove shape, and the portion press-fitted from the side to which the cleaning blade 12 is bonded flows into this groove portion and is enlarged. Forming a sharp tip. Except for this point, the structure is the same as that of the above-described embodiment. Also in such a cleaning device, the cleaning blade 12 and the supporting member 14 are strongly bonded to each other, and a stable cleaning effect can be maintained for a long time, as in the above embodiment.

In the present invention, the shape and arrangement of the through holes provided in the supporting member are not limited to those in the above-mentioned embodiment, and as shown in FIG. 7, in consideration of mass productivity and peeling strength of the supporting member. The through holes may have an elliptical shape, or the through holes may be arranged with a certain regularity like the support member 34 shown in FIG.

[0021]

As described above, in the cleaning device of the present invention, since a part of the cleaning blade is press-fitted into the plurality of through holes of the supporting member to penetrate therethrough, the joint portion between the cleaning blade and the supporting member is formed. It is reinforced by the press-fitting portion, and by using an adhesive together with this, the peel strength between the two can be increased. Therefore, even if the application area of the adhesive is reduced due to the downsizing of the device, sufficient peeling strength can be maintained, and careful quality control of the cleaning blade and the supporting member is unnecessary, and stable cleaning performance can be maintained for a long time. Can be kept.
Also, the support member can be mass-produced, and the cleaning device can be manufactured at low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a cleaning device according to an embodiment of the present invention and a partially enlarged sectional view thereof.

FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view showing a shape of a through hole of a support member used in the cleaning device.

FIG. 3 is a schematic perspective view showing a joined state of a support member and a cleaning blade in the cleaning device.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a method of manufacturing the cleaning blade shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a method for measuring the peel strength of the cleaning blade with respect to the support member.

FIG. 6 is a schematic cross-sectional view and a schematic perspective view showing a cleaning blade and a supporting member of a cleaning device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic perspective view showing another example of a supporting member used in the cleaning device of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a schematic perspective view showing another example of a supporting member used in the cleaning device of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing a joined state of a cleaning blade and a support member in a conventional cleaning device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 101 Image carrier 2, 12, 102 Cleaning blade 3 Cleaning brush 4, 14, 24, 34, 104 Support member 5 Transport auger 6, 106 Housing 10, 11 Mold

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A cleaning device used in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, comprising a cleaning blade in which one edge of a plate-shaped member made of an elastic material is pressed against an image carrier and the other edge is bonded to a support member. In the apparatus, a plurality of through holes are provided at intervals in a portion of the support member that is joined to the cleaning blade, the cleaning blade is made of the same material as the plate-shaped member, The part that is continuously integrated
A cleaning device, which is press-fitted into the through hole and is molded so as to penetrate.