JPH08272219A - Recording method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To facilitate the fixing of an image and the handling of a developer, to reduce power required for drying a transfer paper and to enable recording without blotting by separating and discharging only coloring grains from an insulating liquid, so as to form a visible image. CONSTITUTION: A developing device 3 is constituted of an ink tank 17 housing the developer 16 and a slit part 19 having a formed slit-like nozzle opening 19a and holding the ink 16 therein, and a sponge filter 21 is in a path to the slit part 19. This slit part 19 is connected to bias power source 22 for controlling development and the voltage of the slit part 19 and a polarity are adjusted in accordance with the flying characteristic of the developer 16. Further, as the developer 16, the insulating developer is used. When a prescribed bias voltage is applied to the slit part 19, dispersion in the insulating liquid is attained and electrostatic force is directly exerted on the charged toner grains, to fly up only the toner. Thus, the charged coloring grains in the developer are selectively discharged from the developer to an image carrier.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording method used in a recording device such as an electronic copying machine, a facsimile or a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A magnetic brush development,
Although many development methods such as cascade development, liquid development, powder cloud development, and touchdown development are considered, a method using a dry developer requires a large amount of energy for fixing, and powder. Therefore, there is a problem in that it is easily scattered and inconvenient to handle. Also,
Even in the method using a liquid developer, there are problems such as stains due to the wetting of the transfer paper, liquid spillage, and pollution problems, and it is the current situation that it is rarely used. If the recording paper gets wet, there is a problem in that power is required to dry the recording paper and that the recorded image is easily blurred. Further, cleaning the residual developer after transferring it to the recording paper is also a heavy burden in terms of reliability.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to easily fix an image and handle a developer, particularly when a liquid developer is used. Another object of the present invention is to provide a recording method capable of reducing the electric power required for drying the recording paper and enabling excellent recording without causing blurring in the image.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the recording method of the present invention comprises an insulating developing solution prepared by dispersing colored particles holding an electric charge in the insulating liquid in the insulating liquid. By carrying out a developing solution carrying step of carrying on a developing solution carrying means provided so as to closely face the image carrying body, and by forming a predetermined electric field between the image carrying body and the developing solution carrying means, And a separate discharge step of selectively discharging the charged colored particles in the developing solution carried by the developing solution carrying means from the developing solution toward the image carrier.

[0005]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention will be described below with reference to an embodiment shown in FIGS. FIG. 1 shows a laser printer. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes an electrophotographic photosensitive member as an image bearing member made of selenium and tellurium alloy, which is rotatably provided. Then, in the peripheral portion of the photoconductor 1, a corona charger 2, a developing device 3 as a developing unit, a transfer corona charger 4, an AC corona discharger 5 for peeling and discharging, and a cleaner are sequentially arranged along the rotation direction thereof. Na 6 is arranged. A laser beam 7 is irradiated with a signal from the laser scanning optical system.

Further, 8 is a paper feed cassette, and the paper P is sequentially supplied from the paper feed cassette one by one. The sheet P is transported along the transport path 9, and a drying and fixing device (not shown) including an infrared heater is provided on the discharge side of the transport path 9. Reference numeral 11 is a discharge tray for discharging the paper P.

However, at the time of image formation, the surface of the photoconductor 1 is uniformly charged to 600 to 900 V by the corona charger 2, and the charged surface of the photoconductor 1 is lased by the laser scanning optical system. -The beam 7 is irradiated with a signal to form an electrostatic latent image. Then, this electrostatic latent image is transferred to the developing device 3
As a result, the paper P that has been developed and sent in synchronization from the paper feed cassette 8 is layered on this recorded image, and the paper P is charged by the transfer corona charger 4 so that the image on the photoconductor 1 is transferred to the paper P. Transfer to. The sheet P is further subjected to appropriate charge removal by the corona discharger 5 for peeling and discharging, is peeled off from the photoconductor 1, is then conveyed to the dry fixing device and fixed, and is discharged onto the discharge tray 11 outside the machine. To be done. Further, the developer remaining on the photoconductor 1 is removed by the cleaner 6 and used for the next operation.

Next, the developing device 3 will be described in detail. The developing device 3 is composed of an ink tank 17 for containing the developing solution 16 and a slit portion 19 which forms a slit-shaped nozzle opening 19a and holds the ink 16 therein, and a passage to the slit portion 19 is provided. There is a sponge filter-21 made of urethane foam to prevent dust from entering. The slit portion 19 is made of a conductor and connected to the bias power source 22.

At this time, the slit portion 19 is connected to a bias power source 22 for developing control, and its voltage and polarity can be adjusted according to the flight characteristics of the developing solution 16.

An insulating developer (a conventional wet developer for electrophotography) is used as the developer 16 described above. In this case, when a predetermined bias voltage is applied to the slit portion 19, the electrostatic force directly acts on the charged toner particles dispersed in the insulating liquid, causing only the toner to fly. For this reason, it is necessary to properly replenish the toner.

As a condition of the bias voltage applied to the slit portion 19, according to the experiment, when the developing interval is set to 300 μm and when DC bias is used, zero voltage, that is, ground voltage, is applied to the non-image portion. Adhesion of the developer is prevented, and the image density is set to the potential of the photoconductor 1 of about 800 to 9
A sufficient value was obtained at 00 volts.

When an AC bias is applied, the peak-peak voltage is about 1.8 kv or less, and the bias voltage is 50 to 1
50V, shift to the positive side, and 400Hz
When the above frequencies were used, the adhesion of the developer to the non-image area was prevented, and a sufficient density of the image area was obtained when the potential of the photoconductor 1 was about 600 volts.

When the voltage was further increased, the fog in the non-image area remarkably appeared, and the print looked dirty. Also,
If the frequency is not raised enough to increase the voltage, this fog will occur. To prevent this, about 400H at 800V.
In the case of z or more and 1.8 kv, it was necessary to use a frequency of 3 kHz or more.

The nozzle opening of the slit portion 19 is shown in FIG.
It is also possible to use a nozzle array 19b having a small hole as shown in FIG. The nozzle array-19b
Is constructed by layering a flat plate 31 and a corrugated plate 32 as shown in FIG. The corrugated plate 32 of the slit portion 19 extends from the flat plate 31 by about 100 to 500 μm and prevents the developer 16 from dripping.

Further, as shown in FIG. 6, an ink guide 41 made of long fibers having a diameter of several microns to 50-60 microns may be provided in the developing slit portion 19. In this case, due to the capillary phenomenon, the developer 16 does not spill even if the slit opening 19a has a thickness of 1 to 5 mm, and since the developer passes through the infinitely divided minute guides 41, large droplets are formed. It is possible to prevent the occurrence of ink dripping and excessive development.

When an insulating material is used as the developing solution, the ink guide 41 is preferably made of a conductive material such as carbon fiber or stainless fiber to prevent the edge effect.

In this case, since the sharpness is good, the image quality is relatively good without using an AC bias, and the color image is obtained by performing development with different colors on the drum a plurality of times. It becomes easy to make a highly reliable color recording device which is free from color mixture between the developing devices by using it as a developing device for a color recording device.

As described above, in the recording method of this embodiment,
Even if a harmful solvent is used, since it is an on-demand type developing method, its consumption is extremely small, so that there is almost no problem.

Further, since the flying amount is small, even if the recording paper (transfer paper) is brought into close contact, there is almost no blurring due to absorption of the paper, and high image quality can be obtained.

As described above, the recorded image transferred and transferred finally passes through the fixing device and is dried and fixed. However, since the image is fixed by evaporating a very small amount of liquid, 30
It can be dried sufficiently with an infrared lamp of about 0 W, and it has a low power consumption as compared with the conventional one that required 800 to 1 kW.
Can be fixed sufficiently.

Since the recording apparatus used in this embodiment is extremely flat and small as apparent from its external shape, a plurality of color copying machines, printers and the like are arranged around the photosensitive drum 1. It has an extremely advantageous structure when it is designed.

Further, the present invention may be as shown in FIGS. 8 to 10. That is, reference numeral 51 in the drawing denotes a developing device, and a bottom portion of the developing device 51 forms a tank 53 for storing the developing solution 52. In the tank 53, a roller 54 that is driven to rotate is used for developing. An ink belt 55, which is a mesh-shaped thin plate member serving as a liquid carrying means, is stretched between a second roller 56 disposed above the developing device 51. The ink belt 55, as shown in FIGS. 9 (a) and 9 (b), has a thickness of 10 microns to 50 microns.
A belt of about the thickness of a meter, preferably 10 ¹⁴ Ω · cm
It is made of a material having an electric resistance equal to or less than a certain level, and as a specific example, a film made of a metal such as nickel or stainless steel or polyester or polyimide is used alone, or preferably, aluminum, InO ₃ , SnO ₃ or the like is plated. A film or the like is used as the base film 55b.
a is formed on the entire surface by using a technique such as etching or electroforming. The higher the density of the holes 55a, the better the image quality can be obtained as long as it is technically allowed. However, in the present situation, the holes 55a ... Are formed to have the same distance as the hole diameter.
The ink belt 55 has holes 5 in the ink tank 53.
The developer 52 is supplied to the inside of 5a, conveyed in the direction of the arrow, and the excess developer 52 is removed by a squeeze blade B on the way, and then the photosensitive member 1 is moved from 100 μm to 50 μm.
Move to the development section near the 0 micron meter. At this time, the base film 55b of the ink belt 55 is connected to the bias power source 56 for developing control, and the developer 5
The voltage and the polarity can be adjusted according to the flight characteristics of No. 2.

Next, the developer will be described. In this developing method, an insulating conventional developer (hereinafter simply referred to as a toner liquid) used in electrophotography is used. Since the developing method is an on-demand type in which toner particles are attached only to the image area (latent image area) even when a conventional toner solution is used,
Since its consumption is extremely low, it is considered to be a level that poses almost no problem regarding pollution.

Next, development using the toner liquid 61 will be described with reference to FIG. In the drawing, a well-known toner liquid 61 is filled in the holes 55a of the ink belt 55, which face the photoconductor 1 via the bias power source 56. The toner liquid 61 is, for example, a hydrocarbon or insulating liquid (trade name: ISOPAR-H; shell) in which toner particles 61a of colored resin powder (about 0.2 to 1 micron) are dispersed. It is adjusted to have a negative charge in the ionic liquid. Here, as the developing portion is conceptually shown in FIG. 10, the positive electrostatic image formed on the photoconductor 1 forms an electric field with the ink belt 55, so that the toner liquid 61 is used.
The inner toner 61a is attracted by the electrostatic force due to the latent image, and the hole 55 is drawn.
a .... Electrophoresis occurs in the upper part and concentrates as shown in FIG.

Then, as shown in FIG. 10B, the toner particles 61a ...
Are projected to the outside of the holes 55a ... And adhere to the latent image as shown in FIG. 10 (c). In this case, since no force acts on the insulating liquid itself, a large amount of solvent does not adhere to the photoconductor 1, and the amount of evaporation after transfer is extremely small.

FIG. 11 shows the above-mentioned developing ink belt 5.
5 is a cylindrical roll-shaped enroller 71, and the mesh-shaped perforated film 55b is formed in a roll shape at both ends of the flanges 71 and 71, and is fed from the ink belt 55. Toner liquid 61 sponge 72
Is applied and supplied into the holes 55a ... And provided for development in the same manner as described above. It is possible to further reduce the size and excels in operability such as cartridge replacement.

In addition, it goes without saying that the present invention can be variously modified within the scope of the gist thereof.

[0028]

As described above, according to the present invention, only colored particles are separately discharged from the insulating liquid to form a visible image, so that the fixing of the image and the handling of the developer are facilitated.
In addition, the effect that the transfer paper is less wetted and the electric power required for drying the transfer paper is reduced, and recording without blurring can be performed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a developing device of the recording apparatus according to the embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing a developing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a developing device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an exploded perspective view of a developing device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a side sectional view of a developing device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing a nozzle tip portion of a developing device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a sectional view of a developing device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a front view of an ink belt used in a developing device according to a third other embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing a developing state of the developing device according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a sectional view of a developing device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a perspective view showing an encoder of a developing device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Photoreceptor 3 Developing Device 55 Ink Belt 56 Bias Power Source 61a Toner Particles 61 Toner Liquid

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An insulating developing solution, which comprises colored particles holding a charge in the insulating liquid dispersed in the insulating liquid, on a developing solution holding means provided in close proximity to an image carrier. A developing solution carrying step of carrying, and a charged color in the developing solution carried by the developing solution carrying means by forming a predetermined electric field between the image carrier and the developing solution carrying means. And a separate discharge step of selectively discharging particles from the developing solution toward the image carrier.