JPH10145548A - Fixing structure for image sensor in image forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To fix an image sensor into a sensor mounting member while positioning the image sensor with high accuracy without being affected by deformation of the sensor mounting member. SOLUTION: An elastic piece 353 is extended downward from a fixed member main body 352 corresponding to three notched parts 343 provided to a sensor mounting member 34 in the sensor fixed member. Thus, when the sensor fixed member is inserted between an image sensor 33 and a housing, the elastic pieces 353, while deflecting elastically, presses and contacts the image sensor 33 and the housing (sensor mounting member) with the elastic force. Thus, the image sensor 33 is positioned in an original carrying direction Y and fixed to the hosing as well.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a fixing structure of an image sensor in an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a facsimile machine for reading an image of a document conveyed in a document conveying direction by an image sensor mounted on a sensor mounting member. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of image forming apparatus,
An image sensor is used to read an image of a document, and the image sensor is fixed to a sensor mounting member. That is, a sensor mounting portion finished in a shape corresponding to the image sensor is formed on the sensor mounting member, and the image sensor is fixed to the sensor mounting member by fitting the image sensor into the sensor mounting portion. Therefore, the image sensor fixed as described above is positioned in contact with the sensor mounting portion.

[0003]

When a temperature change occurs around or inside the image forming apparatus, the sensor mounting portion may be warped and deformed (hereinafter, simply referred to as "deformation"). As a result, there is a problem that the image sensor that comes into contact with the sensor mounting portion is deviated from a regular position.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems, and it is possible to fix an image sensor to a sensor mounting member while accurately positioning the image sensor without being affected by deformation of the sensor mounting portion. It is an object of the present invention to provide a structure for fixing an image sensor in an image forming apparatus that can be used.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image sensor fixing structure in an image forming apparatus for reading an image of a document conveyed in a document conveying direction by an image sensor mounted on a sensor mounting member. In order to achieve the above object, in a state where the image sensor is loosely inserted into a mounting portion provided on the sensor mounting member, a sensor fixing member is inserted between the image sensor and the sensor mounting member. The sensor fixing member and the image sensor are arranged in this order in the document conveying direction, and the sensor fixing member is protruded toward the sensor mounting member, and is elastically deformable in the document conveying direction. The elastic portion is elastically deformed by insertion of the sensor fixing member between the image sensor and the sensor mounting member. It is configured so as to press the image sensor and the sensor mounting member Te.

In the present invention, after the image sensor is loosely inserted into the sensor mounting portion, the sensor fixing member is inserted between the sensor mounting portion and the image sensor. Then, when the sensor fixing member is inserted in this way, the elastic portion protruding from the sensor fixing member is elastically deformed by the sensor mounting member, and the image sensor and the sensor mounting member are pressed against the sensor mounting portion by the elastic force. Therefore, even if the sensor mounting portion is deformed due to a temperature change around or inside the image forming apparatus, the elastic member is elastically deformed in accordance with the deformation, thereby preventing the image sensor from being displaced.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, a plurality of the elastic portions are provided on the sensor fixing member, and the plurality of elastic portions are arranged along a direction perpendicular to the document conveying direction.

In the present invention, a plurality of elastic portions are provided in a direction orthogonal to the document conveying direction, and even if the degree of warping or deformation is different in the orthogonal direction, the sensor is provided at each position. The elastic portion is elastically deformed according to the deformation of the mounting portion, thereby preventing the image sensor from being displaced.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the elastic portion is constituted by a cantilevered elastic piece having one end fixed to the sensor fixing member.

According to the present invention, the amount of deflection of the elastic piece functioning as an elastic member changes in response to the deformation of the sensor mounting portion.
Prevent displacement of the image sensor.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, a locking portion finished in a shape lockable with the sensor mounting member is mounted on the other end of the elastic piece.

According to the present invention, the locking portion attached to the other end of the elastic piece is locked to the sensor mounting member to prevent the sensor fixing member from coming off the sensor mounting portion.

[0013]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of an image forming apparatus to which an image sensor fixing structure is applied in an image forming apparatus according to the present invention will be described first, and then the configuration of each unit of the apparatus will be described. The fixing structure of the image sensor in the image forming apparatus will be described in detail.

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view showing an embodiment of an image forming apparatus to which an image sensor fixing structure in the image forming apparatus according to the present invention is applied. FIG.
2 is a side view of the image forming apparatus of FIG. This image forming apparatus is a multifunction peripheral having both a facsimile function and a copying function.

This image forming apparatus, as shown in FIG.
It has a frame structure 10 consisting of a main body base 11 located at a lower part and an upper frame 12 located at an upper part.
In the frame structure 10, a pair of bearing portions 111 project upward from the main body base 11, and on both left and right sides (in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the drawing) of the rear side (the left hand side in the drawing). (Only one is shown in the figure), and rotating shafts 121 projecting from both left and right sides of the upper frame 12 are rotatably inserted into the bearings 111. That is, in this embodiment, a so-called shell-type structure in which the upper frame 12 can be freely opened and closed with respect to the main body base 11 is adopted, and the upper frame 12 is opened to open the front upper side of the apparatus (the diagonally upper right side in FIG. The image forming unit 20 having the photosensitive drum can be inserted into the main body base 11 or the inserted image forming unit 20 can be taken out. Further, the recording paper in the JAM state inside the apparatus can be easily taken out.

The image forming unit 20 includes the main body base 1.
1, except that it is removably finished inside 1. That is, as described later, an original image read by a contact image scanner or an image transmitted from a facsimile machine outside the apparatus is exposed to a photosensitive drum to form an electrostatic latent image, and then the peripheral surface of the photosensitive drum is exposed. The toner image is developed by a developing unit provided along the line, and the toner image is transferred to a recording sheet conveyed from a recording sheet insertion tray by a transfer roller as described later.

On the upper frame 12, as shown in FIG.
An automatic document feeder unit 3 for reading a document image with a contact image sensor while automatically feeding a plurality of documents sequentially.
0 is attached. This automatic document transport unit 3
Reference numeral 0 denotes a document transport housing (hereinafter simply referred to as “housing”) 31 directly attached to the upper frame 12.
And a document transport guide (hereinafter simply referred to as simply referred to as an arrow) in the figure, which is connected to an end 311 on the rear side (the left-hand side in FIG. 32 (referred to as “guide”). Normally, the guide 32 rotates in the direction of the arrow + α by its own weight, and comes close to and opposes the housing 31, and the two document feed rollers 312 and 31 arranged on the upper surface side of the housing 31.
When the document feed roller 312 and the document feed roller 321 disposed on the lower surface side of the guide 32 rotate, the document feed rollers 312, 313, one by one of the plurality of stacked documents set on the document insertion tray 40, While sandwiching with 321
The document is sequentially conveyed to the front side of the apparatus (the right-hand side in the figure) along a document conveying path OP indicated by a dashed line in FIG.

In this embodiment, the original transport rollers 312, 313, and 321 are driven to rotate, but at least one of these original transport rollers 312, 313, and 321 is driven to rotate and the other original transport rollers are driven. The document can also be conveyed by following.

A contact type image sensor 33 is mounted on the front side of the upper surface of the housing 31.
The image of the document conveyed as described above is sequentially read for each line extending in a direction perpendicular to the drawing sheet, and when the document passes through the contact image sensor 33, the entire image of the document is read. You can do it. The mounting and fixing structure of the contact type image sensor 33 to the housing 31 will be described later in detail.

Referring back to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, in this image forming apparatus, the automatic document feeding unit 30 constructed as described above is used.
Cover 51 is provided so as to cover from above, and a plurality of switches 52 such as a ten-key switch and a start button, a telephone number of a facsimile transmission destination, and an operation status of the apparatus are displayed on the front side of the operation cover 51. Operation unit 50 is configured by attaching a display unit 53 for the operation. For this reason, the operator can perform a facsimile process and a copy process by pressing an appropriate switch 52 as needed, and can confirm an operation based on the display contents on the display unit 53.

A recording paper insertion tray 60 for setting recording paper, which is a cut sheet, is mounted on the back side of the upper frame 12.
Are sequentially transported along a recording paper transport path RP indicated by a two-dot chain line in FIG. That is,
The recording paper is conveyed to the inside of the apparatus, and after the image is recorded by the image forming unit 20 based on the document image read as described above and the image information transmitted from the outside of the apparatus, is conveyed to the front side of the apparatus. You.

The original and recording paper conveyed to the front side of the apparatus as described above are discharged from the front side of the apparatus to a tray unit 70 mounted toward the main body base 11. The tray unit 70 includes a tray frame 71 detachable from the main body base 11 of FIG.
And trays 72 and 73 which can be inserted and removed in two stages. In the image forming apparatus according to this embodiment, the upper tray 72 is used as a document discharge tray, while the lower tray 73 is used as a recording paper discharge tray.

Note that, on the outer peripheral side of the frame structure 10,
A plurality of covers 81 and 82 are attached to protect the inside of the apparatus.

Next, the fixing structure of the image sensor in the image forming apparatus, which is the point of the present invention, will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 5 is an exploded plan view showing a procedure for fixing the image sensor 33 to the housing 31.
FIG. 6 is a sectional view taken along line AA of FIG. 5, and FIG.
FIG. 8 is a sectional view taken along line B, and FIG. 8 is a partial sectional view in a state where the image sensor 33 is mounted and fixed to the housing 31. In this image forming apparatus, the housing 31 functions as a sensor mounting member.

As shown in FIG. 5, the housing 31 (sensor mounting member) is provided with a sensor mounting portion 34, and the image sensor 33 is configured to be freely inserted in the sensor mounting portion 34. . Also, this sensor mounting part 3
4, widthwise ribs 341 and 342 for positioning the image sensor 33 in a direction X orthogonal to the document transport direction Y (a direction parallel to the document transport path OP) are opposed to each other and are arranged in the X direction of the sensor mounting portion 34. It is provided at the end, and when the image sensor 33 is mounted on the sensor mounting portion 34, it is positioned in the X direction by the width direction ribs 341 and 342.

On the side surface of the sensor mounting portion 34 on the (-Y) direction side, three notches 343 are provided along the X direction. The configuration is such that the sensor fixing member 35 can be prevented from coming off the housing 31 by engaging with the portion 351.

As shown in FIG. 5, the sensor fixing member 35 is finished so as to surround the image sensor 33 from the (-Y) direction side when viewed from above. Then, as shown in FIG.
The sensor fixing member 35 and the image sensor 33 are arranged in this order in the document conveying direction Y in the sensor mounting portion 34. The sensor fixing member 35 has three notches 343 provided in the sensor mounting portion 34.
The elastic pieces 353 respectively extend downward from the fixing member main body 352 in correspondence with the above. That is, the elastic piece 353 has a cantilever shape in which one end is fixed to the fixing member main body 352. The other end of the elastic piece 353 is provided with a locking part 351 having a shape that can be engaged with the notch 343 of the sensor mounting part 34. Therefore, when the sensor fixing member 35 is inserted between the image sensor 33 and the housing 31 as described above, the elastic piece 35
While elastically flexing, the elastic force presses the image sensor 33 and the housing 31 (sensor mounting member) against each other. Thus, the image sensor 33 is positioned in the document conveying direction Y, and the housing 31
Fixed to

Further, by providing the elastic piece 353 which can be elastically deformed as described above, even if the sensor mounting portion 34 is deformed due to a temperature change around or inside the image forming apparatus, for example, it is possible to respond to the deformation. Thus, only the amount of deflection of the elastic pieces 353 changes, and no displacement of the image sensor 33 occurs.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the housing 3 can be positioned with high accuracy without being affected by the deformation of the sensor mounting portion 34.
1 (sensor mounting member). Moreover, since a plurality of elastic pieces 353 are provided along the direction X perpendicular to the document conveying direction Y as described above, even when the degree of warping or deformation is different in the orthogonal direction X, The amount of deflection of the elastic piece 353 changes in accordance with the deformation of the sensor mounting portion 34 at each disposition position, and the displacement of the image sensor 33 can be prevented.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to the embodiment, the present invention is not limited to the embodiment. For example, in the above-described embodiment, the amount of bending of the elastic piece 353 changes according to the deformation of the sensor mounting portion 34, thereby eliminating the adverse effect of the deformation. However, instead of the elastic piece 353, a spring, rubber, or cushion is used. An elastic body represented by a material or the like can be used.

Although three elastic pieces 353 are provided on the sensor fixing member 35, the number and positions of the elastic pieces 353 are arbitrary and are not limited to the above embodiment.

In the above embodiment, the housing 31 of the automatic document feeder unit 30 is used as a sensor mounting member,
Although the image sensor 33 is attached to the housing 31, the application of the present invention is not limited to this type of image forming apparatus, and the image forming apparatus in which the image sensor 33 is attached to a sensor attaching member different from the housing 31. The present invention can be applied to the apparatus and the present invention.

Further, by mounting a transparent film such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in advance on the fixing member main body 352 of the sensor fixing member 35, the image sensor 33 can be mounted and fixed as described above. The transparent film can easily prevent dust from adhering to the image sensor 33 and electrostatic charge.

[0034]

As described above, according to the present invention, after the image sensor is loosely inserted into the sensor mounting portion, the sensor fixing member is inserted between the sensor mounting portion and the image sensor, thereby fixing the sensor. The elastic portion protruding from the member is elastically deformed by the sensor mounting member, and the image sensor and the sensor mounting member are pressed by the sensor mounting portion by the elastic force. Even if the sensor mounting portion is deformed due to a temperature change, the elastic member is elastically deformed in accordance with the deformation, so that the image sensor can be prevented from being displaced.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, a plurality of the elastic portions are provided on the sensor fixing member, and the plurality of elastic portions are arranged along a direction perpendicular to the document conveying direction. Therefore, even when the degree of warping or deformation is different in the orthogonal direction, the elastic portion is elastically deformed in accordance with the deformation of the sensor mounting portion at each disposition position, thereby preventing the image sensor from being displaced. ing.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, since the locking portion finished in a shape that can be locked to the sensor mounting member is mounted to the other end of the elastic piece, the locking portion can be used as the sensor. The sensor fixing member can be effectively prevented from coming off the sensor mounting portion by being locked by the mounting member.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view showing an embodiment of an image forming apparatus to which an image sensor fixing structure in an image forming apparatus according to the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a side view of the image forming apparatus shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a side view of a frame structure of the image forming apparatus shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a side view of a main part showing a state where an automatic document feeder unit is attached to an upper frame of the image forming apparatus shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is an exploded plan view showing a procedure for fixing the image sensor to a housing (sensor mounting member).

FIG. 6 is a sectional view taken along line AA of FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a sectional view taken along line BB of FIG. 5;

FIG. 8 is a partial cross-sectional view in a state where the image sensor is mounted and fixed to a housing (sensor mounting member).

[Explanation of symbols]

 30 Automatic Document Conveying Unit 31 Housing (Sensor Mounting Member) 32 Guide 33 Close Contact Image Sensor 34 Sensor Mounting Section 35 Sensor Fixing Member 343 Notch 351 Locking Section 352 Fixed Member Main Body 353 Elastic Piece (Elastic Section) OP Document Conveying Path X Direction (perpendicular to document transport direction) Y Document transport direction

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Susumu Taniguchi, 1-2-28 Tamatsukuri, Chuo-ku, Osaka City Inside Mita Corporation (72) Inventor Hirohide Yamaguchi 1-2-28, Tamatsukuri, Chuo-ku, Osaka City Inside Mita Kogyo Co., Ltd. (72) Keiji Ban, 1-2-2, Tamazo, Chuo-ku, Osaka City Inside Mita Kogyo Co., Ltd. (72) Makoto Eki 1-2-28, Tamazo, Chuo-ku, Osaka Mita Kogyo Industry Co., Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A fixing structure of an image sensor in an image forming apparatus for reading an image of a document conveyed in a document conveying direction by an image sensor mounted on a sensor mounting member, wherein the image sensor is provided on the sensor mounting member. In a state in which the sensor fixing member is loosely inserted into the mounting portion, a sensor fixing member is inserted between the image sensor and the sensor mounting member, and the sensor fixing member and the image sensor are arranged in this order in the document conveying direction. Further, the sensor fixing member has an elastic portion projecting toward the sensor mounting member and elastically deformable in the document conveying direction, and is provided between the image sensor and the sensor mounting member. The elastic portion is elastically deformed by the insertion of the sensor fixing member, and presses the image sensor and the sensor mounting member. Fixing structure of an image sensor in the image forming apparatus characterized by. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sensor fixing member includes a plurality of the elastic portions, and the plurality of elastic portions are disposed along a direction perpendicular to the document conveying direction. 2. A fixing structure of an image sensor in the image forming apparatus according to 1. 3. The image sensor according to claim 1, wherein the elastic portion is a cantilever-shaped elastic piece having one end fixed to the sensor fixing member. Fixed structure. 4. An image sensor in an image forming apparatus according to claim 3, wherein a locking part finished in a shape lockable with said sensor mounting member is mounted on the other end of said elastic piece. Fixed structure.