JPS58115468A - Cleaning device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To apply silicone oil, etc. uniformly, and also to make a device small- sized, by providing an applying member of a non-volatile liquid so as to contact with an image carrying body in the upstream or downstream side of a blade. CONSTITUTION:A silicone rubber roll 7 is provided so as to be made to press- contact or to lightly contact with the surface of an image carrying body 1 in the downstream side of a cleaning blade 4 against the rotating direction of its image carrying body 1. This silicone rubber roll 7 is freely rotatable, rotates with rotation of the image carrying body 1, and also rotated as indicated with an arrow by a driving device. In this silicone rubber roll 7, a non-volatile liquid, for instance, silicone oil is impregnated in advance, and on the surface of the image carrying body 1, silicone oil is applied by a small quantity portionwise.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a gluing device for an electrostatic recording device, and more particularly to a gluing device for an electrostatic recording device in which a blade is used as a cleaning member, and damage to an image bearing member caused by the blade is prevented. Fight against cleaning equipment.

After a toner image formed on an image bearing member such as a selenium photoreceptor is transferred to a transfer paper by an electrostatic recording device such as an electrophotographic duplicator by charging, exposure, and development, the above-mentioned image bearing A cleaning process is used to remove the amount of toner that remains on the body.

,! Cleaning means such as a fur brush method, a Kuep method, a blade method, or a magnetic brush method are generally used in such a cleaning system. At present, the cleaning method using a blade is widely used because it is F and has low friction.

However, the toner remaining on the surface of the image carrier has an electric charge, which attracts each other with the electric charge remaining on the surface of the image carrier, and as a result, the residual toner is strongly attracted (adsorbed) to the surface of the image carrier due to electrostatic adsorption force. Therefore, before starting the cleaning process, it is usually necessary to perform a static elimination process using a static discharge or a static elimination lamp, for example, to neutralize the residual toner and the charge on the image bearing member. be.

The static elimination process described above has the effect of neutralizing the charges on the residual toner and the surface of the image carrier and weakening the mutual electrostatic attraction force. It is not possible to completely eliminate charges on the toner in the lower layer and on the surface of the image carrier facing them.

Therefore, the toner in the bottom layer and the toner in the layer below the toner that remains densely remain adsorbed to the surface of the image carrier by strong electrostatic adsorption force.For example, when cleaning this with the blade cleaning, the blade It is necessary to increase the pressing force against the surface of the image carrier. When the pressure of the blade in the cleaning process is increased in this way, the friction with the surface of the image carrier increases, which may damage the surface of the image carrier or shorten the durability, that is, the life of the blade itself. This is not a desirable thing.

Therefore, as a means to prevent the above-mentioned scratches on the surface of the image carrier, it has been known to apply a lubricant to the image forming surface, for example, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 54-44532 discloses a method of bringing boron carbide particles into contact with the surface. Although it is possible to reduce the friction between the image bearing member and the blade, boron carbide particles are extremely hard particles, and this cannot be done by polishing the surface layer of the photoreceptor drum. Performance is not sufficient in terms of reducing friction with the body.

An object of the present invention is to provide an electrostatic recording device which improves the above-mentioned drawbacks, reduces friction between the blade and the surface of an image carrier, thereby preventing damage to the surface of the image carrier by the blade, and at the same time extending the life of the blade. The purpose of this invention is to provide a cleaning device for cleaning.

According to the present invention, in a cleaning device that removes residual toner on the surface of an image carrier by bringing a blade-shaped cleaning member into contact with the surface of the image carrier, the blade-shaped cleaning member may be disposed upstream of the contact point of the blade-shaped cleaning member with the image carrier. Alternatively, it has been found that the above object can be achieved by a cleaning device characterized in that a non-volatile liquid coating member is brought into contact with the surface of the image carrier on the downstream side.

That is, according to the present invention, a coating member for applying a non-volatile liquid, such as silicone oil, to the surface of the image carrier is provided before or after the blade contact position on the surface of the image carrier, and when cleaning the blade, the silicone oil coating member It has been found that the above object can be achieved by applying a small amount of silicone oil to the surface of the image carrier.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in more detail with reference to embodiments shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional blade cleaning device. In the figure, 1 is an image carrier that can rotate in the direction of the arrow mark, and 2 is the toner remaining on the surface of the image carrier 1 after being transferred. 3 is a cleaning device for residual toner 2;
4 is a blade provided in the cleaning device 3, and 5 is a rotating member that conveys the toner scraped off by the blade 4 to the toner reservoir 6.

According to the conventional apparatus described above, after the toner image is transferred, the image carrier 1
The toner 2 remaining on the top is conveyed to the cleaning device 3 as the image carrier 1 rotates, is scraped off from the surface of the image carrier 1 by a blade 4 in the device, falls into the device, and is removed from the rotating member 5. The toner is rotated to be stored in the toner reservoir 6 or collected by another device (not shown) into a developing device (not shown) for reuse.

As mentioned above, the blade 4 and the blade used to scrape off the toner 2 from the surface of the image carrier 1 are usually made of polyurethane rubber, for example, and the edge portion is pressed against the image carrier to scrape off the residual toner 2. has been done.

As mentioned above, the toner 2 remaining on the surface of the image carrier 1 is strongly electrostatically attracted by the electric charge remaining on the image carrier 1, so it is necessary to use an AC corona discharge or a static elimination lamp (not shown) in advance. ) before the cleaning process. However, when the amount of residual toner is large or the static elimination effect of the static elimination lamp is not sufficient, the residual toner is not completely scraped off by the blade and is subjected to the next ceramic image forming process, resulting in Nl! Since there is a risk of producing a duplicate object having Ii image stains, it was necessary to strengthen the pressing force of the blade against the image carrier.

However, when the pressing force of the blade against the image carrier is increased, a large frictional force acts between the image carrier and the blade, causing changes in the surface of the image carrier, changes in the blade edge, or changes in the amount of residual toner. The frictional force often becomes unstable due to subtle effects, causing vibration of the blade and damage to the surface of the image carrier. There is also a drawback that when the above-mentioned frictional force increases, the rotational drive torque of the image carrier increases.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a cleaning device of the present invention as an embodiment.

In the figure, explanations of the same symbols as in FIG. 1 are omitted. 7 is in pressure or light contact with the surface of the image carrier 1 on the downstream side of the cleaning blade 4 with respect to the rotational direction of the image carrier 1. This is a silicone rubber roller installed in such a way. This silicone rubber roller 7 is rotatable and can follow the rotation of the image carrier 1. The silicone rubber roller 7 according to this embodiment is previously impregnated with a small volatile liquid such as silicone oil, and the silicone oil is applied little by little to the surface of the image carrier 1. As a result, nine image carriers 1
Since lubricant has been supplied between the surface of the blade and the surface of the blade, the frictional force between the two is reduced, the risk of damage to the image carrier is also reduced, and the wear of the blade edge is also reduced. Pressure contact with the image carrier becomes more stable.

In this embodiment, if a means for supplying a non-volatile liquid such as silicone oil is separately provided, and silicone oil can be supplied from this supply means to the silicone rubber searuff, the use of the silicone rubber searuff can be extended for a long period of time. can be done.

Figure 83 is a schematic diagram showing another embodiment of the cleaning device of the present invention. The silicone rubber is placed in pressure or light contact with the
- La 8 is shown. 9 is the silicone rubber ruler 8 above.
This is a scraper for removing toner adhering to the surface of the surface.

The silicone rubber roller 8 according to this embodiment performs exactly the same rotational operation as the silicone rubber roller 7 in the second m, and also applies a small amount of non-volatile liquid, for example, G1 silicone oil, onto the surface of the image carrier 1 using the same coating method. I can do it.

In the apparatus according to the embodiment shown in FIG. 3, since the silicone rubber roller 8 is provided upstream of the blade 4, a portion of the residual toner scraped off by the blade 4 from the surface of the image carrier 1 is inevitably transferred to the roller. A scraper 9 is provided for the purpose of removing the attached toner.

Of course, although not shown in the embodiment of the cylinder 2vA, a scraper may be attached to remove uncleaned toner adhering to the p-ra 7. Although silicone rollers are used in both of the above embodiments, for example, rubber rulers, resin rollers, or metal rollers may be used instead of silicone rubber, and the same effects as described above can be obtained. Further, by providing a silicone rubber ruler on the upstream side of the blade as in the case of FIG. 3 of the above embodiments, the toner scraped off by the blade is sealed (that is, the toner scraped off by the blade) +"ff cleaning device It has the characteristic that there is no space between the image carrier and the image carrier to prevent it from being scattered outside.

FIG. 4 is a diagram 41111 showing still another embodiment of the cleaning device of the present invention.

In this embodiment, a silicone rubber blade 10 is further provided on the surface of the image carrier 1 on the downstream side of the cleaning blade 4 with respect to the rotational direction of the image carrier 1, so that the silicone rubber blade 10 is not in pressure contact but is in light contact with the cleaning blade 4. be.

By impregnating this silicone rubber blade 10 with silicone oil by keeping it in a small volatile liquid 17 as described above, it is possible to apply a small amount of silicone oil to the surface of the image carrier l in the same manner as in the above embodiment. You can get the same effect and flavor as above.

In the present invention, silicone oil was exclusively used as an example of the nonvolatile liquid in the above embodiments, but it is of course not limited to this, and in addition to silicone oil, for example, fluorine oil, isopar, etc. can also be used. All of these non-volatile liquids shorten the life of the blade itself compared to known lubricating substances used for the purpose of modifying conventional blades, such as those described in JP-A No. 49-46060. , which does not have the disadvantage of toner sticking to the blade edge portion and can be used very effectively in the present invention.

As explained in detail above, the cleaning device of the present invention is characterized in that a non-volatile liquid application member is provided on the upstream or downstream side of the blade in contact with the image carrier. If installed upstream of the blade, there is an advantage that no special sealing member is required, but as mentioned above, the toner scraped off by the blade will contaminate the application member, and to prevent this, a scraper is required. Since it is a fee to provide the above-mentioned application member, it is preferable to provide the application member after the blade, and this is preferable for long-term use.

Further, in the present invention, a silicone rubber roller or a blade is used as the application member in one embodiment, but the shape thereof is not limited to a roller or a blade, and the material of the application member may be limited to rubber as described above. There are no limitations, and a wide variety of materials can be used, such as fibers, synthetic resins, metals, etc., as long as they are compatible with the purpose of the present invention.

The cleaning device of the present invention can uniformly apply silicone oil or the like to the surface of the image carrier with the above-described configuration, and the device itself is compact and simple.
It could also be improved to 1.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a conventional blade cleaning device, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a blade cleaning device as an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. Both are diagrams showing a schematic configuration of a blade cleaning device as still another embodiment of the present invention. 4...Cleaning blades 7 and 8...Silicone rubber roller 10...Silicon rubber blade representative

Claims (5)

[Claims] (1) In a cleaning device that records residual toner on the surface of an image carrier by bringing a blade-shaped ring member into contact with the surface of the image carrier, the contact point of the blade-shaped cleaning member with the image carrier is A cleaning device characterized in that a nonvolatile liquid application member is brought into contact with the surface of the image carrier on the upstream or downstream side. (2) The cleaning device according to claim 1, wherein the nonvolatile liquid is silicone oil. (3) The cleaning device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the coating member is a circular coating member configured to follow the rotation of the image carrier. (4) The cleaning device according to any one of claims 111 to 3, wherein the application member is a silicone rubber ruler impregnated with silicone oil. (5) The cleaning device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the application member is a silicone rubber blade.