JPS62284380A - Cleaning device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make a device small in size, and to prevent a waste toner from being re-scattered, by constituting the device so that the waste toner in a container is compressed by deforming elastically a cantilever elastic waste toner compressing member by a rotation of a toner scraping member. CONSTITUTION:A toner which has been eliminated from a photosensitive body 1 by a blade 20 and has been dropped and accumulated onto a front plate 25 is scraped by a rotating scraping plate 24 and contained into a waste toner box. When a collected amount increases, an elastic toner compressing plate 28 whose one end has been fixed to the inner wall is pressed by the scraping plate 24, and a waste toner is compressed. When a copying operation has been ended, an opening part of a box 26 is closed by both the scraping plate 24 and the compressing plate 26. Accordingly, the waste toner is compressed and solidified, the device is made small in size, and it can be prevented that the waste toner is scattered in the device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to image processing apparatuses such as printers and copying machines using an electric f'l-shinryoku type. The present invention relates to an 11-eng device for removing all untransferred residual toner on a photoreceptor, and more specifically to a device for efficiently compressing and storing waste toner collected by a cleaning member into a toner box.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, image hearth devices such as copiers, laser beam printers, and LO8 printers are known that use an electrostatic latent image formed on an electrophotographic photoreceptor through a 1# photoreceptor process. When using a conventional image processing apparatus, A5 is used as a cleaning means to remove the toner remaining on the body, but the removed waste toner causes agglomeration and performance deteriorates, and paper dust is contained in the toner. Due to problems such as contamination with toner, the toner cannot be reused and is collected in the waste toner box.

In the collection force method, waste toner is mainly introduced into a waste toner box using a spiral conveyance means and stored underneath (FLJ is JP-A-56-57076), but in the case of powder toner, it is stored lying on a yamabushi. A space is created inside the box, and the storage capacity is reduced, so that the volume inside the box cannot be fully utilized, and a large-capacity waste toner box is required, resulting in poor storage efficiency and an increase in the size of the entire device. - In order to solve this problem, a method has been proposed in which the mountain-shaped waste toner is agitated by some kind of imaging means to smooth it out and increase the actual capacity of the collection container, but this method generates impact noise. As a result, there were not only problems with noise, but also problems such as leaking and scattering of waste toner, which contaminated the whole inside of the toner.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

The present invention takes all of the above-mentioned drawbacks into account, compresses and solidifies the collected waste toner to increase its density, reduces the volume of the stored waste toner, reduces the size of the entire comb device, and improves the overall size of the electrophotographic copying machine and printer. [Means for solving the problem] When the device is stopped, the waste toner box is opened and closed to completely prevent contamination caused by waste toner scattering and leaking inside the device.[Means for solving the problem] In order to achieve the above-mentioned objects, the present invention includes a scraping member for scraping off waste toner, and an elastic deformation accompanying rotation of the scraping member.
@δC The waste toner compression member is all compressed and stored in the waste toner collection container, and when the device is stopped, the scraping member and the waste toner compression member are stopped in a positional relationship that covers the opening tS of the front collection container. It is in a cleaning device that uses t-%.

[Underside E Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be explained based on the drawings. 1st
Incidentally, this is an outline of the main parts of the LCs printer. 1 in the figure shows S e , OPC! The image bearing member is made of a photoconductive material such as a photosensitive drum.

When the photosensitive drum 1, which is rotatably supported by the printer body, is driven to rotate in the same direction as the arrow, the charger 2 uniformly charges the drum fi[12>1. This charged portion is subjected to F light image exposure to ft, a signal generator [3],
An electrostatic latent image is deposited on the drum surface. In this electrostatic latent image,
When the magnetic brush passes through the developing device 4 at the bottom of the furnace, it is visualized by toner. The toner image thus formed is transferred to the transfer paper stamper 8 area by the transfer device 5.
The toner image is transferred onto a transfer paper 9 that is fed to a transfer position in synchronization with the toner image on the photoreceptor drum. After transfer 1, the transfer paper 9 is separated from the photosensitive drum 1 and sent to the fixing device T1t10'! ! The surface of the photoreceptor drum, which is discharged to the paper discharge tray 11 and has been transferred as described above, has approximately 30 to 40
% of untransferred toner remains, and this residual toner is removed by the cleaning device 6.

The ram part is equipped with a static elimination lamp to eliminate static electricity at a certain level and prepare it for the next image forming process. The cleaning equipment will be described in detail using all second factors. Figure 2 shows the refreshing invention of the present invention! Cross section 7 of Example 11 is shown. In the figure, 1 is a photoreceptor drum, 20 is a cleaning plate, and all untransferred toner remaining on the drum is removed by a known method. Also, the sealing member 21 is a PET sheet, a Teflon sheet, etc. The bottom of the furnace is made of a material that does not adversely affect the photoreceptor drum, so that toner does not adhere to it.
The scraping member 22 extends parallel to the tram surface, and its tip abuts against the tram surface to completely prevent the cleaning device from scattering or leaking the eftoner at the opening. The waste toner that falls and accumulates on the inner wall of the front plate 25 roughly scrapes the inner wall of the front plate 25 while scraping the waste toner box part 2.
6. The scraping member 22 is composed of a drive shaft 23 and a scraping plate 24.
It is rotating to the i motion source. The material of the scraping plate 24 is rigid, such as 11-inch bronze plate or resin material! Reference numeral 27 denotes a waste toner compression member, which is comprised of a waste toner compression plate 28 that elastically reciprocates when pressed as the distributing and scraping member rotates.

One end of the toner compression plate 28 is fixed to the back inner wall of the waste toner box, and the other end is set so as to come into contact with the front GL: drive shaft 23. The material of the waste toner compression plate 2B is preferably an elastic body such as a PET sheet or a phosphor bronze plate 5 A resin material 6 Relationship between the scraping member and the waste toner compression member Third factor (a) This will be explained using (b) and (c). The toner that has been removed from the photoreceptor drum by the cleaning blade and has fallen and accumulated on the front plate 25 is scraped off by the scraping plate 24 and placed in the waste toner box located at the bottom of the scraping member 22! 3 (a) It is further dropped and stored as shown in the figure.

In this way, the lightning of waste toner that is being collected becomes a power source, and the third (
t)) When the state shown in LN is reached, the waste toner is compressed by the waste toner compression plate 2B which is elastically deformed while being pressed as the scraping plate 24 rotates. The waste toner compression plate 28 is
When the pressure on the scraping plate 24 is released, the scraping plate 24 performs a reciprocating motion to return to its original position, that is, the position in contact with the drive shaft 23, due to its own elastic force, and breaks up the inside of the waste toner box, causing waste toner to scatter and leak. To prevent. Space 1 between the front plate 25 and the scraping plate 24! The Jj opening is minute and has a sufficient shielding effect against toner scattering and the like. Furthermore, it can also be controlled to stop at a position where the opening is completely covered. At the end of a series of printing operations, the drive shaft 23!
3 (C) As shown in the figure, the scraping plate 24 comes into contact with the inner wall of the front plate of the waste toner box and stops at a position where it blocks the front part of the waste toner box, which has the effect of preventing waste toner from leaking from inside the box. can also be made even more certain. It has been confirmed that if such a waste toner compression mechanism is constructed, it is possible to store 1.5 to 1.6 times more waste toner by weight than when waste toner is stored by natural falling.

In the embodiment shown in the second factor, the waste toner is compressed and stored in the gravity force, but as shown in the fourth factor, it is also possible to compress and store it in a schematic horizontal view. In this method, the positional relationship between the scraping member and the waste toner pressure member is not limited to the illustrated row, and the design can be modified as long as the relationship provides good waste toner compression performance. [Effects of the Invention] If the above-mentioned implementation sequence is carried out, waste toner can be effectively compressed and stored within the limited waste toner box volume, and the sources of scattering and leakage of waste toner can be suppressed. A good leaning device can be obtained that prevents contamination inside the device due to

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure $1 is an explanatory diagram of the image P floor device to which the cleaning device of the X invention is applied. Figure 2 is a cross-sectional explanatory diagram of the cleaning device of the present invention. Semi-3 (a) (1)) (C) is an explanatory diagram of the relationship between the scraping member and the waste toner pressure SS material. Figure 4 shows another example of application of the cleaning device of the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Photosensitive drum, 2... Charger, 5... Optical damage generator. 4... Current device t, 5... Transfer device,
, 6... Ri+1-ning device Rn 7... Static elimination lamp. 8...Transfer paper stacker. 9...Transfer paper. 1
0...Fuser. 11... Paper output tray. 20... Cleaning blade, 21... Seal member, 22...
Scraping member, 23... Drive shaft, 24... Scraping plate. 25...Front plate. 26...Waste toner box, 27
...Waste toner compression member n2B...Waste toner compression plate,
Above 1: λ a certain Iwa noboru no 4≦, Figure 1 (Q) (b) (c) Figure 3 Figure 4

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A cleaning device for removing toner remaining on the surface of an image carrier, comprising a scraping member for scraping the toner removed from the surface of the image carrier, and the scraping member comprising a cantilevered elastic plate. A cleaning device comprising a waste toner compression member that compresses and stores the toner in a collection container by elastic deformation as the member rotates. 2. The cleaning device according to claim 1, wherein the scraping member and the waste toner compression member are stopped in a positional relationship that covers the opening of the collection container at the end of the image forming process.