JPS63199354A - Thermal developing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent a photosensitive material from generating wrinkling and uneven development by fitting sprocket wheels to both the ends of either one of a belt supporting roll or a heating roll and forming sprocket holes to be engaged with a sprocket on an endless belt. CONSTITUTION:The sprocket wheels 140 are fitted to both the ends of the belt supporting rolls 46, 49 of the thermal developing device 40. The pitches of the sprocket are designed so as to coincide with the sprocket holes of the endless belt 50. The endless belt 50 is carried by synchronizing the rotation of the rolls 46, 49 having the sprocket wheels 140. In case of fitting the sprocket wheels to the heating roll 44, the endless belt 50 is carried by the roll 44. Since the end of the belt is interrupted from being deflected by the sprockets and the endless belt is stopped by the sprockets arranged on both the ends, a waving phenomenon is not generated and the photosensitive material can be prevented from generating wrinkling and uneven development.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a heat developing device for heat developing a photosensitive material having a latent image generated by imagewise exposure.

[Conventional technology]

As an example of an image recording material using microcapsules encapsulating a photosensitive composition, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 57-17983
A system is known in which a synthetic polymer resin wall capsule containing a vinyl compound, a photopolymerization initiator, and a colorant precursor is carried on a support as disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 6. The image recording method using this system is to imagewise harden the microcapsules by exposure to light, rupture the unhardened microcapsules by applying pressure, and obtain a color image from the released colorant precursor. The method is characterized in that high quality images can be obtained through simple dry processing. However, this system has the drawback of significantly lower photosensitivity than systems using silver halide.

A new recording material that improves these drawbacks and has high photosensitivity and can obtain high-quality images through simple dry processing is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 1986-1 filed by the present applicant.
It is disclosed in the specification of No. 17089. In this recording material, at least a photosensitive silver halide, a reducing agent, a polymerizable compound, and a color image-forming substance are coated on a support, and at least the polymerizable compound and the color image-forming substance are encapsulated in the same microcapsule. It consists of a photosensitive composition.

Regarding the image recording method of recording images using this photosensitive material, Japanese Patent Application No. 60-1212 filed by the present applicant
It is disclosed in the specification of No. 84.

This image recording method first performs imagewise exposure to form a latent image, then develops it by heating, and polymerizes the polymerizable compound in the area where the latent image exists to form a macromolecular compound to form microcapsules. harden. Then, the image-receiving material having an image-receiving layer to which the color image-forming substance can be transferred is stacked and pressurized to rupture at least a portion of the microcapsules in the area where the latent image does not exist, and the color image-forming substance is transferred to the image-receiving material. to obtain an image on an image-receiving material.

Then, using the above-mentioned photosensitive material, this photosensitive material is subjected to imagewise exposure, heat development is performed, and then the image recording material is overlaid with an image-receiving material and pressed, and an image is obtained on the image-receiving material by transfer, which is automatically performed. The device is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application No. 51896/1989 filed by the present applicant.

In this type of apparatus, the heat developing device has, for example, approximately 12
It consists of a heating roller heated to 0°C, a plurality of heald support rollers, and an endless heald stretched around these and wrapped around the outer circumference of an approximately 270° arc of the heating roller. The photosensitive material is sandwiched and conveyed between the belt and the photosensitive material is heated and developed.

According to this heat developing device, the heating roller and the endless belt convey the photosensitive material while rotating, so that stable conveyance is achieved.

When a heating device using the endless belt described above is operated continuously, the belt sometimes rotates and shifts to one side in the width direction, and the belt eventually comes off the support roller, making it impossible to convey the photosensitive material. Disappearance occurs. Therefore, as a measure to prevent such belt shifting, conventional belt support rollers have a so-called crown roller, which has a curved circumferential surface that has a maximum diameter at the center in the width direction and decreases in diameter toward both ends. As shown in Figure 3, flanges 15 are provided at both ends of the belt support rollers 46, 47, and 84.
A method of using a value with a 0 added thereto has been practiced.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, the endless belt used in the heat developing device is wide in order to convey the photosensitive material, so the ratio of the heald circumference to the belt width is small, and belts with poor elasticity such as cored fluororubber belts are used. In order to use
With a wide belt, it is impossible to use an effective tycoon-shaped crown roller, and it is difficult to prevent the endless belt from shifting.

In addition, with the method of attaching flanges to the belt support rollers, the belt moves to one side and stops at the end of the belt, but the belt itself still has the force to move towards itself, and the endless heald expands and contracts in a wavy state between the support rollers. This caused wrinkles and uneven development on the photosensitive material held between the heating roller and the endless belt.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems, and to prevent the endless belt from shifting in one direction in the width direction and coming off from the support roll during rotation of the endless belt, and to prevent the endless belt from being undulated by the undulating state of the endless belt. It is an object of the present invention to provide a heat developing device that does not cause wrinkles and uneven development in photosensitive materials.

[Means for solving problems]

The above-mentioned object of the present invention is composed of a heating roller, a plurality of belt support rollers, and an endless belt that rotates while being stretched over these rollers, and the heating roller and the endless belt are arranged so that a photosensitive material having a latent image generated by imagewise exposure can be transferred between the heating roller and the endless belt. In a heat developing device that performs heat development and conveys the image by being sandwiched between the belt supporting roller or the heating roller, at least one of the belt support roller or the heating roller has a sprocket wheel at both ends, and the endless belt has a sprocket hole that matches the sprocket of the sprocket wheel. This is achieved by a heat developing device characterized by having.

In the present invention, the belt support roller or the sprocket wheels provided at both ends of the heating roller are of the type that applies perforations for motion picture film, or of the gear type.
Including those with pins instead of teeth.

Furthermore, the sprocket holes on the endless belt that match the sprockets of the sprocket wheel correspond to the perforations in a motion picture film that match the sprocket wheels.

The sprocket wheel in the present invention may be arranged either on the belt support roller or on the heating roller, but in the case of a belt support roller, at least two belt support rollers are preferably provided on the belt support near the inlet and outlet where the endless belt contacts the heating roller. Preferably, it is used for rollers. As the other belt support rollers, flat rollers, crown rollers, and flanged rollers may be used in combination.

An example of the photosensitive material used in the present invention is a type in which a polymerizable compound is imagewise cured by imagewise exposure and then a visible image is obtained by applying pressure. Examples include materials disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 57-179836. This material has a synthetic polymer resin wall capsule containing a vinyl compound, a photopolymerization initiator, and a colorant precursor supported on a support.

Alternatively, after containing silver halide and giving imagewise exposure, heat development is performed to develop the silver halide, the polymerizable compound is simultaneously cured in correspondence with this development, and then pressure is applied to form a visible image. An example of the type of material that can be obtained is the material disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 121284/1984 filed by the present applicant.

The material disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 1-121284 is one in which a color image-forming substance is transferred to an image-receiving material having an image-receiving layer after heat development to obtain an image on the image-receiving material. At least a photosensitive silver halide, a reducing agent, a polymerizable compound, a color image forming substance, and a color image forming substance are encapsulated in the same microcapsule.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below based on the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of an image recording apparatus equipped with a heat developing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The image recording apparatus includes a document supporting glass plate 2 mounted on the upper surface of a housing 1 so as to be movable back and forth in the direction of arrow A. That is, the original is placed face down on the glass plate 2, and the arrow A
Move back and forth in the direction.

At the bottom of the glass plate 2, there is a reflecting mirror 6 for certifying the original.
An additional illumination lamp 8 is provided, and a fiber lens array 10 for forming an original image on a photosensitive material S at a predetermined position is provided.

A photosensitive material cartridge 14 containing a photosensitive material roll 12 wound with a photosensitive material S is removably attached to the side of the housing 1. At the outlet 16 of the photosensitive material S of the photosensitive material cartridge 14, a pair of photosensitive material feeding rollers 21 and 22 housed in the magazine connection dark box 20 are arranged, whereby the photosensitive material S wound around the photosensitive material roll 12 is moved to a predetermined position. Sometimes it is extended a certain length and then retracted as desired.

When the leading edge of the photosensitive material S advances, the photosensitive material feeding rollers 21 and 22 move away from each other as shown by imaginary lines to facilitate the advance of the photosensitive material S. A photosensitive material S is placed in front of the magazine connection dark box 20 (hereinafter, "front" refers to the downstream side in the direction of travel of the photosensitive material, etc.).
A cutter unit 23 and a guide plate 24 are arranged for cutting.

In front of the guide plate 24, there is an exposed photosensitive material support roller 26 and a photosensitive material nip roller 28 of 21[1i1] pressed against the exposed photosensitive material support roller 26.
．． 30 are placed. The photosensitive material S guided by the guide plate 24 is brought into close contact with the exposed photosensitive material support roller 26 by the photosensitive material nip rollers 28.30, and the i-document is fixed by the fiber lens array 10 at a position 32 between the photosensitive material nip rollers 28.30. An imagewise exposure is made.

In front of the exposed photosensitive material support roller 26, a heat developing device 40 that heats and develops the exposed photosensitive material S is arranged. The heat developing device 40 includes a developing housing 42 having a heat insulating effect, and is disposed within the developing housing 42, and has a diameter of about 120 mm.
℃ heating roller 44, a heald support roller 46 having sprocket wheels 140 at both ends, a flan roller 47 supported by a crown roller 48, and an endless roller wrapped around the outer periphery of an arc of about 270° of the heating roller 44. It has a belt 50 and a nip roller 52 pressed against a belt support roller 49 with a sprocket wheel.

The heat developing device 40 further includes an exposed photosensitive material support roller 26.
a guide device 54 that guides the photosensitive material S fed from the heating roller 44 onto the heating roller 44 by an endless belt 50 guided by a belt support roller 46 with a sprocket wheel, and separates the photosensitive material S from the heating roller 44 after being heated and developed; It has a belt support roller 49 with a sprocket wheel and a vertical guide device 58 that guides the developing photosensitive material S sent by the nip roller 52 to the outlet 56.
6 is provided with a sensitive material leading edge detection sensor 60.

Immediately below the outlet 56, a pair of pressure rollers 62 and 64 are provided.
A photosensitive material receiving paper stacking device comprising a nip roller 66 pressed against a pressure roller 64, and a guide member 68 that guides the photosensitive material S sent by the pressure roller 64 and the nip roller 66 to the contact portion of the pressure rollers 62 and 64. 70 are arranged.

An image-receiving paper supply device 72 is disposed on the side of the photosensitive image-receiving paper stacking device 70 . The image-receiving paper supply device 72 includes an image-receiving paper cartridge 7 that pivotally supports an image-receiving paper roll 71 on a support base.
3 is removably attached to the housing 1. A pair of feed-out rollers 74, 76, a cuckoo unit 77, and a guide plate 78 are arranged inside the attached image-receiving paper cartridge 73.

A pair of pressure nip rollers 80.82 and a pressure nip roller 80.8 are provided below the photosensitive image receiving paper stacking device 70.
A transfer device 88 is provided which includes hack-up rollers 84 and 86 for equalizing the pressure applied to the rollers 2 in the axial direction. Pressure nip roller 80.82 weighs approximately 500 kg
They are pressed against each other by a pressure of /ctA.

A photoreceptor paper peeling device 90 is provided below the transfer device 88 . The sensitive material receiving paper peeling device 90 includes a guide member 92, a first feed roller 94, a second feed roller 96, and a first
It consists of a peeling belt 102 wrapped around guide rollers 98 and 100 so as to press against only the photosensitive material S at the outer end of the circle on the feed roller 94.

A sensitive material disposal section 104 is provided on one side of the peeling device 90, and an image receiving paper take-out section 107 is provided on the other side. The photosensitive material disposal unit 104 includes a guide member 108, a pair of feed rollers 110, 112, and a waste box 114.
and throws it into the waste box 114.

A take-out tray 130 that receives the image-receiving paper C by means of a guide member 120 is attached to the image-receiving paper take-out section 107 so as to protrude from the housing 1 .

The image recording device further includes a control unit connected to an illumination lamp 8, a photosensitive material feeding roller 21, 22, a cutter unit 23, a document support glass plate 2, a photosensitive material leading edge detection sensor 60, and a photosensitive material receiving paper stacking device 70. A device (not shown) is provided to perform the following operations. That is, in the operation preparation stage of the image recording apparatus, so-called copy preparation stage, the leading end of the photosensitive material S is placed in the magazine connection dark box 20.

Next, press the copy start button (not shown).
The photosensitive material feeding rollers 21 and 22 operate to feed the photosensitive material S, and just before the leading edge of the photosensitive material S reaches the position 32, the illumination lamp 8 is turned on to illuminate the document.

When the leading end reaches position 32, the document supporting glass plate 2 moves, and the photosensitive material S is fed accordingly, and the document image is projected onto the external photosensitive material S for imagewise exposure. on the other hand,
When the photosensitive material S is fed by an amount equal to the length of the document in the moving direction, the cutter unit 23 is activated to cut the photosensitive material S. Thereafter, the photosensitive material feeding rollers 21 and 22 rotate in a direction to retract the photosensitive material S so that the leading end of the photosensitive material S is within the magazine connection dark box 20.

The cut and imagewise exposed photosensitive material S is transferred to a heat developing device 4
0, is pressed against the heating roller 44 by the endless belt 50, heated at about 120° C., and developed. The passage of the leading edge of the developed photosensitive material S through the outlet 56 is detected by the sensitive material leading edge detection sensor 60 .

On the other hand, in the receiving paper supply device 72, the receiving paper C is fed out from the receiving paper cartridge 73 in synchronization with the pressing of the copy start button or the timing of exposure start, and is cut into a predetermined length by the cutter unit 77.
The image-receiving paper C is stopped after being fed to a position where its leading end is nipped by the pressure roller 64 and the nip roller 66.

In the photoreceptor paper stacking device 70, the photoreceptor paper C is superimposed on the photosensitive material S, and sent to the transfer device 88 where it is pressed with a pressure of about 500 kg/crhl and transferred onto the photoreceptor paper. 96 to the take-out tray 130.

Although the above description has been made using a moving document table type device, similar operations are possible with a moving exposure device type.

As shown in FIG.
The roller has a sprocket wheel 140 at both ends. Also, the pitch of the sprocket is endless belt 5
Designed to fit 0 sprocket holes. In this case, the endless belt 50 is conveyed by synchronizing the rotation of belt support rollers 46, 49 with sprocket wheels. When a sprocket wheel is attached to the heating roller 44, the endless belt 50 is conveyed by the heating roller 44.

Furthermore, flanges may be provided at both ends of the other belt support rollers 47 so that the flanges abut against both side edges of the endless belt 50 to suppress shifting.

[For production]

The present invention consists of a heating roller, a plurality of belt support rollers, and an endless belt that rotates while being stretched around these rollers, and a photosensitive material having a latent image generated by imagewise exposure is transferred between the heating roller and the endless belt. In a heat developing device that performs heat development and transport by sandwiching, at least one of the heald support roller or the heating roller has sprocket wheels at both ends,
A heat developing device characterized in that the endless belt has sprocket holes that match the sprockets of the sprocket wheel prevents the belt ends from shifting at the sprocket throats, and the endless belt is stopped by the sprocket throats at both ends. As a result, the waving phenomenon no longer occurs, and therefore wrinkles in the photosensitive material and development unevenness are eliminated.

〔Example〕

One embodiment of the present invention will be described.

In the heat developing device described above, sprocket wheels 140 are installed at both ends of the belt support rollers 46 and 49 near the photosensitive material loading section to the photosensitive material clamping section and the unloading section from the clamping section.
Using a configuration in which the belt supporting roller 48 is attached to a belt supporting roller, the remaining belt supporting roller 48 is a crown roller, and the other is a flat roller, a comparison is made with cases in which belt conveyance is performed using other conventional combinations of rollers. Results first
Shown in the table. Note that the belt in this example was a rubber belt with a core, which was laminated with a non-stretchable woven fabric that tends to shift to one side.

Table 1 Note: F...Flat C...Crown Inverted C...Inverted crown S...Sprocket From these results, it is clear that the combination in this embodiment is the most effective for preventing deviation. Recognize.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, since the sprocket holes of the endless belt are guided by the sprockets of the belt support roll, the endless belt will not shift in the width direction during rotation, and the endless belt will not come off the support roller and become unable to be conveyed. Also, since the movement of the endless belt in the width direction is restricted by the sprocket wheels at both ends of the belt support roll, there is no waving of the endless belt, and it is possible to prevent wrinkles in the photosensitive material and uneven development. Failures are completely eliminated and development quality is significantly improved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of an image recording apparatus equipped with a heat developing device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of an embodiment in which sprocket wheels are used at both ends of a belt support roller.
(al is a front view, (bl is a side view, FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of an example of a heat developing device in which flanges are attached to both ends of a conventional belt support roller, +8) is a front view, (bl is a side view) S...Photosensitive material C...Receiver paper 1...Housing 2...Glass plate 6...Reflector 8.
...Illumination lamp 10...Fiber lens array 12...Sensitive material roll 14...Sensitive material cartridge 16...Outlet 20...Magazine connection dark box 21.22...Sensitive material feeding roller 23... - Cutter unit 24... Guide plate 26... Exposure sensitive material support roller 28.30... Sensitive material nip roller 32... Exposure position 40... Heat developing device 42... Developer housing 44... Heating roller 46, 49...Belt support roller 47...Flant roller 48...Belt support roller 50...Endless belt 52...Nip roller 54...Guide device 56...Outlet 58... Vertical guide device 60...Sensitive material leading edge detection sensor 62, 64...Press roller 66...Nip roller 68...Guide member 70...Sensitive material image receiving paper stacking device 71...Image receiving paper roll 72 ... Receiving paper supply device 73... Receiving paper cartridge 74.76... Feeding roller 77... Cutter unit 78... Guide plate 80.82... Pressure nip roller 84.86... Backup Roller 88... Transfer device 90... Sensitive image paper peeling device 92... Guide member 94... First feed roller 96... Second feed roller 98, 100... Guide roller 102... - Peeling belt 104...Sensitive material disposal section 107...Receiving paper take-out section 108...Guide member 110, 112...Feed roller 114...Disposal box 120...Guide member 130...Take out Tray 140...Sprocket wheel 141...Sprocket hole 150...Flange procedure amendment March 23, 1988

Claims (1)

[Claims] Consisting of a heating roller, a plurality of belt support rollers, and an endless belt that rotates while being stretched over these rollers, a photosensitive material having a latent image generated by imagewise exposure is sandwiched between the heating roller and the endless belt and heated. A heating developing device for developing and conveying images, characterized in that at least one of the belt support roller or the heating roller has a sprocket wheel at both ends, and the endless belt has sprocket holes that match the sprockets of the sprocket wheel. Developing device.