JPS6344226B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a bottle that collects toner scraped off by a cleaning device after transfer is completed, and a bottle full of collected toner that indicates that toner has accumulated in the bottle beyond a certain amount. The present invention relates to a tongue detection device.

Many conventional toner collection bottles do not have full-fill detection devices, and it is impossible to check the toner accumulation status without opening the door or cover of the machine, so copying can continue even when the bottle is full. However, there was a drawback that the collected toner overflowed outside the machine.

In addition, some electronic copying machines use a weight detection method or an optical detection method;
In either method, it is not possible to directly detect the volume of toner in the toner collection bottle, and the weight detection method is easily affected by the vibration of the machine body, and moreover, the volume of toner in the toner collection bottle cannot be directly detected. Since twice as many carriers were also collected, the drawback was that the collection capacity varied greatly.

Furthermore, the optical detection method has the disadvantage that malfunctions are likely to occur due to dirt inside the bottle or toner floating in the air.

The present invention relates to an improvement of a recovered toner fullness detection device that eliminates such drawbacks, and in the recovered toner fullness detection device that collects residual image toner after transfer into a bottle, the bottle is attached to and detached from the bottle body and the upper part of the bottle body. It consists of a housing for attaching a sensor that can be attached freely, and is characterized by having a pressure-sensitive element attached to the housing for attaching a sensor, which detects the pressure of toner accumulation. To provide a collected toner fullness detection device that can reliably detect the volume of toner and allows easy bottle replacement.

The present invention provides a recovered toner fullness detection device that collects residual image toner in a bottle after transfer as described above, in which the bottle is composed of a bottle body and a housing for attaching a sensor on the upper part of the bottle body. Since the pressure-sensitive element is attached, the pressure-sensitive element remains fixed even when the bottle is replaced, and there is no need to move or adjust the pressure-sensitive element, and the bottle can be easily replaced regardless of the pressure-sensitive element. be able to.

Further, in the present invention, by narrowing the cross-sectional area of the sensor mounting housing, the responsiveness of the detection level to the amount of collected toner can be improved, and the volume of toner in the bottle can be reliably detected.

Further, in the present invention, since the toner in the bottle is detected by a pressure sensitive element, the volume of the toner in the bottle can be directly detected, and the reliability is high.

The embodiment shown in the drawings will be described below. Reference numeral 1 denotes a drum-shaped photoreceptor, and the photoreceptor 1 is rotatably driven in the direction of the hour hand by a drive device (not shown).

Further, a developing device 2, a transfer device 3, and a cleaning device 4 are sequentially arranged around the outer periphery of the photoreceptor 1 along the rotation direction thereof, and a cleaning blade 5 is built in the cleaning device 4.
The toner after transfer is scraped off from the photoreceptor 1 by a cleaning blade 4.

The toner that is further scraped off and accumulated at the bottom of the cleaning device 4 is removed by the first auger 6 oriented in the diagonally upward direction a and the second auger 7 oriented in the horizontal direction b.
The toner bottle 9 is conveyed directly above the toner bottle 9, and the augers 6 and 7 are driven by a drive mechanism (not shown).

The toner bottle 9 is composed of a cylindrical sensor housing 10 with a small diameter, and a bottle main body 11 whose upper end neck is removably fitted into the sensor housing 10. The upper end of the housing 10 is the hose 8
connected with.

Further, a full tank sensor 12 is attached to the sensor housing 10, and a pressure sensitive element 12a is formed in the sensor 12 so as to be exposed inside the sensor housing 10. A detection signal is generated from the element 12a, and the detection signal is sent to an indicator such as an indicator lamp (not shown) or a control device (not shown), indicating that the bottle is full of toner. The copy machine is now automatically stopped.

Since the illustrated embodiment is configured as described above, when the copying device is operated to perform copying, the toner image formed on the photoreceptor 1 by the developing device 2 is transferred by the transfer device 3. Although the toner image is transferred onto the copy paper 13, some toner image remains on the photoreceptor 1 even after the transfer. This residual toner image is scraped off from the photoreceptor 1 by the cleaning blade 4 of the cleaning device 5.

Further, the scraped toner is conveyed along conveyance paths a and b by a first auger 6 and a second auger 7 having a spiral shape, and is transferred from an end of the second auger 7 to a toner bottle body 11 via a hose 8. It will be collected.

When the toner collected in the toner bottle body 11 reaches a certain amount (approximately 80% of the absolute capacity of the bottle body), the toner accumulation surface 1 formed in a conical shape
4 (The angle of repose, which is the angle between the generatrix of the same surface and the horizontal plane, differs depending on the coefficient of friction between the toners, but the larger the coefficient of friction, the larger the angle of repose) 1
4a reaches the sensor housing 10 and covers the surface of the pressure sensitive element 12a of the full tank sensor 12.

When the surface of the pressure sensitive element 12a is completely covered with recovered toner and a pressure of about 1 g is applied to the surface,
The full tank sensor 12 operates and sends a detection signal.

This operation of the full tank sensor 12 lights up an indicator lamp or stops the main body of the copying apparatus, thereby notifying the operator of the need to replace the toner bottle 9.

Then, when the toner bottle 9 is replaced, the indicator lamp is turned off or the stoppage of the main body of the copying apparatus is released.

Also, the toner is in a conical shape 14 inside the bottle body 11.
Since the top part 14a is deposited on the pressure sensitive element 1
2a, the void 1 remains inside the bottle body 11.
1a remains, and as a result, when the bottle body 11 is removed from the sensor housing 10, the bottle body 1a remains.
1 or by an impact during removal, the toner accumulation conical surface 14 collapses, and the toner is completely stored in the bottle body 11 with ample room.

Therefore, when the bottle body 11 is removed from the sensor housing 10, toner will not fall out from the bottle body 11.

In this way, even when the bottle 9 is full of toner, the bottle can be replaced very easily without worrying about toner spilling.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, since the toner pressure at the top of the toner deposited in the conical shape 14 is directly detected by the pressure sensitive element 12a, the variation in the amount of collected toner seen in the weight detection method and the optical detection It is possible to reliably eliminate the drawbacks of this method, such as malfunctions caused by toner floating in the air.

Further, by dividing the bottle body 11 and the housing 10 to which the sensor is attached and reducing the volume of the housing 10, the detection response of the sensor can be improved and the collection efficiency can be improved.

In the embodiment described above, by extending the lower end of the housing 12 downward, the toner accumulation conical surface 14 on which the pressure sensitive element 12a can operate can be moved downward, so that no shock is applied to the bottle body 11 when replacing the bottle. Even if the bottle body 11 is opened, it is possible to completely prevent the toner from overflowing from the opening of the bottle body 11.

Further, in the embodiment, the pressure sensitive element 12a
The method used to detect the amount of toner from the amount of change in the resonant frequency waveform of an electrostrictive vibrator, but it also detects the amount of toner from the amount of change in the resonance frequency waveform of an electrostrictive vibrator. A pressure-sensitive element using a piezo effect may also be used.

Although the present invention has been described above with reference to the embodiments illustrated in the drawings and other embodiments, the present invention is of course not limited to such embodiments.
Various design changes can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawing is an enlarged longitudinal cross-sectional side view of a main part of an embodiment of the recovered toner fullness detection device according to the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Photoreceptor, 9... Bottle, 10... Sensor housing, 11... Bottle body, 12... Full tank sensor, 12a... Pressure sensitive element, 14... Toner deposition conical surface.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a collected toner full detection device that collects residual image toner after transfer into a bottle, the bottle is composed of a bottle body and a sensor mounting housing that is detachably attached to the upper part of the bottle body, and the sensor mounting housing has a sensor mounting housing. A recovered toner full tank detection device characterized by being equipped with a pressure element.