Source: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/pat/US20070092290A1
Timestamp: 2020-08-10 12:24:07
Document Index: 351476756

Matched Legal Cases: ['art.\n30', 'art.\n38', 'art 67', 'art 67', 'arts 267', 'arts 267', 'art 267', 'art 267', 'arts 267', 'art 67', 'art 67']

Patent US 20070092290A1
An image forming apparatus includes a frame body, a frame cover supported by the frame body so as to be capable of opening and closing, an image forming unit that forms a toner image on an image carrier, a cleaning unit that removes and collects residual toner from the image carrier, and a toner container for accumulating the toner collected by the cleaning unit. The toner container is supported by the frame cover.
Collection container, cleaning unit, and image forming apparatus capable of collecting waste toner efficiently
US 20100080600A1
US 8,369,770 B2
Power switch structure and image forming apparatus including same
US 8,626,019 B2
US 9,291,924 B2
US 7,184,684 B2
US 20030086732A1
US 20030219292A1
Endless belt dry toner agitator
US 6,671,481 B1
US 6,493,528 B2
US 5,146,270 A
US 5,065,195 A
a cover configured to be moved between a first position and a second position by pivoting around a lowest end of the cover, wherein the cover is disposed perpendicularly with respect to the axis of the image carriers, wherein the waste toner container is disposed at a side of one end of the image forming sections and is configured to move together with the cover between the first and the second position when the cover is moved between the first and second positions.
22. The image forming apparatus of claim 21, wherein the cover is a first cover and the image forming apparatus further includes a second cover with a pivot axis parallel to axes of the image carriers in the plurality of image forming sections.
23. The image forming apparatus of claim 21, wherein the waste toner container is unlinked from the image forming sections when the cover is in the first position.
24. The image forming apparatus of claim 21, wherein the waste toner container, when the cover is in the second position, is linked to the image forming section via a plurality of holes disposed in one side of the waste toner container.
25. The image forming apparatus of claim 24, wherein each hole of the plurality of holes, when the cover is in the second position, is disposed at a different distance from a floor of the image forming apparatus than another hole of the plurality of holes.
26. The image forming apparatus of claim 25, wherein a first hole of the plurality of holes, closest to a back side of the image forming apparatus, is farther away from the floor of the image forming apparatus than any of the other holes of the plurality of holes when the cover is in the second position.
27. The image forming apparatus of claim 26, wherein a second hole, which is closer to the first hole than any other hole of the plurality of holes, is a second farthest away from the floor of the image forming apparatus, when the cover is in the second position.
28. The image forming apparatus of claim 27, wherein the plurality of holes includes a lowermost hole, which is a hole closest to the floor of the image forming apparatus when the cover is in the second position, and the lowermost hole is closer to a front of the image forming apparatus than any of the other holes of the plurality of holes.
29. The image forming apparatus of claim 21, further comprising a conveyor disposed in the waste toner container and configured to convey waste toner from a first part of the waste toner container to a second part.
30. The image forming apparatus of claim 29, wherein the conveyor is a belt conveyor.
31. The image forming apparatus of claim 29, wherein the conveyor is a screw conveyor.
32. The image forming apparatus of claim 31, wherein the screw conveyor includes a plurality of separated screw sections on a single axis.
33. The image forming apparatus of claim 31, wherein the screw conveyor includes multiple screws on multiple axes.
34. The image forming apparatus of claim 21, wherein a first part of the waste toner container, when the waste toner container is in the second position, has an interior height greater than a second part of the waste toner container.
35. The image forming apparatus of claim 21, wherein the waste toner container is linked to the image forming sections via an introduction hole.
36. The image forming apparatus of claim 35, wherein the introduction hole is disposed in an uppermost part of the waste toner container.
37. The image forming apparatus of claim 36, further including a conveyor configured to convey waste toner from a first part of the waste toner container to a second part.
38. The image forming apparatus of claim 37, wherein the first part is beneath the introduction hole when the cover is in the second position.
39. The image forming apparatus of claim 38, wherein the conveyor is a screw conveyor.
40. The image forming apparatus of claim 39, wherein a part of an upper surface of the waste toner container forming a portion of a ceiling of the waste toner container when the waste toner container is in the second position is disposed at an acute angle with respect to a floor of the waste toner container such that a vertical distance between the floor of the waste toner container and the upper surface is less at the second part of the waste toner container than at the first part of the waste toner container.
FIG. 17 illustrates a conventional printer. The printer has frame covers 101, 102, and 56 which are fixed to a frame body 100 so that the covers are pivotably open. Inside the frame body 100, a latent image carrier, an exposing device, a developing device, a transfer device, an intermediate transfer belt 31, toner bottles 57Y, 57M, 57C, and 57K (“toner bottles 57”), a waste toner container 103, a cleaning device, and a fixing device are provided. Among these, the latent image carrier, the developing device, and the cleaning device are formed as one image forming unit. The image forming unit is often used as a process cartridge that is detachably attached to the frame body. Further, the intermediate transfer belt 31 and another component are sometimes formed as one intermediate transfer unit. A user opens the frame cover 56 for checking the apparatus and detaches the image forming unit or the intermediate transfer belt 31 from the frame body. If the toner inside any of the toner bottles 57 is decreased to a predetermined amount or less, the user opens the frame cover 56 and exchanges the toner bottle with another toner bottle filled with toner to replenish the toner. Further, the user disposes of the waste toner before the waste toner container 103 becomes full.
FIG. 1 is a side view of internal structure of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention;
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention that is applied to a full color printer (hereinafter, “printer”) as an image forming apparatus will be explained below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 schematically illustrates an internal structure of the printer. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an appearance of the printer. FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an appearance of the printer when the covers of the printer are open. As shown in FIG. 1 to FIG. 3, the printer includes a frame body 100 in which positions of accommodating components as image forming units are fixed, and a paper feed cassette 41 as a paper feed unit that stocks transfer paper P as recording materials. Assuming the direction indicated by the arrow A is a front side to which the paper feed cassette 41 is pulled out, the frame body 100 has a left-side frame cover 101 supported by the left side of the frame, and has a front-side frame cover 102 supported by the front side of the frame. Both of the covers can be freely opened and closed. The frame body 100 also has a paper discharge tray 56 on the top face thereof, and the tray 56 is also opened and closed in the vertical direction in the figure. When the left-side frame cover 101 is opened, the waste toner container is detachable from the frame body 100 as explained later. When the paper discharge tray 56 is opened, toner bottles 57Y, 57C, 57M, and 57K that accommodate toners of yellow (Y), cyan (C), magenta (M), and black (K) are detachable from the frame body 100.
The structure and operation of the printer will be explained below. The printer includes image forming cartridges 10Y, 10C, 10M, and 10K (“cartridges 10”) provided in the central portion inside the frame body 100 as shown in FIG. 1. More specifically, the cartridges 10 form images with yellow (Y), cyan (C), magenta (M), and black (K) toners, respectively. An optical unit 20 as an exposing unit is provided below the cartridges 10, and radiates photoreceptive drums 12Y, 12C, 12M, and 12K each as an image carrier, with laser beams. An intermediate transfer unit 30 having an intermediate transfer belt 31 is provided in the upper side of the cartridges 10. The intermediate transfer belt 31 sometimes serves as an image carrier or an intermediate transfer body to which the toner images formed by the image forming cartridges 10 are secondarily transferred. The printer also has a fixing unit 50 that fixes the toner image transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 31, on the transfer paper P.
Since the image forming cartridges 10Y, 10C, 10M, and 10K have the same structure, the cartridge 10K for black is explained below. FIG. 4 illustrates the internal structure of the image forming cartridge for black. The cartridge 10K includes the photoreceptive drum 12K, a charger 13K that charges the drum 12K, and a developing device 14K that develops a latent image formed on the drum 12K. The cartridge 10K also includes a cleaning device 15K that removes waste toner such as non-transferred toner as a developer remaining on the drum 12K, and also removes paper dust. The cleaning device 15K has a cleaning blade 15a to clean the surface of the drum 12K. The cleaning blade 15a may be a cleaning roller as shown in FIG. 1. As explained above, the cartridge 10K integrally supports the photoreceptive drum 12K, charger 13K, developing device 14K, and the cleaning device 15K to form a process cartridge that is detachably attached to the frame body 100.
If an image is formed only with black color in the above structured printer, the charger 13K uniformly charges the photoreceptive drum 12K in the image forming cartridge 10K. Subsequently, the optical unit 20 performs exposure by scanning the drum 12K with a laser beam according to image formation to form a latent image on the surface thereof. The latent image on the drum 12K is developed with black toner carried on the developing roller 14a of the developing device 14K to be visualized as a toner image. The toner image formed on the drum 12K is transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 31 by the action of a primary transfer roller 35K. After the primary transfer is finished, the cleaning device 15K cleans the surface of the photoreceptive drum 12K to be in a standby state for the following image formation. The transfer paper P is fed into the frame body 100 by the paper feed roller 43 and the transfer rollers 44. The toner image formed on the intermediate transfer belt 31 is transferred to the paper P at the secondary transfer region 37. The transfer paper P on which the toner image is transferred passes through the fixing unit 50, where image is fixed, and the paper discharge rollers 55 discharge the paper P onto the paper discharge tray 56 formed on the top face of the frame body 100. The belt cleaning device 18 in contact with the transfer belt 31 cleans the non-transferred toner remaining on the transfer belt 31 in the same manner as that of the photoreceptive drum 12.
The non-transferred toner that fails to be transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 31 and remains on the photoreceptive drums 12Y, 12C, 12M, and 12K is recovered by the cleaning devices 15Y, 15C, 15M, and 15K (“cleaning devices 15”) as first cleaning units. Each of the cleaning devices 15 recovers the non-transferred toner remaining on the drum 12 by the cleaning roller, and a waste toner conveying unit 17 conveys the toner to the recovered waste toner container 16.
Further, the waste toner container 16 as shown in FIG. 5 is formed integrally with the left-side frame cover 101 and held thereby, but the container 16 may be formed as a discrete unit and is held by the left-side frame cover 101. FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the waste toner container formed as a discrete unit that is not fixed to the left-side frame cover. As shown in FIG. 6, a waste toner container 116 is formed as a discrete unit and held by the left-side frame cover 101. The waste toner container 116 has a projection 116a formed at the end thereof, and this projection 116a is fitted into a slide member 117 provided on the left-side frame cover 101 and thereby the container 116 is held by the left-side frame cover 101. The slide member 117 is then slid to enable dismounting of the waste toner container 116 from the frame cover 101.
FIG. 9 is a perspective view of the waste toner container with introduction holes provided on the top face of the container. A waste toner container 316 shown in FIG. 9 has a top face 316A as a side facing the cleaning devices 15Y, 15C, 15M, and 15K in the same manner as the container 216 shown in FIG. 8. The top face 316A is inclined so as to be substantially parallel with the line L connecting the rotational centers of the photoreceptive drums 12Y, 12C, 12M, and 12K. As shown in FIG. 9, the line L also serves as a line connecting the cleaning units 150Y, 150C, 150M, and 150K of the cleaning devices 15. The container 316 has introduction holes 62, 63, 64, 65, and 66 formed on the top face 316A and a highest top face 316B. The holes 62, 63, 64, and 65 are connected to one ends of the conveying pipes 61Y, 61C, 61M, and 61K (“conveying pipes 61”), respectively. Intervals P1, P2, and P3 of the conveying pipes 61Y, 61C, 61M, and 61K are set to equal to one another. By making the top face 316A parallel with the line L like the waste toner container 316, the distance between the top face 316A and the cleaning devices 15 is set constant, and the length of the conveying pipes 61Y, 61C, 61M, and 61K is made equal to one another, which makes it possible to share the components. An opening 66 formed on the highest top face 316B of the container 316 is connected with a toner conveying path (not shown) communicating the transfer screw 19 of the belt cleaning device 18 (see FIG. 1). In such a structure, the waste toner cleaned by the cleaning device 15 and the belt cleaning device 18 can be recovered into the waste toner container.
A conveying unit for internally conveying toner T to be accommodated may be provided inside the waste toner container 16. A screw conveyor 67 as a conveying unit for conveying waste toner T recovered in the container is provided inside the waste toner container 316 as shown in FIG. 9. The screw conveyor 67 is continuously extended along and below positions facing the introduction holes 62, 63, 64, and 65. Both ends of the screw conveyor 67 are rotatably supported by the waste toner container 316, and an end part 67a positioned on the lower side of the container 316 is projected toward the outside of the container 316. The projected end part 67a is fixed with a spur gear 68 to which drive force is transmitted so that the spur gear 68 and the screw conveyor 67 are integrally rotatable. The screw conveyor 67 is disposed in such a manner that if the member 67 is rotated in either right or left direction, the waste toner T inside the container can be conveyed in a direction away from the introduction holes. As shown in FIG. 9, the screw conveyor 67 is extended from the lower side of the inclined top face 316A toward the highest top face 316B so that the toner is conveyed from the lower side to the higher side of the waste toner container 316. When the drive force is transmitted to the screw conveyor 67 to rotate, the waste toner T is conveyed from the lower side toward the higher side of the container 316.
FIG. 12 illustrates the structure of the waste toner container when conveyors are provided only at positions facing the introduction holes. Screws parts 267a, 267b, 267c, and 267d, as the conveyors, are provided inside the waste toner container 316 as shown in FIG. 12. The screw parts 267a, 267b, 267c, and 267d are partially formed only at positions corresponding to the introduction holes 62, 63, 64, and 65. The screw conveyor 267 is rotatably supported by the waste toner container 316, and an end part 267e positioning on the lower side is projected to the outside of the container 316. The projected end part 267e is fixed with a spur gear 68 to which drive force is transmitted so that the spur gear 68 and the screw conveyor 267 are integrally rotatable. Therefore, the drive force is transmitted to the screw conveyor 267 to rotate.
The waste toner T to be recovered into the waste toner container 316 is deposited like a heap inside the container at each lower part below the introduction holes. Therefore, when the screw conveyor 267 is rotated, the screw parts 267a, 267b, 267c, and 267d are rotated at the portions heaped with waste toner, and the waste toner heaped at the lower part of the container is conveyed toward the higher position while the heaped waste toner is collapsed. Therefore, it is possible to resolve leakage of the waste toner from the introduction hole 65 and clogging in the conveying pipe 61K, or resolve adhesion of the toner to the container 316. Therefore, the waste toner can be efficiently filled in the container 316.
FIG. 14 illustrates a waste toner container when an introduction hole is provided on the highest top position of the container. A waste toner container 416 as shown in FIG. 14 uses the opening 66 provided on a highest top face 416B as an introduction hole. Like the container 416, if there is one introduction hole 66 that introduces the waste toner T into the container 416, the end parts of the conveying pipes 61Y, 61C, 61M, and 61K are integrated into one as a conveying pipe 61P, and the pipe 61P may be connected to the introduction hole 66. Further, as shown in FIG. 14, by providing the introduction hole 66 on the highest top face 416B of the container 416, the waste toner is recovered from the highest part of the container 416. Therefore, even if the toner amount is detected by the sensor 21 through the introduction hole 66, it is possible to obtain substantially the same result as the toner amount recovered in the container. Even in this case, however, the recovered waste toner is deposited highest at the lower part right below the introduction hole 66 in the container. Therefore, considering the efficiency of filling the container with toner, it is preferable to rotate the screw conveyor 67 in the direction opposite to the case of FIG. 9 and convey the waste toner toward the side of the end part 67a, that is, in the direction away from the introduction hole 66.
The waste toner container 316 has a drive unit that drives a conveyor and a drive transmitting unit provided on the outside thereof. FIG. 15 is a perspective view of an embodiment of the drive unit and the drive transmitting unit. The waste toner container 316 shown in FIG. 15 includes the screw conveyor 67, a drive motor 81 that drives the screw conveyor 67 to rotate, and a gear group 80 that transmits the drive force from the drive motor 81 to the screw conveyor 67. The gear group 80 as the drive transmitting unit includes a spur gear 69, a bevel gear 84, and a bevel gear 83. The spur gear 69 is mounted to one end of a shaft 82 provided in parallel with the screw conveyor 67, the bevel gear 84 is mounted to other end of the shaft 82, and the bevel gear 83 is mounted to a drive shaft 81a of the drive motor 81. The spur gear 69 is engaged with the spur gear 68, and the bevel gear 84 is engaged with the bevel gear 83. The spur gear 69, the bevel gear 84, the bevel gear 83, and drive motor 81 are internally provided in the frame body 100 as shown in FIG. 3. The spur gear 68 is engaged with the spur gear 69 when the waste toner container 316 is set at a predetermined position.
In the waste toner container 316, when the drive motor 81 drives to rotate the drive shaft 81a, the drive force is transmitted to the screw conveyor 67 through the bevel gear 84, the spur gear 69, and the spur gear 68 to rotate the screw conveyor 67. By using the gear group 80 in such a manner, drive transmission loss becomes less as compared with the case of using the belt and pulleys, and the screw conveyor 67 can be driven by registering the gears each other when the left-side frame cover 101 is closed.
FIG. 16 is a perspective view of another embodiment of the drive unit and the drive transmitting unit. The waste toner container 316 includes the screw conveyor 67, the drive motor 81, and a gear group 85 that transmits the drive force of the drive motor 81 to the screw conveyor 67. As shown in FIG. 16, the gear group 85 as the drive transmitting unit includes the bevel gear 84 and the bevel gear 83. The bevel gear 84 is mounted to an end part 67a of the screw conveyor 67, and the bevel gear 83 transmits the drive force from the drive motor 81 to the bevel gear 84. The bevel gear 83 is mounted to the drive shaft 81a of the drive motor 81. The bevel gear 83 and the drive motor 81 are internally provided in the frame body 100 as shown in FIG. 3. The bevel gear 84 and the bevel gear 83 are disposed so as to be engaged with each other when the left-side frame cover 101 is closed.
According to the waste toner container 316, when the drive motor 81 drives to rotate the drive shaft 81a, the drive force is transmitted to the screw conveyor 67 from the bevel gear 83 through the bevel gear 84 to rotate the screw conveyor 67. By using bevel gears for the gear group 85, drive transmission loss becomes less as compared with the case of using the belt and pulleys, and the screw conveyor can be driven by registering the gears when the left-side frame cover 101 is closed.
Eiji Kurimoto, Eisaka Murakami, Hideki Zemba, Hideo Yoshizawa, Hiroshi Ishii, Hiroyuki Nagashima, Yoshiyuki Kimura, Yuji Arai
Ishii, Hiroshi, Nagashima, Hiroyuki, Arai, Yuji, Zemba, Hideki, Kurimoto, Eiji, Yoshizawa, Hideo, Kimura, Yoshiyuki, Murakami, Eisaka
US 7,292,817 B2
Waste Toner Collecting Device, And Image Forming Apparatus Including The Waste Toner Collecting Device
US 6,937,838 B2
US 6,975,830 B2