Patent Application
20210382418
The present invention relates to a sheet cooling device for cooling sheets and an image forming system cooling device for equipped with the cooling device.
Conventionally, an image forming apparatus equipped with casters attached to the four corners of the floor surface and a tip resistant member that can be rotated around the support shaft of the casters has been proposed (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application (JP-A) 2002-252475). The tip resistant member has an abbreviated fan shape and can be fixed in a standby position where it is hidden in the floor of the image forming apparatus and in a functional position where it protrudes from the floor to prevent the image forming apparatus from tipping over.
However, the tip resistant member disclosed in JP-A 2002-252475, is stored in a standby position hidden in the floor when not in use, so there are cases where a user forgets to set the tip resistant member in the functional position when it is needed. When such a tip resistant member is installed in a sheet cooling device having a cooling unit that cools the sheets, if the cooling unit is drawn out of the device while the tip resistant member is forgotten to be set in the functional position, there is a liability that the weight of the cooling unit causes the sheet cooling device itself to tilt.
Therefore, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a sheet cooling device and an image forming system equipped with the cooling device, which can reduce the forgetting to set the restricting member.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sheet cooling device comprising: a main assembly; a cooling unit, drawable out of said main assembly with respect to a drawing direction, provided with a first belt, a second belt for forming a nip portion with said first belt to nip and feed a sheet and a heatsink in contact with an inner peripheral surface of said first belt; and a restricting member configured to be positionable in a first position where said cooling unit is restricted from drawing out of said main assembly and in a second position lower than the first position where said restricting member opposes to an installation surface on which said sheet cooling device is installed.
Further features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of exemplary embodiments (with reference to the attached drawings)
Part (a) of
Part (a) of
Part (a) of
Part (a) of
Part (a) of
As shown in
The printer 101 as an image forming apparatus forms a toner image on a sheet S based on the image signal input from an information terminal such as a personal computer or an external device such as an image reader. The printer 101 can be used for a variety of sheets as recording media, including paper and envelopes, glossy paper, plastic film such as overhead projector sheets, and cloth.
The printer 101 has a sheet feeding system, which will be described later, and an image forming portion 7. The image forming portion 7 includes four process units 10Y, 10M, 10C, and 10K that form yellow, magenta, cyan, and black toner images, and an intermediate transfer belt 70 that is an intermediate transfer body. The process units 10Y to 10K are electrophotographic units each having a photosensitive drum.
Since the process units 10Y to 10K are similarly configured except for the color of toner used for development, the configuration of the process unit and the toner image forming process (image forming operation) will be explained using the yellow process unit 10Y as an example. The process unit 10Y has a charger 2, a laser exposure device 3, a developer 4, and a drum cleaner 5 in addition to the photosensitive drum 1. The photosensitive drum 1 is a drum-shaped photoreceptor having a photosensitive layer on its outer periphery and rotates along the direction of rotation of the intermediate transfer belt 70. The surface of the photosensitive drum 1 is charged by being supplied with electric charge from the charger 2.
The laser exposure device 3 emits a laser beam L modulated according to the image information and scans the photosensitive drum 1 via mirrors and other devices as appropriate to draw an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the photosensitive drum 1. The developer 4 accommodates a developer containing toner and develops the electrostatic latent image into a toner image by supplying toner to the photosensitive drum 1. The toner image formed on the photosensitive drum 1 is primary transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 70 in the primary transfer portion, which is the nip portion between a primary transfer roller 6 and the intermediate transfer belt 70. The residual toner remaining on the photosensitive drum 1 after transfer is removed by the drum cleaner 5 and collected in the toner tank (not shown).
The intermediate transfer belt 70 is wound around rollers 71 and 72, and a secondary transfer inner roller 73, etc., and is rotationally driven. Wherein said image forming operations are carried out in parallel in each of the process units 10Y to 10K, and the toner images of the four colors are multiply transferred so that they overlap each other, forming a full-color toner image on the intermediate transfer belt 70. This toner image is carried on the intermediate transfer belt 70 and fed to the secondary transfer portion. The secondary transfer portion is configured as a nip portion between a secondary transfer roller 8 and the secondary transfer inner roller 73 as the transfer portion, and the toner image is secondarily transferred to the sheet S by applying a bias voltage of the opposite polarity of the toner charge to the secondary transfer roller 8. The residual toner remaining on the intermediate transfer belt 70 after transfer is removed by the belt cleaner.
The Sheet S on which the toner image has been transferred is passed to a fixing device 15 by a pre-fixing transport portion 14. The fixing device 15 has a fixing roller pair 15a and 15b that nips and feeds the sheet S, and a heat source such as a halogen heater, and applies pressure and heat to the toner image carried on the sheet S. This causes the toner particles to melt and adhere to the sheet S, resulting in a fixed image that is fixed to the sheet S.
The configuration and operation of the sheet feeding system that feeds the sheet S and discharges the sheet S on which an image has been formed to the cooling device 201 will be described. The sheet feeding system roughly includes feeding portions 12a, 12b, a registration feeding portion 13, a discharge roller pair 17, the pre-fixing transport portion 14, and a duplex transport portion 18.
The feeding portions 12a and 12b feed the sheets S from cassettes 11a and 11b, respectively, which contain the sheets S. The feeding portions 12a and 12b separate the sheets one by one and transport the sheets S to the registration feeding portion 13.
The sheet S fed from the feed portions 12a and 12b is corrected for skewness in the registration transport portion 13. Then, the sheet S is transported by the registration transport portion 13 to synchronize with the transfer timing in the secondary transfer portion. The sheet S, on which the toner image has been transferred in the secondary transfer portion and the image has been fixed by the fixing device 15, is transported along the sheet S feeding pass to a pass switching portion 16. When image formation on the sheet S has been completed, the sheet S is fed by the pass switching portion 16 to the discharge roller pair 17 and is discharged by the discharge roller pair 17 to the cooling unit 201.
In case an image is formed on the back side of the sheet S, the sheet S is fed to the registration transfer portion 13 by the duplex transfer portion 18. The sheet S is then discharged to the cooling device 201 after the image is formed on the back side.
A cooling device 201 as a sheet cooling device has a main assembly 201A as a support frame, and a cooling unit 21 as a draw out unit that can be drawn out in the draw out direction (drawing direction) B (see
The sheet S received from the discharge roller pair 17 of the printer 101 to the cooling device 201 is fed to the cooling unit 21 by the entrance roller pair 20. The sheet S is cooled as it passes through the nip feeding passage 21a formed by the lower feeding belt 22a and the upper feeding belt 23a, and is discharged by the exit roller pair 30.
The configuration of the cooling unit 21 will be described specifically. As shown in
The lower unit frame 22b and the upper unit frame 23b have a lower unit hinge portion 22c and an upper unit hinge portion 23c, respectively. The lower unit hinge portion 22c and the upper unit hinge portion 23c are rotatably connected to each other via a hinge shaft portion 29.
The lower unit 22 has a latch shaft 22d, and the upper unit 23 has a hook member 23d which is engageable with the latch shaft 22d, and a release lever 25 which is linked to the hook member 23d. The upper unit 23 is fixed to the lower unit 22 by the hook member 23d engaging the latch shaft 22d with the lower feeding belt 22a and the upper feeding belt 23a forming a nip. To open the nip feeding pass 21a, the user releases the engagement of the hook member 23d with the latch shaft 22d by operating the release lever 25, and rotates the upper unit 23 upward as shown in
As shown in
The lower unit 22 of the cooling unit 21 is supported so that it can be drawn out along rails 204 and 205 attached to the frame of the main assembly 201A. The cooling unit 21 is fixed to the main assembly 201A by the fixing member 26 as a restricting member while it is mounted on the main assembly 201A. The fixing member 26 is fixed to the lower unit frame 22b and the rail 204 by screws 27a and 27b, respectively, as shown in
For example, when a sheet S is jammed in the nip feeding passage 21a, the user can rotate the upper unit 23 upward against the lower unit 22 while the cooling unit 21 is fixed to the main assembly 201A, as shown in
When performing maintenance on the cooling unit 21, the user or service person (hereinafter referred to simply as the user) draws the cooling unit 21 out of the main assembly 201A and performs maintenance work. The maintenance work includes, for example, the replacement of the upper feeding belt 23a, lower feeding belt 22A, etc.
First, the user opens the door 202 from the closing position to the opening position to expose the cooling unit 21, as shown in
The fixing member 26 has a slotted hole 26a extending in the vertical direction and a grounding portion 26b opposed to the floor surface F of the cooling device 201. The fixing member 26 is fixed to a front surface 206a of the bottom plate 206 in the tip resistant position by fixing a screw 28 penetrating the slotted hole 26a to the bottom plate 206. The fixing member 26 in the tip resistant position is located on the front side of the cooling device 201, that is, downstream of the bottom plate 206 in the draw out direction B.
The fixing member 26 can adjust the height by adjusting the position of the screw 28 that penetrates the slotted hole 26a, and is preferably fixed to the bottom plate 206 so that the grounding portion 26b is grounded to the floor surface F as the installation surface where the cooling device 201 is installed. In other words, the slotted hole 26a as the adjustment portion adjusts the position of the fixing member 26 to the floor surface F. In this way, by structuring the fixing member 26 to be capable of adjusting the height, the grounding portion 26b of the fixing member 26 can be securely grounded to the floor surface F even if, for example, the floor surface F is uneven or undulating. The screw holes of the fixing member 26 may be round holes provided in such a position that the distance between the bottom surface of the bottom plate 206 (the surface opposed to the floor F) and the installation portion 26b is d2. If the structure can prevent the cooling device 201 from tipping when the cooling unit 21 is drawn out, it may have a structure that it is fixed to the bottom plate 206 such that a gap is formed between the installation portion 26b of the fixing member 26 and the floor surface F. In this case, if the gap between the installation portion 26b and the floor surface F is about 5 mm, the cooling device 201 can prevent from tipping.
The user draws out the cooling unit 21 to a given position in the draw out direction B and performs maintenance of the cooling unit 21, as shown in
The fixing member 26 can be positioned in the restricted position as the first position shown in
The fixing member 26 is a component that must be removed from the restricted position before drawing the cooling unit 21 from the main assembly 201A of the cooling device 201 in the maintenance workflow of the cooling unit 21. Therefore, when performing maintenance on the cooling unit 21, the user necessarily remove the fixing member 26 from the restricted position. The removed fixing member 26 can be attached to the bottom plate 206 in the tip resistant position in the workflow to prevent the tipping of the cooling device 201.
When the maintenance work of the cooling unit 21 is completed, the user inserts the cooling unit 21 into the main assembly 201A in the mounting position and reattaches the fixing member 26 in the tip resistant position to the restricted position.
The cooling system 201 has a detection unit (not shown) that detects the opening and closing of the door 202, and when the door 202 is in a position other than the closed position, i.e., when the door 202 is open, the operation of the cooling system 201 is prohibited as well as being informed by an informing unit (not shown). The informing unit includes, for example, an operation portion that can display various settings and messages, and a warning unit that warns the user by light and sound. This prevents the user from forgetting to return the fixing member 26 from the tip resistant position to the restricting position.
As described above, since the fixing member 26 must always be removed from the restricting position before drawing out the cooling unit 21 from the main assembly 201A of the cooling device 201, the user cannot forget to remove the fixing member 26 from the restricting position when maintaining the cooling unit 21. And since the user is sure to recognise the removed fixing member 26, forgetting to set the fixing member 26 to the tip resistant position can be reduced, thereby reducing the tipping of the cooling device 201.
Next, the second embodiment of the present invention will be described. The second embodiment is configured by applying a decurl device 401 instead of the cooling device 201 of the first embodiment and by changing the method of moving the fixing member. For this reason, the same configuration as that of the first embodiment will be omitted from the figure or described with the same references in the figure.
As shown in
Next, the decurl device 401 will be described in detail. The decurl device 401 as a sheet feeding device has a main body 401A and a decurl unit 40 as a draw out unit that can be drawn out in the draw out direction B (see
The decurl roller pair 42 has a sponge roller 42a and a hard roller 42b, and the decurl roller pair 43 has a sponge roller 43a and a hard roller 43b. The outer diameters of the sponge rollers 42a and 43a are larger than the outer diameters of the hard rollers 43b and 43b, which are made of metallic materials, for example.
The sponge rollers 42a, 43a are located on opposite sides of the feeding path 51, and similarly, the hard rollers 43b, 43b are also located on opposite sides of the feeding path 51. For this reason, the direction of the curl corrected by the decurl roller pair 42 and the direction of the curl corrected by the decurl roller pair 43 are in opposite directions. The decurl unit 40 has a nip pressure changing unit (not shown) that changes the nip pressure of the decurl roller pairs 42, 43 according to the size and direction of the curl of the sheet S.
Each roller pair and the surrounding feed guide of the decurl unit 40 are divided into a lower unit 40a and an upper unit 40b, bordered by the feeding path 51. The lower unit 40a and the upper unit 40b are freely rotatable and connected to each other via a hinge (not shown). The lower unit 40a is slidable (withdrawable) and supported against the frame 402 of the main assembly 401A via slide rails 45a, 45b.
As shown in
The fixing member 46 as a restricting member can be positioned in a restricting position as the first position shown in
The fixing member 46 is fixed by screw 47 to the fixing portion 402b on the frame 402 in the restricting position. As a result, in a state in which the decurl unit 40 is mounted on the main assembly 401A, its withdrawal from the main assembly 401A is restricted.
For example, when sheet S gets jammed in the feeding path 51, the user can rotate the upper unit 40b upward with respect to the lower unit 40a while the decurl unit 40 is positioned in the main assembly 401A, as shown in
On the other hand, when performing maintenance on the decurl unit 40, the user pulls the decurl unit 40 out of the main device 401A to perform the maintenance work. First, the user opens the door 202 from the closed position to the open position to expose the decurl unit 40, as shown in
The fixing member 46 has a long hole 46a through which the fulcrum shaft 403 penetrates, a long hole 46b through which the screw 48 can penetrate, and a grounding portion 46c facing the floor surface F, as shown in
The fixing member 46 is height-adjustable by adjusting the position of the fixing member 46 relative to the fulcrum shaft 403, and is preferably fixed to the bottom plate 404 so that the grounding portion 46c is grounded to the floor surface F. In other words, the long hole 46a as an adjustment part through which the fulcrum shaft 403 penetrates adjusts the position of the fixed member 46 relative to the floor surface F. In this way, by configuring the fixing member 46 to be height-adjustable, the grounding portion 46c of the fixing member 46 can be securely grounded against the floor surface F even if, for example, the floor surface F is uneven or undulating.
Next, the user draws out the decurl unit 40 to a predetermined position in the pull-out direction B and performs maintenance on the decurl unit 40, as shown in
When the maintenance work of the decurl unit 40 is completed, the user inserts the decurl unit 40 into the mounting position against the device body 401A and positions the fixed member 46, which is in the tip resistant position, in the restricted position again.
As in the first embodiment, the fixed member 46 does not overlap with the movement trajectory of the door 202 when it moves between the open and closed positions in the restricted position, but overlaps with the above movement trajectory of the door 202 in the tip resistant position. This prevents the fixed member 46 from being forgotten to be returned from the tip resistant position to the restricted position.
As described above, the fixing member 46 must be rotated from the restricted position to the tip resistant position before drawing out the decurl unit 40 from the main unit 401A. And since the user surely recognises the fixed member 46 that has been rotated, forgetting to set the fixed member 46 to the tip resistant position can be reduced, and the tipping of the decurl unit 401 can be reduced.
Since the fixed member 46 is supported to be rotatable around the fulcrum shaft 403, it can be easily moved between the restricted position and the tip resistant position, which improves maintainability. In addition, even if the fixing member 46 is moved between the restricted position and the tip resistant position, the fixing member 46 will not be lost.
In both embodiments already described, it is preferable that the fixing members 26, 46 are grounded to the floor surface F at the tip resistant position, but this is not limited to this. For example, there may be a gap between the fixing members 26, 46 and the floor surface F, as long as the cooling device 201 or the decurl device 401 can be prevented from tipping over. In this case, if the gap between the installation portions 26, 46 and the floor surface F is about 5 mm, the cooling device 201 or the decurl device 401 can be prevented from tipping over.
In the first and second embodiments, the cooling device 201 and the decurl device 401 are described as examples of devices for withdrawing units from the main assembly of the apparatus, but they are not limited to this. For example, the invention may be applied to a device that is configured to be drawn out from the main assembly of the apparatus and equipped with a stacker or cassette for storing sheets. It is also optional which of the fixing members 26 and 46 is applied to which device. For example, the fixing member 46 may be applied to the first embodiment, and the fixing member 26 may be applied to the second embodiment.
In the second embodiment, the fixed member 46 is configured to be pivotable between the restricted position and the tip resistant position. For example, the fixed member 46 may be slidable between the restricted position and the tip resistant position.
In both of the previously described embodiments, the fixing members 26, 46 are fixed by screws, but this is not limited to this. For example, the fixing members 26, 46 may be positioned by snap-fits, magnets, etc.
In both embodiments described above, the cooling device 201 and the decurl device 401 are directly connected to the printer 101, but other devices may be interposed between the cooling device 201, the decurl device 401 and the printer 101.
In all of the embodiments described above, an electrophotographic printer 101 has been used, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, the present invention can be applied to an image forming system having an image forming apparatus of the inkjet method, which forms an image on a sheet by ejecting an ink liquid from a nozzle.
According to this invention, forgetting to set the restriction member can be reduced.
While the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments. The scope of the following claims is to be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent structures and functions.
This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No. 2020-100037 filed on Jun. 9, 2020, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-100037 | Jun 2020 | JP | national |
