Patent Grant
8041277
The present application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2008-014324, filed Jan. 25, 2008 and 2008-014326, filed Jan. 25, 2008, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an image forming apparatus such as a printer and a copier. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image forming apparatus including a photosensitive body, a transferring device, and a fixing device, the transferring device being configured to transfer a toner image developed on the photosensitive body onto an image recording member, and the fixing device being configured to fix the toner image transferred onto the image recording member by heating and pressing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a fixing device configured to heat and fix a toner image on the image recording member, a thermal roller method is generally employed.
As shown in
The heating roller 9a and the pressing roller 9b constituting a fixing roller pair are pressed to each other by pressing means (not shown) using a spring, so that the contacting surface between the heating roller 9a and the pressing roller 9b forms a surface due to deformation of the elastic body layer of the pressing roller 9b. Herein, this contacting surface is called a nip section. While the nip section (contacting surface) is being formed, the heating roller 9a and the pressing roller 9b are driven to rotate in a predetermined direction by fixing roller pair driving means and roller driving control means.
By conducting a known electrophotographic process, a toner image visualized on a photosensitive drum 6 is transferred onto a sheet (herein may be referred to as an image recording member) 22 by a transferring device 8. Then, the sheet 22 is fed through a sheet feeding path 12 to the nip section between the heating roller 9a and the pressing roller 9b. The fixing device 9 further includes a fixing device introduction guide member 16 configured to guide the sheet 22 to the nip section. The fixing device introduction guide member 16 is formed so that a downstream end of the fixing device introduction guide member 16 is formed in a straight line on the same plane. By following a series of processes as described above, the toner image formed on the sheet 22 is heated and pressed by the heating roller 9a and the pressing roller 9b so that the toner image is fixed onto the sheet 22.
Unfortunately, in such a fixing device using the thermal roller method, when a thin image recording member (sheet) having high moisture content is used to be printed, the moisture in the image recording member may evaporate because the image recording member is rapidly heated. As a result, the image recording member thermally shrinks, thereby causing a deformation of the image recording member, which may result in developing wrinkles. To overcome the problem, there has been generally adopted a method of preventing wrinkles in which the shape of the heating roller is modified to have a so-called reverse-crown shape so that the center portion of the heating roller becomes thinner than the end portions of the heating roller. By configuring this way, the distortion of the pressing roller at end portions of the image recording member in the width direction (orthogonal to the feeding direction of the image recording member) becomes greater than that at the center portion of the image recording member. Therefore, in the nip section, the image recording member is pushed toward the end portions in the width direction to prevent wrinkles.
Further, Patent Document 1 proposes a technique in which the guide member for guiding the image recording member to the nip section is configured so that the center portion of the guide member is higher than both end portions in the width direction, and accordingly, the center portion of the guide member is closer to the heating roller than the both end portions. By configuring the guide member in this manner, it becomes possible to prevent the both side ends of the image recording member from approaching the center portion of the image recording member. Further, because of the configuration of the guide member, the image recording member is in contact first with the heating roller before being fed into the nip section. As a result, the image recording member is bent in a short curve by the guide member and the heating roller, and a downstream end section in the feeding direction of the image recording member becomes rigid, which helps to maintain a flatness of the image recording member and prevent wrinkles.
Further, Patent Document 2 proposes a technique in which, the shape of the downstream end of the guide member in the height direction is configured to correspond to the shape of an entrance portion of the nip section between the heating roller and the pressing roller. In other words, the center portion of the downstream end of the guide member is higher than end portions of the guide member in the width direction so that the shape of the downstream end of the guide member in the height direction is substantially equal to the reverse-crown shape which is the shape of the entrance portion of the nip section. By configuring this way, the image recording member may be uniformly fed into the nip section to prevent wrinkles.
Further, Patent Document 3 discloses a technique in which the guide member is configured so that the downstream end portion of the guide member includes a lower plane part in the center section and higher plane parts on both sides of the lower plane part in the width direction. The fixing device is provided as a film heating and fixing device including a heating roller and a pressing roller. The heating roller includes a heater and a heat-resistant endless film. The pressing roller includes an elastic body layer made of silicon rubber or the like. In the above documents, by making the shape of the image recording member correspond to the concave shape in the height direction, the end sections of the image recording member in the width direction enter first into the nip section. Therefore, the image recording member is pushed toward the end portions in the width direction, which may effectively prevent wrinkles caused due to a folded portion in the center portion of the image recording member. In the techniques proposed in this document, as described above, the end portions of the image recording member in the width direction are higher than the center portion of the image recording member so that the ends portion of the image recording member enter into the nip section first. To achieve this, from a geometric point of view, the downstream end of the guide member should be lower than a plane including the nip section (nip plane). This configuration of Patent Document 3 is upside-down compared to the configuration of Patent Document 1 where the center portion of the guide member for guiding the image recording member into the nip section is higher than the ends portion of the guide member in the width direction. Therefore, the technique disclosed in Patent Document 3 as a wrinkle prevention technique may be regarded as an extension of the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1.
According to the descriptions disclosed in Patent Documents 1 through 3, wrinkles of the image recording member may be prevented by optimizing the shape of the downstream end of the image recording member when the image recording member is to be fed into the nip portion. However, in electrophotographic type image forming apparatuses, there are many cases where so-called cut sheets are used as the image recording member; in most of these cases, the image recording members are obliquely fed (skew-fed) into the fixing device. Therefore, even if the image forming apparatus employs any of the techniques described above, the downstream end of the image recording member is not always fed into the nip section as it is assumed in the descriptions. On the other hand, when the image recording members are “skew-fed” into the nip section, there is a quite high probability of wrinkles occurring. Therefore, any technique described above alone may not be enough to reduce the wrinkles. To reduce wrinkles of the image recording member, the fixing roller is required to have the reverse-crown shape. However, when the angle of the reverse-crown shape is too large, the image recording member may be excessively pushed toward the end portions in the width direction in the nip section. In this case, the downstream side of the image recording member may be deformed, which may cause waves of the image recording member in the direction orthogonal to the plane of the image recording member on the surface of the image recording member. When the wavy image recording member is fed into the nip section, due to misaligned contact with the fixing roller, the toner image transferred onto the image recording member may be disturbed, thereby causing image disturbance.
It is known from prior art that even when the downstream end of the guide member is in a straight line having a constant height and the image recording member is somewhat skew-fed, by setting a diameter size of the reverse-crown of the heating roller to be about 200 μm, setting the width of the nip section equal to or more than 10 mm without becoming narrower in the sheet feeding direction, and setting the downstream end of the guide member higher than the nip plane so that the guide member becomes closer to the heating roller with respect to the nip plane, wrinkles may be reduced in most cases. Further, by configuring this way, even when a wide-size sheet such as an A3 size sheet and a longer-sized sheet such as a ledger sheet are used, the disturbance of an image due to the reverse-crown of the heating roller may be reduced.
On the other hand, recently, more and more so-called thick coat papers and preprint papers have been widely used as the image recording member in electrophotographic type image forming apparatuses in such as direct mail (DM) marketing due to increasing Print On Demand. Further, there is also a growing demand for using image recording members (sheets) having a larger size and a lower weight due to increasing Book On Demand in publishing markets. For example, in Japan, when an A5 size book is produced, an extended size of sheet larger than a thin A3 size sheet and having a basis weight of 60 g/m2 may be used so that four pages of document content are printed on each of both sides of the sheet, i.e., in total, eight pages of document content are printed on the single sheet. In some areas outside Japan, when manuals of products are produced, four pages of document content are printed on each of both sides of a sheet having a basis weight of 75 g/m2 and size 14 inches (355.6 mm)×18 inches (457.2 mm). In such a case where a thin and large sheet is to be printed, the rigidness of the sheet may become lower and also the influence of the distortion of the nip portion may become larger. Therefore, the image distribution due to the reverse-crown is more likely to be remarkable in appearance. This phenomenon may be reduced by reducing the amount of reverse-crown, but if the amount of reverse-crown is reduced, the margin against the wrinkles may be relatively reduced.
According to an aspect of the present invention, an image forming apparatus may resolve at least one of the above problems and enable to reduce wrinkles in fixing an image (fixing wrinkles) without the image being disturbed even when a thin and large-size sheet is printed.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image forming apparatus capable of reducing wrinkles in fixing an image without disturbing the image at a lower cost.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image forming apparatus capable of increasing a margin against the image disturbance and wrinkles occurring in a fixing process.
According to an aspect of the present invention, an image forming apparatus includes a photosensitive body; a transferring device configured to transfer a toner image developed on the photosensitive body onto an image recording member; a fixing device including a heating roller and a pressing roller, the fixing device being configured to fix the toner image transferred on the image recording member onto the image recording member by heating and pressing; and a fixing device introduction guide member configured to guide the image recording member to a nip section between the heating roller and the pressing roller of the fixing device. The image forming apparatus is characterized in that the fixing device introduction guide member is disposed close to the upstream side of the heating roller and the pressing roller and on the pressing roller side, a downstream end of a guiding surface of the fixing device introduction guide member in a feeding direction of the image recording member is disposed on the heating roller side with respect to the nip surface orthogonal to a straight line between the center of the heating roller and the center of the pressing roller, the nip surface including a nip section between the heating roller and the pressing roller, so that a downstream end of the image reading member guided by the fixing device introduction guide member is in first contact with the heating roller, and a downstream end of the guiding surface of the fixing device introduction guide member is curved so that a center portion of the downstream end of the guiding surface of the fixing device introduction guide member is disposed on the upstream side with respect to both ends of the downstream end of the guiding surface of the fixing device introduction guide member.
Other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
In the following, embodiments of the present invention are described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
As shown in
Herein, as a sheet transportation path formed in the printer 1, for convenience, a path 12 extending from the image recording member containers 3, 4, and 5 to a sheet ejection outlet 11 of the printer 1 through the elements 6, 7, and 8 for image forming is called a “sheet feeding path”. On the other hand, a path 14 is herein called a “returning path”. As shown in
Further, as shown in
The reference numerals 12a, 12b, and 12c denote conveying roller pairs configured to convey the sheets along the sheet feeding path 12. Reference numeral 12d denotes a timing roller pair disposed on the upstream side with respect to a resist roller pair 12e and configured to supply the sheets to the resist roller pair 12e. The resist roller pair 12e is configured to supply a sheet in synchronization with a timing when the toner image formed on the photosensitive drum 6 is transferred to the sheet. The reference numerals 14a, 14b, 14c, 14d, 14e, and 14f denote the conveying roller pairs configured to feed the sheets along the returning path 14.
Next, a configuration of a fixing device introduction guide member 16 which is a characteristic feature of the embodiments of the present invention is described with reference to
As shown in
By using a known electrophotographic process, a toner image visualized on a photosensitive drum 6 is transferred onto a sheet (an image recording member) 22 by the transferring device 8. Then, the sheet 22 is fed through the sheet feeding path 12 to the nip section between the heating roller 9a and the pressing roller 9b. The fixing device 9 further includes the fixing device introduction guide member 16 configured to guide the sheet 22 to the nip section. As shown in
Table 1 shows comparison results of occurrence of image distribution on the image recording members (sheets) among the fixing device introduction guide members shown in
Experimental Conditions 1:
Recording member: size (14 inches×18 inches), basis weight (75 g/cm2), fiber direction (lateral)
Print pattern: print density 50% of halftone
Print mode: two-sided printing
Sheet feeding direction: SEF (Short Edge Feed)
Line speed of fixing roller: 726.4 mm/s (same as that of photosensitive body)
Fixing temperature: 190° C.
Total number of evaluated sheets: 100 sheets
Evaluation method: after 1000 A4 size sheets are printed, 100 evaluation sheets are printed and the number of sheets on which printing disturbance occurs are counted.
Fixing Device Introduction Guide Members
A: conventional fixing device introduction guide member (shape of downstream end: straight)
B: fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward upstream direction, concave amount: 10 mm)
C: fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward upstream direction, concave amount: 20 mm)
D: fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward the pressing roller side, concave amount: 3 mm)
As Table 1 shows, the number of printed sheets on which image disturbance occurs is largely reduced when the fixing device introduction guide members B, C, and D are used compared with a case where the fixing device introduction guide members A is used. Further, as a comparison between the fixing device introduction guide members B and C, the larger the concave amount is, the less the image disturbance occurs.
Table 2 shows comparison results of occurrence of image distribution on the image recording members (sheets) among the conventional fixing device introduction guide member (shape of downstream end: straight) “A”, the fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward upstream direction, concave amount: 20 mm) “C”, and fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward the pressing roller side, concave amount: 3 mm) “D” when the controlling method shown in
Experimental Conditions 2:
Recording member: size (14 inches×18 inches), basis weight (75 g/cm2), fiber direction (lateral)
Print pattern: print density 50% of halftone
Print mode: two-sided printing
Sheet feeding direction: SEF (Short Edge Feed)
Line speed of fixing roller: 726.4 mm/s (processing speed as reference), 721.315 mm/s (reduced by 0.7% from the reference), and 719.136 mm/s (reduced by 1.0% from the reference)
Fixing temperature: 195° C.
Total number of evaluated sheets: 100 sheets
Evaluation method: after 1000 A4 size sheets are printed, 100 evaluation sheets are printed and the number of sheets on which printing disturbance occurs are counted.
Fixing Device Introduction Guide Members
A: conventional fixing device introduction guide member (shape of downstream end: straight)
C: fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward upstream direction, concave amount: 20 mm)
D: fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward the pressing roller side, concave amount: 3 mm)
As the results in Table 2 show, the number of sheets on which printing disturbance occurs is better controlled when the line speed of the fixing roller is reduced by 0.7% with respect the processing speed. Further, when this reduction of the line speed is conducted by using the fixing device introduction guide member C and D, the number of sheets on which printing disturbance occurs is largely reduced.
Table 3 shows the results of experiments in which the number of printed sheets were counted until the first image disturbance occurred on the image recording members “X” and “Y” described below using the conventional fixing device introduction guide member (shape of downstream end: straight) “A” under the following experimental conditions while the line speed of the fixing roller is controlled to be substantially equal to the processing speed.
Experimental Conditions 3:
Recording member “X”: size (14 inches×18 inches), basis weight (75 g/cm2), fiber direction (lateral), moisture content (6.1%)
Recording member “Y”: size (14 inches×18 inches), basis weight (81.4 g/cm2), fiber direction (vertical), moisture content (6.4%)
Print pattern: print density 50% of halftone
Print mode: two-sided printing
Line speed of fixing roller: 726.4 mm/s (processing speed)
Sheet feeding direction: SEF (Short Edge Feed)
Fixing Device Introduction Guide Members
A: conventional fixing device introduction guide member (shape of downstream end: straight)
Evaluation method: Under the above conditions, consecutive printing is performed and the number of printed sheets is counted until an image disturbance occurs. (Normally, when pages are counted, one page is counted when a sheet feeds 8.5 inches in the feeding direction and each of a first surface and a second surface is counted as one page. However, in this experiment, for convenience, two-sided printing on a single sheet having size of 14 inches×18 inches is counted as four pages.)
As the results in Table 3 show, the image disturbance may not occur just after the printing starts but may occur after about 700 pages have been printed. On the other hand, generally, when a technique as described in an embodiment of the present invention is used in which the line speed of the fixing roller is reduced, the margin against wrinkles on a thin sheet and a sheet with fibers in the vertical direction may be reduced.
Table 4 shows the results of experiments in which the number of printed sheets were counted until an image blur (which is a prior warning of wrinkle) occurs on the image recording member using the fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward upstream direction, concave amount: 20 mm) “C” and the fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward the pressing roller side, concave amount: 3 mm) “D” under the following experimental conditions while the line speed of the fixing roller is reduced by about 0.7% with respect to the processing speed (i.e., the line speed of the fixing roller is about 721.315 mm/s (0.7% reduced)).
Experimental Conditions 4:
Recording member “X”: size (14 inches×18 inches), basis weight (75 g/cm2), fiber direction (lateral), moisture content (6.1%)
Recording member “Y”: size (14 inches×18 inches), basis weight (81.4 g/cm2), fiber direction (vertical), moisture content (6.4%)
Print pattern: print density 50% of lateral lines (line width: 2 dots, space width: 4 dots)
Print mode: two-sided printing
Line speed of fixing roller: 726.4 mm/s (processing speed, reference), 721.315 mm/s (reduced by 0.7% from the reference)
Sheet feeding direction: SEF (Short Edge Feed)
Fixing Device Introduction Guide Members
C: fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward upstream direction, concave amount: 20 mm)
D: fixing device introduction guide member according to the embodiment of the present invention (shape of downstream end: center portion is concave toward the pressing roller side, concave amount: 3 mm)
Evaluation method: Under the above conditions, consecutive printing is performed and the number of printed sheets is counted until an image blur (which is a prior warning of wrinkle) occurs. (Normally, when pages are counted, one page is counted when a sheet feeds 8.5 inches in the feeding direction and each of a first surface and a second surface is counted as one page. However, in this experiment, for convenience, two-sided printing on a single sheet having size of 14 inches×18 inches is counted as four pages.)
As the results in Table 4 show, the image blur may start occurring within about the first 100 pages and may not start occurring after about 100 pages have been printed. Based on the results, by setting the line speed of the fixing roller to be substantially equal to the processing speed within about first 100 pages, and reducing the line speed of the fixing roller by 0.7% from the processing speed (namely setting the line speed of the fixing roller to be equal to the second speed), both the number of sheets on which image disturbance occurs and the number of sheets on which image blur occurs may be reduced.
As described above, an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention may reduce wrinkles in the fixing process and the image disturbance even when thin A3 size or larger sheets are printed.
Although the invention has been described with respect to a specific embodiment for a complete and clear disclosure, the appended claims are not to be thus limited but are to be construed as embodying all modifications and alternative constructions that may occur to one skilled in the art that fairly fall within the basic teachings herein set forth.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-014324 | Jan 2008 | JP | national |
| 2008-014326 | Jan 2008 | JP | national |
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| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20090190941 A1 | Jul 2009 | US |
