JPS582863A - Image recording device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a small-sized and inexpensive color printer by providing nozzle heads which spray electrostatic latent images on a photosensitive drum with liquid coloring toner and thus develop the images. CONSTITUTION:A semiconductor laser 1, a collimator lens 2, a rotary polygon mirror 3, and an imaging lens 4 are provded, and a photosensitive drum 5 rotates as shown by an arrow. A modulated light beam emitted from a semiconductor laser 1 is made into a parallel beam through a collimator lens 2 and deflected by the rotary polygon mirror 3, and the deflected light beam is passed through the imaging lens 4 to form an imaged spot on the photosensitive drum 5. The rotary polygon mirror 3 makes a one-dimensional photoscan and through the rotation of the photosensitive drum 5, a two-dimentional optical image distri- bution is formed on the drum 5. Nozzle head 6Y, 6M and 6C which spout three kind of liquid toner in colors Y, M and C are provided in one body and reciprocate along a nozzle head guide 7 in the direcrion of the generating line of the drum 5.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a color image recording apparatus, and more particularly, to a color image recording apparatus.
This invention relates to a 511 image recording apparatus that performs color development of an electrostatic latent image created by electrophotography using a simple wet method.

In general, a color image recording device using electrophotography, particularly a color image recording device used as an output terminal of a combiator, is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 115J Co. 1Jyzr.

As shown in No. 1, there is a system in which the developing units of a normal monochrome electrophotographic copying machine are provided for VJ color or reference color, and the development Whv of each color is switched and used. However, the photosensitive drum installed in each developing unit is Since it is quite long, the size of the developing device itself becomes large, and therefore, in the color image recording system which requires 5Vva of these developing devices, there is a drawback that the entire device becomes large. In view of the drawbacks V#*, it is necessary to provide a compact and low-cost one-image recording device V1M.

For the seventh purpose, in the present invention, unattached color toner is dissolved in a solvent and ejected from an R-solution nozzle to develop the electrostatic latent image YM formed on one photosensitive drum. .

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an optical system in an embodiment of the image recording apparatus of the present invention, where I is a semiconductor laser, C is a collimator lens, J is a rotating polygon mirror, Yume is an imaging lens, I is a photosensitive drum, and arrows indicate Rotate in the direction of.

The modulated light beam emitted from the semiconductor laser L is made into a parallel light beam by a collimator, and then enters a rotating polygon mirror J where it is optically deflected.◎The deflected light beam is directed to a photosensitive drum by an imaging lens! Connect the imaging spot on top. One-dimensional optical scanning is performed by the rotating polygon mirror 3, and the photosensitive drum! A two-dimensional optical image distribution is formed on the photosensitive drum j by the rotation of oAY.

AM and 40 are Y (yellow) and M (magenta) respectively.
, 0 (cyan) liquid toner (volatile insulating, colored toner t~11k in a 7° solvent).These 3 nozzle heads are integrated into the nozzle head. - It reciprocates along the guide 7 in the scanning direction (generation line direction) of the photosensitive drum j.

FIG. 1 shows an example of an image recording apparatus of the present invention including the optical system shown in FIG.
around it, apply an exposure simultaneous charging film to the painting charger 11
,? , a full-surface exposure device 10, and a nozzle head 6 as a developing device.
(Figure 1 shows heads AY and AM.

40 are collectively designated by the symbol t), aperture charger 1/.

The transfer charger 12 and the cleaning section 13 are arranged in this order.

- Photosensitive drum If) with direct current corona discharge due to charger t)
Apply to illWi, photosensitive drum! of! ! The photoreceptor on the surface is uniformly charged positively or negatively. In the exposure simultaneous charging section D, a DC corona discharge or an AC corona discharge of opposite polarity to the -order charging is applied to the photoreceptor, and at the same time, the U-turning multidirectional mirror J is applied to the photoreceptor.
A photosensitive drum that is a light beam scanned by! Photosensitive drum by exposing on! An electrostatic layer image is formed thereon. Next, a full-surface exposure device lσ, such as a fluorescent lamp, is used to uniformly illuminate the electrostatic latent image on the photoreceptor, thereby exposing the surface charge to areas hit by the recording light beam and areas not hit by the recording light beam. A high-contrast electrostatic latent image is created on the surface of the photosensitive drum j by smoothing out a large level difference.For development, liquid toner is injected from the nozzle of the nozzle head 4Y (11 is AM, 40) shown in the first diagram. These nozzle heads AY, AM, and 40 are each coated with Y (yellow) 1M (
Magenta), 0 (cyan) K-colored liquid toner is stored on the photosensitive drum! One color is used per revolution. The above-mentioned high contrast two-stroke electrostatic latent image generated on the surface of the photosensitive drum j is developed into a positive image when the liquid toner has the opposite polarity to the latent image charge, and when the liquid toner has the same charge as the latent image charge. In the case of polarity, it is revealed as a negative image. The image transfer charger Iλ created in this way allows the transfer drum/
Transfer it to the paper wrapped around 11.

Excess liquid toner used for development is collected with a gutter lj. A high voltage is applied to the core of the single-diaphragm charger//,
The loga 16 is an aperture charger, which squeezes out the excess developer on the photosensitive drum j, i.e., the liquid toner, without causing any irregularity in the image, by applying a corona of an electric field of opposite polarity to the liquid toner.
Remove the developer Y (4) squeezed out by the receiver. The cleaning section 13 is a photosensitive drum! The photosensitive drum is placed on the bale that has completed the image transfer! Wipe off any residual toner left on top.

Details of the nozzle head t described above are shown in FIG. 3. The outer fR surface of the nozzle
By applying a high-frequency voltage to the nozzle X, liquid toner is ejected from the nozzle X in the form of particles or as a jet stream. While the ejected liquid toner passes through the charging electrode nv, it hits the photosensitive drum! is charged with the opposite polarity to the electrostatic latent image created.

The liquid toner that has passed through the charging electrode 2JviII is deflected in the rotational direction of the photosensitive drum If) by the alIfIrIII pole B to which a voltage is applied from the high-frequency electrode #JK. In this way, the deflected charged liquid toner particles adhere to the photosensitive drum I depending on the potential intensity of the electrostatic layer image. Such toner hect 4 is photosensitive −° ram! The 111 Urahami voltage applied to the piezoelectric element i/ is scanned along the generatrix direction of
Photosensitive drum! For example, J
- Nozzle head 4 Y, AM.

When using 60V, the voltage is applied from the drive circuit n at a rate of once every three rotations over a period of 11 rotations, during which time K is applied to eject wave-like toner. Because the solvent of the liquid toner used in the present invention is volatile. Since the amount of time that the toner-attached area remains wet is known, the developing machine space can be reduced.

Moreover, especially in the present invention, since development is performed by the reciprocating movement of the nozzle head, the size of the apparatus can be extremely small in the case of color printing. In case of colorization, Y, M, 0 each color F
) ) f-hair )' AY, 4M, 40 t'
By simply moving the photosensitive drums at the same time using the same guide 7, only one photosensitive drum I is required, which simplifies the configuration.

Furthermore, the nozzle head in the present invention is not intended for recording high-density information, as in the case of inkjet recording, but merely for recording coarse liquid toner for development (spraying is sufficient, therefore, High precision machining is not required for the head. Also, the injected liquid toner may be mixed with satellites, and therefore the frequency of the voltage applied from the drive circuit n may be set to a high frequency, thereby achieving high speed. can be ejected and deflected in 5 rows.Recording speed Y
In order to increase the distance, it is necessary to speed up the reciprocating motion of the nozzle head, but this can be avoided by increasing the deflection angle of the ejected liquid toner. The reason for this is that this allows the scanning of writing with a light beam - for example! 0~
This is because the image can be developed by moving the head for tl-1 times (Qo line). Further, in order to achieve higher speed, it is sufficient to install more than one nozzle on the same head to expand the current coverage that can be covered by one movement of the head.

As is clear from the above description, according to the image recording apparatus of the present invention, liquid toner is ejected from the nozzle head onto the photosensitive drum to form an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum. When multicolored liquid toner is required, such as for color images, multiple nozzle heads are arranged on a single photosensitive drum according to the multicolor, and each nozzle head is sequentially Color images can be developed by assigning one rotation of the photosensitive drum to the nozzle head each time.
(Therefore, it is not necessary to provide a large number of photosensitive drums as in the prior art. Therefore, the present invention has a very significant effect in manufacturing a small, low-cost color printer.

In addition, in the above, the present invention @ is for the case of color development.
Although the image recording apparatus has been described in 6t, the present invention is of course not limited to this and can be effectively applied to an image recording apparatus for monochrome development.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a perspective view showing the optical system of an embodiment of the image recording device of the present invention, jlJIM is a side view showing the configuration of an embodiment of the image recording device of the present invention, and IsJ is the detailed configuration of the warped toner nozzle head. FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram. /-4 conductor laser, co-collimator lens,
J...Rotating polygon mirror, reference...Imaging lens, j...photosensitive drum, 4.4Y, AM, 40...nozzle head, 7...nozzle head guide, l...- Forming charger, Ta...Exposure simultaneous charger, 10...Full surface exposure device, ll...Aperture charger 112...Transfer charger, 13...Cleaning section, (lσ) lji...・Transfer drum, /3. , /4...Gatsuta,
〃... Toner nozzle, 1... Piezoelectric element, n...
- Drive circuit, n...Charging electrode, 2-gear...High waste wave power source, B...Deflection electrode. Patent applicant Canon Co., Ltd. (/l)

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) - One photosensitive drum that records an image by electrostatic wetting, and a nozzle that ejects liquid colored toner and sprays it onto the electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum to make it visible. An image recording device that is equipped with a head. □ 2. In the device according to Claims @l Paragraph 1 □, #
Both image recording devices are characterized in that the liquid color toner is a liquid obtained by dissolving colored toner in a volatile/insulating solvent. (i) In the apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, a nozzle head V containing the liquid colored toner is provided.
□By attaching the KEE electric element and applying a high electric field to the piezoelectric element, the nozzle of the nozzle head can be
An image recording apparatus characterized in that a charging electrode is disposed at the exit O of the nozzle to charge the liquid toner to a polarity opposite to that of the electrostatic latent image.
4) An image recording apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that an electrode for deflecting the ejected toner is disposed on a side of the charging electrode opposite to the nozzle. 5) In the apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, the TW recording device is characterized in that a nozzle head provided with the nozzle is caused to reciprocate in one direction of the photosensitive drum. . 6) In the apparatus according to claim J, a plurality of the nozzle heads are provided, each nozzle head contains liquid toner of a different color, and the liquid toner from the plurality of nozzle heads is Toner injection is performed at time intervals corresponding to the predetermined (2) number of rotations of the photosensitive drum.
t. 7) In the apparatus according to claim 4, 11f
E. The predetermined rotation speed is a value corresponding to the number of nozzle heads.Specially developed one-image recording sequence.