JP2909975B2 - Developer supply container - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a developer supply container for supplying a powder developer to an image forming apparatus such as a dry electrophotographic copying machine or a printer.

(Prior Art) In order to replenish powder developer to an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a printer without being scattered outside, various developer replenishing containers having a slide type shutter have been proposed so far (for example, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 55-12193, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 50-4056, JP-A-59-86673, and JP-A-60-115596.) The developer supply container includes a reciprocating slide shutter, a guide member for guiding the slide shutter,
It is configured to include a seal member that abuts and slides on the shutter to maintain the sealing property of the container. In the developer supply container, an opening (developer discharge port) is formed by moving the slide shutter, and the developer is discharged through this opening.

Thus, in the developer supply container having such a sliding shutter, by closing the shutter after replenishing the developer, the sealing property of the container is maintained, and even if a small amount of the developer remains in the container, the developer can be developed. There is an advantage that the container can be removed from the main body and discarded without scattering the agent.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) Incidentally, in the developer supply container, a slit-shaped opening through which a shutter enters and exits is formed in the guide member. Therefore, the rigidity near the opening of the guide member is increased. Therefore, when the internal pressure is applied to the container body, for example, when the pressure (external pressure) outside the container body is reduced or when the container body is impacted by dropping, the opening tends to spread and the sealing member becomes A slight gap is formed between the shutter and the shutter, and there is a problem that toner leaks out of the container through the gap.

In addition, due to the structure of the guide member, at the center of the opening formed in the guide member, the force for pressing the shutter against the seal member is minimized. A similar problem occurs.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a developer supply container having high sealability.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a container body having an opening for discharging a developer and containing the developer, and a slidable shutter for opening and closing the opening. A developer supply container having a guide portion that slidably guides the shutter, and an elastic seal member provided between the shutter and the frame portion in the opening of the container body. The elastic seal member is provided by being compressed regardless of whether the shutter is opened or closed to the opening, and the shutter is arranged such that when the shutter is in the closed position, the elastic seal member is more open than in the open position. And a protrusion pressed by the guide portion so as to increase the amount of compression of the guide.

(Operation) According to the present invention, since the elastic seal member is provided in a compressed state regardless of whether the shutter is opened or closed, the seal at the opening of the developer supply container is provided regardless of whether the shutter is open or closed. Sex is enhanced. When the shutter is in the closed position, the amount of compression of the seal member is large. Therefore, even when the developer supply container is transported or when an impact is applied to the container body, a gap is formed between the elastic seal member and the shutter. Does not occur, and leakage of the developer to the outside of the container is reliably prevented.

Also, when the shutter is at a position other than the closed position, the amount of compression of the seal member is relatively small, so that the shutter can be pulled out and opened with a light force as before.

(Example) Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing a state of a shutter seal portion of the developer supply container according to the present invention when a shutter is closed, FIG. 2 is an enlarged detailed view of a portion A in FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a bottom view of the shutter, FIG. 5 is a side view of the shutter, FIG. 6 is an enlarged detailed view of a portion B in FIG. 5, and FIG. 7 is a developer supply container. It is a perspective view of.

When the toner, which is a developer, is consumed in an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a printer, the developer supply container 1 according to the present invention is placed on the upper lid 10 of the toner hopper of the image forming apparatus as shown in FIG. The toner set in the main body 2 of the developer supply container 1 is supplied to the image forming apparatus.

By the way, at the bottom of the main body 2 of the developer supply container 1, a seventh
As shown in the figure, a rectangular frame-shaped guide member 3 is provided, and a slit-shaped opening is formed on the short side surface of the guide member 3.
A slide shutter 4 is inserted through the opening 3a. The shutter 4 opens and closes an opening on the lower surface of the main body 2 of the container 1 by being guided by the guide member 3 and sliding.
As shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 5, it is formed into a rectangular flat plate, and one end (the end of the portion exposed from the main body 2 to the outside) has a handle.
4a is formed. At the portion of the bottom surface of the shutter 4 close to the handle 4a, two ribs 5 long in the length direction (sliding direction) of the shutter 4, as shown in FIGS. The shutter 4 is provided with an interval, and a positioning projection 6 is provided on the upper surface of the shutter 4 as shown in FIG. The details of the shape of each rib 5 are shown in FIG.

Also, as shown in FIG.
Is formed by a rectangular frame-shaped sealing member 7 provided along the periphery of the lower surface opening of the container body 2. The sealing member 7 may be made of urethane foam, polyethylene foam, various rubbers, rubber sponge, or the like. An elastic material is used, and the sealing member 7 exhibits a sealing function by being crushed by an appropriate amount by the shutter 4 which is a rigid body.

Here, the seal member 7 is attached in a compressed state so as to rub the surface of the shutter 4 facing the toner during the operation of opening and moving the shutter 4 from the closed position to the closed position. . As shown in FIG. 1, a spring-like claw 8 is attached to the guide member 3, and a groove 10a with which the claw 8 is disengaged is formed in the upper lid 10 of the toner hopper.

When the shutter 4 is closed, that is, when the toner is not replenished yet, the rib 5 protruding from the lower surface of the shutter 4 as shown in FIGS. , The guide member 3 is deformed, and the shutter 4 and the seal member 7 are pushed up by the reaction force from the guide member 3. When the shutter 4 and the sealing member 7 are pushed up in this way, the amount of crushing of the sealing member 7 increases, and even if the internal pressure in the container body 2 increases or the container body 2 receives an impact, the shutter 4 and the sealing member 7 are sealed. There is no gap between the member 7 and the toner contained in the container body 2 is reliably prevented from leaking out of the body 2.

When the user holds the handle 4a of the shutter 4 and pulls it out along the guide member 3 in the direction of the arrow in FIG. 1, the claw 8 is pushed down by the handle 4a of the shutter 4 and the Since the ribs 5 projecting from the lower surface of the shutter 4 are disengaged from the openings 3a of the guide member 3 while engaging with the grooves 10a, the force for pushing up the shutter 4 and the seal member 7 disappears. It is pulled out with a light force. When the shutter 4 is pulled out in this manner, the lower surface opening of the container main body 2 is opened, and the toner contained in the container main body 2 is supplied into the image forming apparatus.

In this embodiment, the seal member 7 is provided in a compressed state regardless of whether the shutter 4 is opened or closed.
The sealing property at the opening of the developer supply container 1 is enhanced regardless of whether the shutter 4 is opened or closed. When the shutter 4 is at the closed position as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. Leakage is reliably prevented.

Also, when the shutter 4 is located at a position other than the closed position, the amount of compression of the seal member 7 is relatively small, so that the shutter 4 can be pulled out and opened with a light force as before.

The length of the rib 5 (the length of the shutter 4 in the sliding direction)
Since a is set to be larger than the depth b (see FIG. 2) of the opening 3a of the guide member 3 (a> b), even if the entire length of the shutter 4 is varied within the molding tolerance, the rib 5 is Since the shutter 4 and the seal member 7 are pushed up by performing the above-described operation, the above-described effect is reliably obtained.

Next, a modified embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 8 and 9 are the same as FIG. 2 showing the second and third embodiments of the present invention, respectively.

In the second embodiment shown in FIG. 8, the shape of the rib 5 protruding from the lower surface of the shutter 4 is changed to an appropriate arc (for example, a radius of 30).
The width of the rib 5 is set to the same value as in the first embodiment.

In the third embodiment shown in FIG. 9, the shape of the rib 5 protruding from the lower surface of the shutter 4 is a hemisphere having an appropriate radius (for example, a hemisphere having a width of 2 mm and a diameter of 1.5 mm).

Thus, in the second and third embodiments, the same effects as those obtained in the first embodiment can be obtained by the ribs 5, but in these embodiments, the ribs 5 Due to the line contact or the point contact, the frictional low drag generated between the rib 5 and the guide member 3 is suppressed to be small, and the shutter 4 can be pulled out with a light force. The position of the contact point of the rib 5 with the guide member 3 is such that the plus and minus widths from the center of the length (thickness) of the guide member 3 are at least 1/3 to 3 times the length (thickness) of the guide member 3. It is desirable to be in the range of / 4.

By the way, the drop test was performed on the developer supply containers according to the first, second, and third embodiments described above and the conventional developer supply container, and the results of checking the leakage of each toner are shown in the following table. Shown in Note that the drop test is a drop test of three corners and six sides from 60 cm in an environment of normal temperature and normal humidity in a predetermined packing state.

From the results in the above table, it is clear that the effects can be reliably obtained according to the present invention.

(Effects of the Invention) As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, the elastic seal member is provided in a compressed state regardless of the opening and closing of the shutter, so that the elastic seal member is closed even when the shutter is opened. Also at the position, the effect of improving the sealing property at the opening of the developer supply container can be obtained.

In addition, when the shutter is in the closed position, the amount of compression of the seal member is large. Therefore, even when the developer supply container is transported or when an impact is applied to the container body, a gap is formed between the elastic seal member and the shutter. Does not occur, and the effect of reliably preventing the developer from leaking out of the container can be obtained.

Furthermore, when the shutter is at a position other than the closed position, the amount of compression of the seal member is relatively small, so that there is an effect that the shutter can be pulled out and opened with a light force as before.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing a state of a shutter seal portion when a shutter of a developer supply container according to a first embodiment of the present invention is closed, FIG. 2 is an enlarged detailed view of a portion A in FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a sectional view showing the state of the shutter seal portion when the shutter is opened, FIG. 4 is a bottom view of the shutter, FIG. 5 is a side view of the shutter, FIG. Is a perspective view of a developer supply container, FIG. 8 is a view similar to FIG. 2 showing a second embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 9 is a view similar to FIG. 2 showing a third embodiment of the present invention. It is. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Developer supply container 2, ... Container main body, 3 ... Guide member, 3a ... Slit-shaped opening, 4 ... Shutter, 5
... rib, 7 ... sealing member.

Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-59-34568 (JP, A) JP-A-1-172067 (JP, U) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) G03G 15 / 08-15/09

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A container body having an opening for discharging a developer and containing a developer, a slidable shutter for opening and closing the opening, a guide unit for slidably guiding the shutter, and the container. In a developer supply container having a frame portion in the opening of the main body and an elastic seal member provided between the shutter and the shutter, the elastic seal member opens and closes the shutter to the opening. Regardless, it is provided compressed, and the shutter is
A developer replenisher, comprising: a protrusion pressed by the guide portion such that a compression amount of the elastic seal member is larger when the shutter is in a closed position than when the shutter is in an open position. container. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the elastic seal member is moved during a movement of the shutter from a closed position to an open position.
2. The developer supply container according to claim 1, wherein a surface of the shutter facing the developer is rubbed.