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US 7,065,316 B2Granted
Cleaning unit, process cartridge, image forming apparatus, and toner
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsMasato Yanagida, Atsushi Sampe, Naohiro Kumagai, Toshio Koike, Takeshi Shintani, Masanori Kawasumi, Masami Tomita, Eisaku Murakami, Takeshi Uchitani
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A cleaning unit is equipped with a cleaning blade that is in contact with a surface of a photosensitive drum and cleans the surface. A peak temperature of a loss tangent (tan δ) is in a range of 2° C. to −30° C. when a sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade. Moreover, the cleaning unit lowers a coefficient of static friction of the surface of the photosensitive drum that is to be cleaned.
Claims42
A cleaning unit comprising:
- a cleaning blade that cleans a surface of a photosensitive drum, wherein
- when a sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a peak temperature of a loss tangent tan δ is in a range of −1° C. to −30° C.
A cleaning unit comprising:
- a cleaning blade that cleans a surface of a photosensitive drum, wherein when a sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a peak temperature of a loss tangent tan δ is in a range of 2° C. to −30° C.,
- wherein when the sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a temperature-dependent change of the loss tangent tan δ in a temperature range of 10° C. to 40° C. is in a range of 0.001/° C. to 0.020/° C.
A process cartridge comprising:
- an arrangement that includes at least a cleaning unit that cleans residual toner on a photosensitive drum, and that is detachably mounted on an image forming apparatus, wherein
- the cleaning unit includes a cleaning blade that is in contact with a surface of the photosensitive drum to clean the surface, and
- when a sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a peak temperature of a loss tangent tan δ is in a range of −1° C. to −30° C.
A process cartridge comprising:
- an arrangement that includes at least a cleaning unit that cleans residual toner on a photosensitive drum, and that is detachably mounted on an image forming apparatus, wherein
- the cleaning unit includes a cleaning blade that is in contact with a surface of the photosensitive drum to clean the surface, and
- when a sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a peak temperature of a loss tangent tan δ is in a range of 2° C. to −30° C.,
- wherein when the sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a temperature-dependent change of the loss tangent tan δ in a temperature range of 10° C. to 40° C., is in a range of 0.001/° C. to 0.020/° C.
1 more element
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a photosensitive drum on which an electrostatic latent image is formed;
- a charging unit that charges the photosensitive drum;
- an exposing unit that exposes a surface of the photosensitive drum to form the electrostatic latent image;
- a developing unit that supplies toner to the surface of the photosensitive drum to form a toner image;
- a transferring unit that includes either of a transferring member and an intermediate transfer element to transfer the toner image to a recording medium;
- and
- a cleaning unit that includes a cleaning blade that cleans the surface of the photosensitive drum, wherein
- when a sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a peak temperature of a loss tangent tan δ is in a range of −1° C. to −30° C.
5 more elements
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a photosensitive drum on which an electrostatic latent image is formed;
- a charging unit that charges the photosensitive drum;
- an exposing unit that exposes a surface of the photosensitive drum to form the electrostatic latent image;
- a developing unit that supplies toner to the surface of the photosensitive drum to form a toner image;
- a transferring unit that includes either of a transferring member and an intermediate transfer element to transfer the toner image to a recording medium;
- and
- a cleaning unit that includes a cleaning blade that cleans the surface of the photosensitive drum, wherein
- when a sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a peak temperature of a loss tangent tan δ is in a range of 2° C. to −30° C.,
- wherein when the sine-wave vibration of 10 Hz is applied to the cleaning blade, a temperature-dependent change of the loss tangent tan δ in a temperature range of 10° C. to 40° C. is in a range of 0.001/° C. to 0.020/° C.
6 more elements
A cleaning unit comprising:
- a cleaning blade that cleans a surface of a photosensitive drum, wherein
- an impact resilience of the cleaning blade at 10° C. is equal to or more than 35 percent, and
- a rate of change of the impact resilience in a temperature range of 10° C. to 40° C. is equal to or less than 1.4/° C.
A process cartridge comprising:
- an arrangement that includes at least a cleaning unit that cleans residual toner on a photosensitive drum, and that is detachably mounted on an image forming apparatus, wherein
- the cleaning unit includes a cleaning blade that is in contact with a surface of the photosensitive drum to clean the surface,
- an impact resilience of the cleaning blade at 10° C. is equal to or more than 35 percent, and
- a rate of change of the impact resilience in a temperature range of 10° C. to 40° C. is equal to or less than 1.4/° C.
1 more element
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a photosensitive drum on which an electrostatic latent image is formed;
- a charging unit that charges the photosensitive drum;
- an exposing unit that exposes a surface of the photosensitive drum to form the electrostatic latent image;
- a developing unit that supplies toner to the surface of the photosensitive drum to form a toner image;
- a transferring unit that has either a transferring member or an intermediate transfer element, and transfers the toner image to a surface of a recording medium;
- and
- a cleaning unit that includes a cleaning blade that cleans the surface of the photosensitive drum, wherein
- an impact resilience of the cleaning blade at 10° C. is equal to or more than 35 percent, and
- a rate of change of the impact resilience in a temperature range of 10° C. to 40° C. is equal to or less than 1.4/° C.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.