Expandable chuck
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorPeter J. Schmitt
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The process provides an expandable chuck with a variable diameter bulb having a variable wall thickness, the chuck being operatively designed to stretch the bulb to reduce its diameter for insertion into a photoreceptor pipe and upon relaxation to the compress the bulb so as to increase its diameter. The design provides a universal chuck to reduce the cost of changing to different diameter chucks in accommodating different size photoreceptors during the coating and drying process.
Claims16
An expandable chuck for holding photoreceptor substrates of various inside diameters, comprising:
- (a) a housing having a passageway;
- (b) a plunger configured to slide within the passageway;
- (c) a variable diameter resilient bulb having a substantially smooth and continuous outer surface between a first end and a second end, and configured to expand in diameter in a range from about 24 mm to about 60 mm;
- (d) a stop device extending from an outside surface of the housing, wherein the stop device is configured to abut an outside surface of a substrate to facilitate a stop for a measured length insertion of the bulb into the substrate,
- wherein the plunger is configured to cause the bulb to expand and to engage the interior of the substrate when the plunger is moved in a first direction and to contract and to disengage from the interior of the substrate when the plunger is moved in an second direction, and
- the bulb is configured to expand between a first diameter and a second diameter, each of which is in said range, the first diameter corresponding to an inside diameter of a first photoreceptor substrate and the second diameter corresponding to an inside diameter of a second, larger-diameter photoreceptor substrate, wherein the outer surface of the bulb is configured to form a hermetic seal against an inner surface of each of the first and second photoreceptor substrates to prevent fluid migration into the interior thereof.
A method for grasping photoreceptor substrates with an expandable chuck comprising:
- inserting the expandable chuck into a first photoreceptor substrate;
- abutting an outside surface of the first photoreceptor substrate using a stop device extending from an outside surface of the expandable chuck;
- expanding a variable diameter resilient bulb of the expandable chuck, the bulb having a substantially smooth and continuous outer surface and configured to expand in diameter in a range from about 24 mm to about 60 mm;
- and
- forming a hermetic seal against an inner surface of the first photoreceptor substrate to prevent fluid migration into the interior of the first photoreceptor substrate;
- removing the expandable chuck from the first photoreceptor substrate;
- inserting the bulb into the interior of a second photoreceptor substrate having a different inside diameter than that of the first photoreceptor substrate;
- and
- expanding the bulb to engage an inner surface of the second photoreceptor substrate to form a hermetic seal against the inner surface of the second photoreceptor substrate to prevent fluid migration into the interior of the second substrate,
- wherein the inside diameter of each of the first and the second photoreceptor substrates is in said range.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.