Device for driving an endless belt and image forming apparatus using the same

Abstract

A device for driving an endless belt of the present invention includes a drive roller and a roller pair adjoining the drive roller at a side where a photoconductive element is positioned and contacting the belt. The eccentricity of the drive roller and that of the roller pair are reduced to reduce the variation of belt speed when the drive roller is controlled at a preselected angular velocity. Even when the drum is eccentric, the device stably operates integrally with the belt without any slip or oscillation.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a device for driving an endless belt with belt driving means and rotary bodies arranged side by side in the direction of movement of the belt and driven by the belt. Also, the present invention relates to a color copier, color laser printer or similar color image forming apparatus including belt driving means for moving an intermediate image transfer belt or a sheet conveying belt, and photoconductive drums arranged side by side in the direction of movement of the belt and driven by the belt. [0003] 2. Description of the Background Art [0004] Today, an ink jet printing system and an electrophotographic printing system are extensively applied to a low-speed and a medium or high speed color image forming apparatus, respectively. Particularly, high-speed color image forming apparatuses included a tandem color copier. [0005] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 10-246995 and 63-813...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0015] It is another object of the present invention to provide a belt driving device that allows a rotary body and an endless belt to stably rotate together without any slip or oscillation.

[0016] It is still another object of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus that allows, even if a photoconductive drum is eccentric, the drum to stably rotate at a constant angular velocity so long as an endless belt turns at a constant speed, thereby insuring accurate register of toner images and obviating image distortion.

[0017] It is a further object of the present invention to reduce the oscillation of a mechanism for maintaining the angular velocity of a drive roller constant and the oscillation of a mechanism including a motor that drives the drive roller.

Problems solved by technology

The copier using such press rollers, however, have some problems left unsolved, as will be described hereinafter.

This makes it difficult to provide each drum with a diameter accurate enough to implement resolution as high as 1,200 dpi (dots per inch) or above at low cost.

The eccentricity of the shaft causes the angular velocity of the drum to vary and cannot be readily coped with by conventional technologies when high resolution is required.

However, the prior art copier of the type using press rollers renders an image irregular in density due to the eccentricity of the drum.

However, if the eccentricity is great and if the drums differ from each other in the phase of eccentricity, then the belt slackens with the result that the belt and each drum slip on each other.

Then, there arise other problems including the variation of transmission speed ascribable to the eccentricity of the gears or rollers (or pulleys) holding the belt, oscillation ascribable to the gears meshing with each other, and the deterioration of the rigidity of the belt.

Although this kind of scheme reduces high-frequency oscillation ascribable to, e.g., the gears, it cannot reduce speed variation ascribable to the eccentricity of the gears or effect accurate control due to the deterioration of the rigidity of the driveline.

The conventional arrangement is susceptible to extraneous oscillation because, considering the torsional oscillation of the drive shaft which is low in rigidity, the gain of a control system cannot be increased.

In the embodiment in which the motor is accommodated in the drive roller, heat is transferred to the belt and lowers image quality.

Further, the motor accommodated in the elongate drive roller makes production difficult and increases the cost.

Images