Belt Tracking System With Slope Member And Shaft Guide
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing image forming apparatuses face issues with belt misalignment due to wear and tear of rollers, leading to belt breakage, as existing belt tracking systems struggle to maintain proper alignment and rotation when rollers are not parallel.
Innovation Solution
A belt tracking system incorporating a slope member and a stationary shaft guide, where the slope member is disposed at both ends of rollers to tilt them as the belt moves, ensuring the inclined surface remains in contact with the shaft guide, preventing separation and allowing reliable belt positioning.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a belt tracking system with rotary members and stationary guide members is used to correct belt displacement, then the belt position can be corrected when rollers are not parallel, but the rotary members may separate from the stationary guide members, hindering proper roller rotation and complicating belt position correction
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the dynamics principle by making the rotary members capable of rotating about their own axes in addition to rotating with the rollers. This dynamic capability allows the rotary members to maintain continuous contact with the stationary guide members even when the rollers are not parallel, enabling the system to adapt to misalignment conditions while maintaining simplicity and reliability in belt positioning correction.
2Ease of manufacture
If multiple parts are connected to form rollers, then the rollers can be assembled from available components, but variation among parts causes different degrees of connection at the left end and right end, resulting in non-parallel support rollers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the parameter changes principle by introducing a corrective mechanism that changes the rotational parameter of the rollers. The rotary members rotate about their own axes to adjust the effective orientation of the rollers, compensating for the non-parallelism caused by part variations. This allows the system to maintain ease of manufacture with standard components while achieving the required parallelism precision through dynamic parameter adjustment.
3Ease of operation
If the inclined surface of a rotary member separates from the stationary shaft guide, then the roller can move freely, but the belt cannot be properly positioned and the system becomes unreliable
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the dynamics principle by enabling the rotary members to rotate about their own axes in response to belt position deviations. This dynamic rotation maintains the inclined surfaces in continuous contact with the stationary shaft guides, ensuring reliable belt alignment while preserving the necessary freedom of movement for the rollers to self-correct their positions.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This configuration effectively maintains belt alignment and rotation, reducing the likelihood of belt breakage and improving the reliability of the image forming process by ensuring the inclined surface of the slope member remains in contact with the shaft guide, even when rollers are not perfectly parallel.
Implementation Method 1
The stationary shaft guide contacts the slope member... to tilt the roller as the belt moves in the axial direction
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2A~2B
Figure 3
AI summary
A belt tracking system (50) for adjusting misalignment of a movable belt (3) in an axial direction of a plurality of rollers (51, 52, 53, 54) about which the movable belt (3) is entrained includes a slope member (41) and a stationary shaft guide (42). The slope member (41) is disposed at both ends of at least one of the plurality of rollers (51, 52, 53, 54) in the axial direction, to tilt the roller as the belt (3) moves in the axial direction. The stationary shaft guide (42) contacts the slope member (41). A distance between a contact point of the slope member (41) that contacts the stationary shaft guide (42) and an end portion of the slope member (41) in the axial direction is longer than a maximum traveling distance that the slope member (41) travels in the axial direction.