Drum Cartridge Coupling for Stable Roller Speed
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Solution Overview
Problem
In electrophotographic image forming apparatuses, the scraper roller's varying peripheral speed relative to the photosensitive drum due to gear engagement changes leads to uneven removal of foreign matter, causing instability in cleaning the drum's surface.
Innovation Solution
A drum cartridge design with a coupling between gears that accommodates roller movement, using an Oldham coupling to stabilize the transmission of driving force from the drum gear to the cleaning rollers, ensuring consistent peripheral speed and stable cleaning.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If a plurality of idle gears are used to transmit driving force from the drum gear to the scraper-roller gear, then the peripheral speed of the scraper roller is increased, but the peripheral speed becomes unstable due to changes in gear engagement
Solution Approach 1:
The coupling is designed to accommodate dynamic changes in the relative positions of the scraper roller and photosensitive drum during rotation. The coupling allows for slight variations in gear engagement while maintaining stable power transmission, making the system adaptable to the dynamic operating conditions that cause the speed instability problem.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the scraper roller is allowed to move relative to the photosensitive drum, then cleaning flexibility is improved, but the gear engagement changes cause uneven removal of foreign matter
Solution Approach 1:
The coupling acts as an intermediary between the gear train and the scraper roller, decoupling the motion transmission from the roller's position relative to the drum. This allows the scraper roller to move for cleaning flexibility while the coupling ensures stable power transmission, preventing the gear engagement changes from directly affecting the evenness of foreign matter removal.
3Speed
If multiple idle gears are used in the transmission mechanism, then the peripheral speed ratio is optimized, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The coupling combines multiple functional elements into a single integrated component that performs both power transmission and position accommodation. This merging reduces the overall complexity of the transmission mechanism while maintaining the optimized peripheral speed ratio that would otherwise require multiple separate idle gears.
Data Source
AI summary
A drum cartridge and a method are disclosed. An example of the drum cartridge includes a photosensitive drum, a first cleaning roller, and a second cleaning roller. The drum cartridge includes a first cleaning gear rotatable with the first cleaning roller, a second cleaning gear rotatable with the second cleaning roller and engaging with the first cleaning gear, a drum gear being rotatable with the photosensitive drum, a first idle gear engaging with the drum gear, a second idle gear engaging with the first idle gear, and a coupling joining the second cleaning gear and the second idle gear, the coupling being rotatable in unison with the second cleaning gear and the second idle gear.