Pickup Roller Driven Gear Noise Reduction Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Image forming apparatuses experience increased driving noise during manual printing medium supply due to the mechanical interaction between the pickup roller and the elastically biased plate, which also leads to higher operational costs and larger device sizes.
Innovation Solution
The apparatus incorporates a blocking gear to prevent the support frame from moving towards the plate, a pickup clutch for intermittent driving force transmission, and a control unit to manage the driven gear's rotation direction based on the presence of a printing medium, along with a pickup unit driving force regulating mechanism using planetary gears and a lever to optimize the driving force transmission.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the plate is bumped against the pickup roller to increase pickup performance, then the pickup performance increases, but the driving noise increases
Solution Approach 1:
The pickup roller is driven to rotate periodically in forward and backward directions. During the forward rotation, the pickup roller contacts the plate to pick up the printing medium. During the backward rotation, the pickup roller moves away from the plate, preventing continuous contact and reducing driving noise. This periodic motion is controlled by the driven gear rotating in response to the driving source
Solution Approach 2:
The support frame is designed to move dynamically between two positions: a first position where the pickup roller contacts the plate for picking up the printing medium, and a second position where the pickup roller is spaced apart from the plate to reduce noise. The driven gear and support frame work together to enable this dynamic positioning, switching between contact and non-contact states based on operational requirements
2Ease of manufacture
If a single driving motor is used to drive all units, then costs are reduced, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
A single driving source is designed to perform multiple functions by driving different units through a gear system. The driving source can drive the pickup unit (including the driven gear and support frame) and the image forming unit. The gear mechanism allows one motor to control multiple operations sequentially, reducing the number of motors needed while maintaining functional complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The driving force transmission system is segmented into different gear trains that can independently control different units. The driven gear is part of a segmented transmission system that can selectively engage with different gear trains, allowing the single driving source to control the pickup unit and image forming unit separately through mechanical segmentation of the power transmission path
Data Source
AI summary
An image forming apparatus which includes a main body, an image forming unit to form an image on a printing medium, a plate to open and close a first side of the main body; a pickup unit which includes a driven gear to rotate in forward and backward directions, a pickup roller to receive a driving force from the driven gear to pick up the printing medium disposed on the plate, and a support frame to rotatably support the pickup roller and to interlock with the forward and backward rotations of the driven gear to move toward and away from the plate, a driving source to drive the image forming unit and the driven gear, and a blocking gear disposed between the driven gear and the driving source, to prevent the support frame, spaced apart from the plate, from moving toward the plate.