Process cartridge

摘要

An electrostatographic process cartridge detachably mountable into a cavity defined by mated modules forming parts of an electrostatographic reproduction machine. The process cartridge includes a housing having walls defining a partially enclosed process chamber; a rotatable cylindrical photoreceptive member mounted within a portion of the process chamber and to the walls. The photoreceptive member has a closed loop path within the process chamber and an image bearing surface for holding a formed toner image. The process cartridge also includes plural electrostatographic process toner image forming and transferring components located along the closed loop path for forming a toner image on, and for transferring such toner image from, the image bearing surface; and a cleaning subassembly located along the closed loop path downstream of the toner image forming and transferring components, for removing and transporting waste toner away from the image bearing surface. The cleaning subassembly includes a curved portion of the walls including a blade mounting surface having a plane forming a blade mounting angle with a tangent to the image bearing surface; a cleaning blade mounted to the mounting surface and having a cleaning edge contacting the image bearing surface at a desired cleaning angle for removing waste toner from the image bearing surface; a seal member mounted into contact with the image bearing surface at a point upstream of the cleaning blade so that the seal member, the blade, the image bearing surface and the curved portion of the walls, define the cleaning chamber; and a troughless waste toner transporting auger mounted for rotation without a trough and directly over the image bearing surface within the cleaning chamber for transporting and moving waste toner axially relative to the photoreceptive member and out of the cleaning chamber. The troughless auger has a first end, a second end, and a direction of waste toner movement over the image bearing surface from the first end to the second end a variable pitch for preventing image banding defects from undesirable waste toner accumulations.