Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Daisuke Baba

Yuichiro Hirata

Makoto Tokudome

Masao Uyama

Norihito Naito

Kodai Hayashi

Masahito Kato

Atsushi Toda

Keisuke Mochizuki

Satoru Inami

Shuhei Kawasaki

Naoki Fukushima

Masaki Hirose

Yosuke Kishi

Shun Sato

Hirokazu Fujino

Masahiro Yoshida

Masatake Tanaka

Go Shindo

Takashi Hiramatsu

Shohei Kototani

Nobuo Komiya

Satoshi Shinozaki

Yosuke Sugitani

A cartridge provides comprising: a toner, a developing roller, a supply member and a regular member. The supply member abuts the surface of the developing roller and the regulating member serves to regulate the toner carried on the surface of the developing roller. The cartridge includes a first supply electrode to which a voltage is supplied from outside of the cartridge, with the supply member and the regulating member electrically connected to the same first supply electrode. Additionally, the toner contains a compound A having a structure represented by Formula (1) below,—(CHCHO)—  (1)

Cartridge and image forming apparatus

A drum cartridge is mountable in and dismountable from an image forming apparatus without including a developing device. The drum cartridge includes an image bearing member, a charging member, and a cleaning member. The cleaning member includes an elastic layer contacting the charging member. The elastic layer includes a foam member and is made of a material having Asker-C hardness of 5-30 degrees.

Drum cartridge including a cleaning member, for use with an image forming apparatus

A developing apparatus, includes: a developer bearing member that encloses a magnet roller having a plurality of magnetic poles and is rotatable; a wall that forms a developer storing chamber for storing a magnetic developer therein; a restricting member configured to restrict a layer thickness of the magnetic developer carried by the developer bearing member; and a moving member configured to move the magnetic developer carried by the developer bearing member before the magnetic developer is restricted by the restricting member, the moving member being brought into contact with a surface of the developer bearing member, the moved developer being on the developer veering member after the moving member moved the developer on the developer bearing member, wherein the moving member is disposed at a position opposed to any of the magnetic pole positions of the plurality of magnetic poles.

Developing apparatus, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A developing apparatus, includes: a developer bearing member that is rotatable; an moving member configured to move the magnetic developer carried on the developer bearing member before the magnetic developer is restricted by a restricting member, the moving member being rotatable and brought into contact with a surface of the developer bearing member; and a control portion, wherein, at a contact position between the developer bearing member and the moving member, assuming that a moving speed vector of a surface of the developer bearing member is taken as R and a moving speed vector of a surface of the moving member is taken as r, the control portion controls rotational operation of the developer bearing member and the moving member such that a direction of a vector R&#x2212;r during image formation and a direction of a vector R&#x2212;r during non-image formation be opposite to each other.

Developing apparatus for providing developer to an image bearing member and image forming apparatus having the developing apparatus

Disclosed is an image forming apparatus that is capable of performing a first image forming mode that performs image formation at a first peripheral speed ratio representing a ratio of a peripheral speed of a developer bearing member to a peripheral speed of an image bearing member and a second image forming mode that performs the image formation at a second peripheral speed ratio different from the first peripheral speed ratio, and that detects an amount of a developer consumed in the image formation, based on an estimate of the amount of the developer consumed by one pixel and the number of pixels at a part at which the developer is consumed. The estimate of the amount of the developer consumed by the one pixel in the first image forming mode is different from that in the second image forming mode.

Image forming apparatus

A developing apparatus includes: a developing roller; a frame configured to support the developing roller at each of two end portions of the developing roller in a longitudinal direction of the developing roller; and a sealing member configured to seal a space between the frame and each of the two end portions of the developing roller. A first lubricant having an average particle size smaller than a predetermined surface roughness Ra is applied to a first region that is located at each end portion of the developing roller in the longitudinal direction and is in contact with the sealing member. A second lubricant having an average particle size larger than the surface roughness Ra is applied to a second region that is located on an inner side of the first region in the longitudinal direction and is separated from the sealing member and has the surface roughness Ra.

Image forming apparatus, process cartridge, and developing apparatus including developing roller

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a developer bearing member, an updating device to update toner consumption based on a number of dots corresponding to laser irradiation by which toner is consumed, and an alerting device to alert an alarm concerning a residual amount of the toner based on toner consumption updated by the updating device. Image formation is performed in a first mode at a first peripheral speed ratio representing a ratio of a peripheral speed of the developer bearing member to a peripheral speed of the image bearing member, and in a second mode at a second peripheral speed ratio, which is greater than the first peripheral speed ratio. The alerting device alerts the alarm based on a total number of dots, which is smaller as an operation frequency of the second mode and becomes higher in an operation frequency of the first mode.

Image forming apparatus having multiple image forming modes

An image forming apparatus is capable of performing a first image forming mode that performs image formation at a first peripheral speed ratio representing a ratio of a peripheral speed of a developer bearing member to a peripheral speed of an image bearing member and at a second image forming mode that performs the image formation at a second peripheral speed ratio different from the first peripheral speed ratio. The image forming apparatus also detects an amount of a developer consumed in the image formation, based on an estimate of the amount of the developer consumed by one pixel and the number of pixels at a part at which the developer is consumed. The estimate of the amount of the developer consumed by the one pixel in the first image forming mode is different from that in the second image forming mode.

A developing device configured to develop a latent image formed on an image bearing member includes a rotatable developing-agent bearing member configured to bear developing agent, a developing container configured to form a developing-agent storage chamber that stores the developing agent, a developing-agent regulating portion provided in the developing container to regulate an amount of the developing agent born on the developing-agent bearing member, a support portion configured to support the developing-agent bearing member movably relative to the developing-agent regulating portion, and a pressurizing member configured to pressurize the developing-agent bearing member toward the developing-agent regulating portion. A contact portion of the developing-agent regulating portion with the developing-agent bearing member is fixed to the developing container without forming a gap from the developing container on a downstream side in a pressurizing direction of the pressurizing member.

Process cartridge with developing container for an image forming apparatus

A process cartridge detachably mountable to an image forming apparatus includes: an image bearing member for forming a latent image; a charging member, press-contacted to the image bearing member at a predetermined urging force, for electrically charging the image bearing member by being supplied with a charging bias; a developing device for developing the latent image by supplying a polymerized toner to the image bearing member; and a cleaning blade for removing the polymerized toner deposited on the image bearing member in contact with the image bearing member. The charging member includes: an electroconductive support; one or more elastic layer formed around the electroconductive support; and projected portions and recessed portions provided on a surface of the charging member. The projected portions are elastically deformable in contact with the image bearing member, leaving electrically dischargeable gaps between the recessed portions of the charging member and the image bearing member.

Process cartridge having projected portions and recessed portions provided on surface of charging member and image forming apparatus thereof

A developing apparatus includes a developing container for accommodating a developer; a developer carrying member for carrying the developer to a developing zone for developing a latent image; a developer regulator in contact with the developer carrying member to regulate a developer layer thickness on the developer carrying member; a developer feeding member in contact with the developer carrying member to supply the developer to the developer carrying member; an urging member for urging the developer carrying member toward the developer regulator; and a moving mechanism for moving the developer carrying member in a first direction which is a direction in which the urging member urges the developer carrying member and in a second direction crossing with the first direction. The moving mechanism moves the developer carrying member in the second direction to reduce or remove press-contact forces applied by the developer regulator and the developer feeding member.

Moving mechanism for a developing device, process cartridge and image forming apparatus that reduces or removes press-contact forces on a developer carrying member

Small-sized developing device and process cartridge having stable developer regulation

A charging device for electrically charging a photosensitive member includes a charging member for electrically charging the photosensitive member by being supplied with a voltage, and a supporting member for supporting the charging member so as to press-contact to the photosensitive member. The charging member includes an electroconductive support, an elastic base layer supported by the electroconductive support, and an elastic surface layer, provided on a surface of the elastic base layer, being harder than the elastic base layer. The elastic surface layer is provided with projected portions and recessed portions. The projected portions are elastically deformable in contact with the photosensitive member, leaving electrically dischargeable gaps between the recessed portions of the elastic surface layer and the photosensitive member.

Charging device and image forming apparatus

A developing device includes a developing container for accommodating a developer; a developer carrying member, provided rotatably in the developing container, for carrying and feeding the developer to develop an electrostatic image; a developer feeding member, including an elastic feeding portion and being rotatably provided in the developing container, for feeding the developer in the developing container toward the developer carrying member; and a circulation changing member for changing circulation of the developer in the neighborhood of the developer carrying member. In a plane perpendicular to a rotational axis of the developer carrying member, the circulation changing member is provided in a maximum rotation area of the developer feeding member so as to create a gap between itself and an entire inner surface of the developing container and a gap between itself and the developer carrying member.

Developing device and cartridge

A developing apparatus includes: a developing sleeve that carries a mono-component developer; and a developing blade that abuts on the sleeve to regulate a layer thickness of the developer on the sleeve, wherein surface roughness parameters of the sleeve satisfy: 3.0&#x2266;Rpk&#x2266;9.0; and 2&#x2266;Pc&#x2266;10. At an abutment portion between the sleeve and the blade, surface roughness parameters of the blade satisfy: 0.030&#x2266;Sm&#x2266;0.170; and 0.10&#x2266;Rvk&#xd7;(100&#x2212;Mr)/100&#x2266;1.30, where Sm is a mean spacing of profile irregularities [mm]; Rpk is an initial wear height [&#x3bc;m]; Rvk is an oil retaining depth [&#x3bc;m]; Mris a profile bearing length ratio 2 [%]; and Pcdenotes the number of profile peaks having a height larger than a count level from a center line per the evaluation length of 1 mm.

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Mishima, Japan

Daisuke Baba