Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Go Shindo

Yoshihiro Mitsui

Norihito Naito

Atsushi Toda

Akira Suzuki

Masataka Mochizuki

Masahito Kato

Naoki Matsumaru

Junichi Matsumura

Motonari Ito

Taku Watanabe

Kosuke Ikada

Katsuichi Abe

Akihiko Uchiyama

Tomonori Matsunaga

Yuichiro Hirata

Takayoshi Kihara

Bunro Noguchi

Masamichi Sato

Hideki Maeshima

Toshiaki Takeuchi

Jun Miura

Yuhei Terui

Shuichi Gofuku

Satoshi Sunahara

Go Araki

Kentaro Yamawaki

Hisashi Nakahara

Satoru Motohashi

Noriyoshi Umeda

Shuhei Tokiwa

Shinichi Hagiwara

Shinichi Agata

Daisuke Baba

Yasukazu Ikami

Shohei Kototani

Hisashi Yamauchi

Shogo Satomura

Kazunori Hashimoto

Tohru Saito

Keitaro Nakata

Katsuhiro Kojima

Kenta Shibukawa

Yuki Horiuchi

Akinobu Saito

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a developing device, a cleaning member, a collecting container having a discharge port for collecting a developer, and a control portion that can execute a supply mode in which a region of the image bearing member that is supplied with the developer from the developing device passes through the contact region with rotation of the image bearing member to allow the cleaning member to supply the developer into the collecting container. The discharge port is provided between a first end portion and a second end portion of the image bearing member in a direction of a rotation axis line of the image bearing member. The control portion performs control such that a portion of the region supplied with the developer in the supply mode overlaps, in the direction of the rotation axis line, a position where the discharge port is provided.

Image forming apparatus

A developing device in an apparatus main body of an image forming device includes a developing container having an accommodation chamber to accommodate a developer and a developing chamber communicating with the accommodation chamber through a communication port, with the accommodation chamber and developing chamber being integrally formed such that the developing chamber is disposed below the accommodation chamber in a state where the developing device is in use in the apparatus main body. The developer container includes an abutting surface which forms the accommodation chamber and abuts a second end portion of a sheet opposite to a first end portion such that the sheet is maintained in a bent state until the second end portion of the sheet passes in front of an upstream end of the communication port in a rotation direction of the conveyance member and then reaches a light guide provided in the accommodation chamber.

Developing device

An image forming apparatus includes a unit configured to determine a first region, which is within a range from where a distance from a first edge of an image is a first value to a second value, and a second region, which is within a range from where a distance from the first edge is the second value to a third value; and a decision unit configured to, for each of a plurality of first pixels included in the first region and a plurality of second pixels included in the second region, decide an amount of reduction from an exposure amount, wherein the decision unit makes the amount of reduction of each of the plurality of first pixels greater than the amount of reduction of each of the plurality of second pixels.

Image forming apparatus and image processing apparatus for deciding amount of reduction of exposure amount indicated by image data

When, in a state where a developer borne by a developer bearing member is sandwiched by an opposing portion of an image bearing member and the developer bearing member, C denotes capacitance between the image bearing member and the developer bearing member, &#x394;V denotes a development contrast, Q/S denotes a charge amount per unit area of the developer borne by the developer bearing member, and &#x394;v denotes a peripheral velocity ratio which is a ratio of a peripheral velocity of the developer bearing member to a peripheral velocity of the image bearing member, a first peripheral velocity ratio is set so that |Q/S&#xd7;&#x394;v|&#x2264;|C&#xd7;&#x394;V| is satisfied, and a second peripheral velocity ratio which is larger than the first peripheral velocity ratio is set so that |Q/S&#xd7;&#x394;v|&#x3e;|C&#xd7;&#x394;V| is satisfied.

Image forming apparatus controlling development contrast according to temperature, humidity and peripheral velocity ratio

An image forming apparatus includes a motor configured to rotationally drive an image bearing roller and a developer bearing roller at a first peripheral velocity ratio and a second peripheral velocity ratio which is larger than the first peripheral velocity ratio. A development contrast formed between a developing bias to the developer bearing roller and a light-part potential formed on the image bearing roller in a case where a development operation is performed at the second peripheral velocity ratio is larger than a development contrast formed between the developing bias to the developer bearing roller and the light-part potential formed on the image bearing roller in a case where the development operation is performed at the first peripheral velocity ratio.

Image forming apparatus having first and second peripheral velocity ratios

An image forming apparatus that executes an image forming operation for forming a toner image on a recording material and an application operation of applying a metal soap to a surface of an image bearing member by supplying a toner stored in a toner storing unit to the surface of the image bearing member from the developing member. A surficial moving speed of the image bearing member during the application operation is lower than the surficial moving speed of the image bearing member during the image forming operation, and a speed difference between the surficial moving speed of the developing member and the surficial moving speed of the image bearing member during the application operation is larger than that during the image forming operation.

Image forming apparatus that suppresses occurrence of image smearing by maintaining a metal soap on a surface of a photoconductor

A process cartridge includes a seal member contacting an image bearing member upstream in the rotation direction of the image bearing member from a cleaning member and allowing the developer to move from upstream in the rotation direction from the contact part between the seal member and the image bearing to downstream from the contact part while regulating movement from downstream to upstream from the contact part. The developer has surface protrusions containing an organic silicon polymer, wherein either (i) the work function of the seal member is greater than the work function of the developer when the developer has a negative charging polarity and is smaller than the work function of the developer when the developer has a positive charging polarity, or (ii) the absolute value of the difference between the work function of the seal member and the work function of the developer is within a predetermined range.

Process cartridge, image forming apparatus and cleaning apparatus

A method of manufacturing a developer container including a frame configured to define a developer containing portion, a first electrode, and a second electrode arranged on a surface of the frame and having a surface opposed to the first electrode, a developer amount in the developer containing portion being detected based on a capacitance between the first electrode and the second electrode, the method including: holding a conductive resin member constituting the second electrode on a mold configured to mold the frame, a surface of the conductive resin member being in contact with a surface of the mold configured to mold a surface of the frame on a side of the developer containing portion; injecting a resin to be formed into the frame, into the mold on which the conductive resin member is held; and curing the resin to form the frame to which the second electrode is fixed.

Method of manufacturing developer container, developer container, developing apparatus, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A charging member that contacts an image bearing member and charges the image bearing member has an electrically conductive support and an elastic layer in contact with the image bearing member. The elastic layer includes a semiconductive rubber composition including a matrix and domains having electric conductivity. The semiconductive rubber composition has a sea-island structure in which the domains form an island phase and the matrix forms a sea phase. The matrix has a higher volume resistivity than the domains. The developer includes a toner, and the toner has a Martens hardness of at least 200 MPa and not more than 1100 MPa when measured under a maximum load of 2.0&#xd7;10N.

Process cartridge and image forming apparatus

In a state where a developer borne by a developer bearing member is sandwiched by an opposing portion of an image bearing member and the developer bearing member, C denotes capacitance between the image bearing member and the developer bearing member, &#x394;V denotes a development contrast, Q/S denotes a charge amount per unit area of the developer borne by the developer bearing member, and Av denotes a peripheral velocity ratio, which is a ratio of a peripheral velocity of the developer bearing member to a peripheral velocity of the image bearing member. A first peripheral velocity ratio is set so that |Q/S&#xd7;&#x394;v|&#x2264;|C&#xd7;&#x394;V| is satisfied, and a second peripheral velocity ratio which is larger than the first peripheral velocity ratio is set so that |Q/S&#xd7;&#x394;v|&#x3e;|C&#xd7;&#x394;V| is satisfied.

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

A developer container includes a stirring member that stirs a developer and a conductive resin sheet that comes into contact with the stirring member when the stirring member rotates. Wherein, the developer container detects developer quantity using capacitance from the conductive resin sheet.

Developer container, developing device, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus incorporating a developer quantity detection unit

Changing of a peripheral speed ratio, resulting in change of the developer amount per unit area, enables the detection unit to detect the developer amount with sufficient accuracy.

Electrophotographic or electrostatic recording type image forming apparatus

A control portion has a conversion portion that converts image data to be used for forming a recorded image by using either a first conversion condition which has been set such as to obtain a first gradation characteristic in the image to be formed on the recording material when a first image forming operation is executed or a second conversion condition which has been set such as to obtain a second gradation characteristic, which is different from the first gradation characteristic, in the image when a second image forming operation is executed, a peripheral velocity ratio between an image bearing member and a developer bearing member being larger during the second image forming operation than during the first image forming operation, and enables the first image forming operation or the second image forming operation to be performed on the basis of converted image data.

Image forming apparatus with controllable velocity ratio between image and developer bearing members

Method of manufacturing developer container

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Mishima, Japan

Go Shindo