Minolta Company, Ltd.

Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Nec Corporation

Hiroshi Goto

Yoichi Fujieda

Tateki Oka

Ryuji Inoue

Satoshi Deishi

Shuichi Nakagawa

Naoki Toyoshi

Junji Machida

Takuya Okada

Chikara Tsutsui

Hirofumi Hasegawa

Minoru Wada

Tetsumaru Fujita

Ichiro Demizu

Narutaka Yoshida

Junji Murauchi

Koji Uno

Hitoshi Saito

Eiji Gyotoku

Sanji Inagaki

Masaaki Yamamoto

Kazuyoshi Hara

Yasuo Tanaka

Shinichi Takemoto

Akihiro Kawasaki

Tamotsu Sakuraba

Shoichi Tsuge

Takayuki Takai

Tetsuya Yamada

Takuya Sasaki

Peter Johnston

Syuichi Nakagawa

Ryouji Kouno

Kenji Miyashita

Hokuto Hatano

A developing device including a housing, toner a developing roller, and a feed roller in pressure contact with the developing roller so as to form a nip portion and which feeds toner to the developing roller. The developing device including a feed stabilizing member contacting a lower portion of the feed roller so as to form a second nip portion and restricting toner feed quantity. The feed stabilizing member extending from a generally triangular-shaped first region below the first nip portion up to one side of the nip portion opposite to the first region side. The developing device further including a toner circulation path for pushing back toner from the first region through below the feed stabilizing member to a second region on the one side opposite to the first region side with an aid of pressure of toner that tends to accumulate in the first region.

Developing device and image forming apparatus

A developing device is disclosed that is capable of preventing the hysteresis phenomenon, and which contains a toner and a carrier. The toner and the carrier are charged to different polarities by frictional contact thereof. The developing device has a first conveyance member and a second conveyance member which faces an electrostatic latent image bearing body via the second region. An electric field forming device forms a first electric field between the first conveyance member and the second conveyance member to move the toner in the developer retained by the first conveyance member to the second conveyance member, and forms a second electric field between the second conveyance member and the electrostatic latent image bearing body to move the toner retained by the second conveyance member to an electrostatic latent image of the electrostatic latent image bearing body.

An image forming apparatus has a pair of spacedly opposed first and second bearing members, in which a powder developer material is moved from the first bearing member to the second bearing member. The apparatus also has an electric field generator. The generator forms an electric field between the first and second bearing members and outputs a first voltage and a second voltage alternately. The first voltage generates, between the first and second bearing members, a first electric field electrically forcing the developer material from the first bearing member toward the second bearing member. The second voltage generates between the first and second bearing members a second electric field electrically forcing the developer material from the second bearing member toward the first bearing member. Durations of the first and second voltages are determined so that the developer material forced out of the first bearing member due to the first electric field is forced back from the second bearing member toward the first bearing member due to the second electric field to impinge the developer material retained on the first bearing member and thereby flick the developer material on the first bearing member away therefrom and the flicked developer material is then forced from the first bearing member toward the second bearing member by the subsequent first electric field.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus for use with powder developer material

A developing apparatus for visualizing an electrostatic latent image on an electrostatic latent image bearing member by using a developer including toner and carrier particles, has a developer including toner and carrier particles, a first transport member, a second transport member positioned to oppose to the first transport member across a first region and to the electrostatic latent image bearing member across a second region. A first electric field forming unit forms a first electric field between the first and second transport members to move the toner particles from the first transport member to the second transport member. A second electric field forming unit forms a second electric field between the second transport member and the electrostatic latent image bearing member to move the toner particles from the second transport member to the electrostatic latent image bearing member and thereby to visualize an electrostatic latent image on the image into a visible image. The developer further includes charging particles releasably retained on surfaces of the toner particles. Once released from the toner particles and then held on surfaces of the carrier particles, the third particles function to provide an electric charge of the first polarity to the toner particles by the contact therewith.

Developing apparatus image forming apparatus, and method of charging a developer using charging particles

A multi-tone image processing method and apparatus in which mutually dissimilar tone levels are realized by changing the additive condition of recording energy by means of different recording positions, even when the number of recording operations within a specific range is identical. For example, in an electrophotographic apparatus, when the number of irradiation by a light spot within a specific range remains constant as the irradiation position is changed in the specific range, there is a change in the additive condition of the optical energy within said specific range. Thus, the area rendered visible within the aforesaid specific range also changes, thereby changing the tone level.

Multi-tone image processing method and apparatus

A developing apparatus with a developing roller for conveying toners held on its surface to a developing area opposite to an image carrying member, the surface of the developing roller being moved upward from below in the developing area; a regulating member for regulating an amount of the toners to be conveyed to the developing area by the developing roller; a plate-shaped charging member for charging the toners; and a voltage applying device for applying a voltage to the charging member.

Developing apparatus comprising developing roller that is rotated upward from below in developing area and image forming apparatus using the same

A developing apparatus according to the present invention comprises a developer carrying member for holding a developer and introducing the developer into a developing area opposite to the image carrying member at a required distance; a voltage applying device for applying an AC voltage to the developer carrying member; and a resistor inserted between the developer applying device and the developer carrying member, the AC voltage applied to the developer carrying member from the voltage applying device through the resistor being composed of a rectangular wave, and a time period during which a voltage, which is exerted in the direction in which the developer is fed to the image carrying member, in the AC voltage is less than 50% of a time period during which the AC voltage is exerted.

Developing apparatus including an AC voltage applying device

A development device according to the invention has an arrangement wherein a developer carrying member holding a toner thereon and an image bearing member with an electrostatic latent image formed thereon oppose each other across a predetermined gap therebetween, and a power unit applies an alternating voltage to the gap for supplying the toner from the developer carrying member to the image bearing member, the development device satisfying any one the following conditions: ##EQU1## where a (.OMEGA.) denotes a resistance component of an impedance (a+b.multidot.i) of the developer carrying member, -b (.OMEGA.) denotes a capacitative reactance component of the impedance thereof, and f (Hz) denotes a frequency of the alternating voltage.

Development device

An image forming apparatus stores a plurality of patterns, each pattern defines at least an irradiation energy amount and irradiation position(s), which facilitate the irradiation of a photosensitive member in accordance with image data. Irradiation of a photosensitive member effects the formation of latent images along the surface of the photosensitive member. The latent images are developed using a toner carrying member which includes a thin film developing sleeve which confronts the photosensitive member and carries toner.

Image forming apparatus using irradiation to form halftone image and

A communication system performs communication between a plurality of nodes connected to each other through a network. Each node includes a plurality of processing sections and a communication control section. Each of the processing sections executes an application program by using received application data, and generates user data. The communication control section performs network protocol processing for network connection between the nodes, and performs communication between the processing sections of the home node. The communication control section adds control information to the user data from the processing section of the home node, converts the user data into data suitable for the network protocol to send the data to the network. The communication control section also extracts the user data from the data received through the network according to the network protocol to output the user data to a corresponding one of the processing section of the home node.

Network protocol for transferring data between applications running on

An image forming apparatus for making tone reproductions using a variable area toning method. In addition to an image carrying member, on which a latent image is formed, and a developer, to develop a formed latent image, the apparatus is characterized by having a subsystem to form a plurality of first latent images having different dot area indexes, a subsystem to form a plurality of second latent images having different resolutions, first and second detector systems to respectively detect the image characteristics of the first and second latent images, and first and second correction subsystems to correct development conditions in accordance with respective outputs from the first and second detector systems.

Image forming apparatus and method of controlling the same

In a developing device according to the present invention, a developer carrying member in which a dielectric layer is formed on the surface of a conductive base substrate is used. In conveying a monocomponent developer containing no carrier to a developing area opposite to the image carrying member with the developer held on the surface of the developer carrying member, to develop a latent image formed on the image carrying member by the developer, the dielectric layer in the developer carrying member satisfies the following conditions:

Developing device and developer carrying member

A developing device according to the present invention has a developer carrying member for conveying a developer to a developing area opposite to an image carrying member with the developer held on its surface and a controlling member for controlling the amount of the developer conveyed to the developing area upon being pressed against the surface of the developer carrying member, the surface of the developer carrying member and/or the surface of the controlling member pressed against the surface of the developer carrying member being composed of an elastic material having a rubber hardness of 20.degree. to 70.degree. and having elongation of 400 to 1200%.

Developing device capable of preventing cracking of developer due to

The present invention is directed to a developing device using a developer carrying member in which an insulating layer is formed on the surface of a conductive base substrate for regulating, in conveying a developer to a developing area opposite to an image carrying member with it being held on the surface of the developer carrying member, the amount of the developer conveyed to the developing area upon pressing a regulating member against the surface of the developer carrying member, wherein a regulating member in which a dielectric layer satisfying the following relationship (1) is formed on an electrical conductive member is used as the regulating member, to press the dielectric layer against the developer carrying member:

Developing device and regulating member

A development system that contains a developer carrier for carrying a developer on the surface thereof to a development region opposite to an image bearing body, and a regulating member biased into contact with the surface of the developer carrier by a predetermined pressure for regulating an amount of developer carried by a developer transport member. The developer carrier has a surface coated with fine particles with an average particles size of between 3 and 30 .mu.m which are bonded with the surface.

Growing community of inventors

Itami, Japan

Hiroshi Goto