Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Katsuya Takano

Toshiaki Ino

Hisayuki Utsumi

Hiroo Naoi

Kotaro Fukushima

Yasuhiro Nishimura

Masaki Ueji

Tomoko Kanazawa

Tatsuhiro Morita

Shinya Mimura

Yohichi Takesawa

Iori Yoneda

In an image forming apparatus for forming an image by electrophotography, a charging device is comprised of a needle electrode in which a plurality of saw teeth are arrayed in one direction; a cleaning rubber roller that cleans the needle electrode; a cleaning member supporter; a moving portion that moves the cleaning member supporter; and a control portion that controls the charging device, and the control portion includes a function to increase a saw-tooth current value by increasing print cumulative count; and a function to decrease the saw-tooth current value at the time of performing cleaning.

Image forming apparatus and cleaning control method

Disclosed is a corona charging apparatus for electrically charging a surface of an image bearing member to which the corona charging apparatus faces and which is rotatably provided in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, the corona charging apparatus including: a discharging electrode; a shield case that covers the discharging electrode, the shield case being opened at least in a region where the discharging electrode and the image bearing member face each other; and a sheet-like member being made from aluminum and being attached to a first surface of the shield case which first surface faces the discharging electrode.

Charging apparatus and image forming apparatus including same

A charging device is provided. A charging device includes a charging section and a discharge product adsorption removal section. The charging section includes a shield case having a shield opening, a discharge electrode, and a rotation shaft which is parallel to a rotation axis of a photoreceptor. The discharge product adsorption removal section has an adsorption layer that adsorbs a discharge product and is disposed downward in a vertical direction of the photoreceptor. The charging section is displaceable about an axial line of the rotation shaft from a position where the shield opening opposes to the photoreceptor to a position where the shield opening opposes to the discharge product adsorption removal section.

Charging device and image forming apparatus

An electrophotographic photoconductor containing a conductive substrate and at least a charge generating layer and a charge transporting layer successively layered on the substrate, wherein the charge transporting layer contains a charge transporting material (M) and a binder resin (B) and further has a layered structure composed of a plurality of the charge transporting layers wherein the outermost layer of the charge transporting layers show 50% or higher elastic power (&#x3b7;) and hardness (Hplast) of plastic deformation in a range from 220 N/mmor higher to 275 N/mmor lower.

Electrophotographic photoconductor

An electrophotographic photoreceptor using a non-contact type charging process has a creep value Cof is 2.70% or more, preferably 3.00% or more, and a Vickers hardness (HV) at its surface of 20&#x2266;HV&#x2266;25 in a case where a maximum indenting load of 30 mN is loaded to the surface under a circumstance at a temperature of 25&#xb0; C. and at a relative humidity of 50%. Since such an electrophotographic photoreceptor is excellent in flexibility and has plasticity not too soft nor exhibiting fragility, the amount of film reduction due to wear is decreased during long time use, excellent surface smoothness is ensured, and there is no occurrence of injury or unevenness in density to the formed images.

Growing community of inventors

Osaka, Japan

Katsuya Takano