Konica Corporation

Kiyohari Nakagama

Mitsugu Nemoto

Satoshi Watanabe

Atsushi Ogane

Hirotaka Kabashima

Sunao Kawada

Kazuhiro Nakazawa

Kohji Ishii

Yasushi Koshimura

Kan Miyake

Kouichi Hanada

Naoki Watanabe

In an electrostatic recording apparatus equipped with an image carrying member having a surface where there is provided an image forming region on which the toner image is formed and the other region located next to the image forming region in the axial direction on the surface, a cleaning blade made of an elastic material comes in contact with the surface and to clean toner remaining on the surface after the toner image is transferred. The cleaning blade comes in contact with the image forming region and the other region and an edge of a portion of the cleaning blade substantially coming in contact with the other region is hardened by heat.

Electrostatic recording apparatus and cleaning blade

An charging apparatus includes a housing having a charging side adapted to face a photoreceptor; and a sharp-edged electrode charging member provided in the housing so that the photoreceptor is charged through the charging side by corona discharge from the sharp-edged electrode charging member. The charging apparatus further comprises an air introducing member provided a rear side opposite to the charging side and for introducing air into the housing.

Charging device

In an image forming apparatus which adjusts transferring condition according to an output signal from a moisture sensor, a control circuit has an off-time estimation device for estimating a power source interruption period from a surface temperature of a fixing roller and heat radiation elapsed time characteristics of the fixing roller and a time measuring device for measuring the time elapsed after the loading of a sheet feeding cassette. The control circuit further includes a moisture content converter for converting a total elapsed time after loading the sheet feeding cassette and for converting humidity into moisture content data of the transferring sheets. The control circuit controls the output from a high voltage power source of the apparatus, based on the moisture content data.

Image forming apparatus with power source control

An electrophotographic copying apparatus including a time counter to count a time during which transfer sheets are left in a stacker; a memory to store an output value of a humidity detector; a calculator to calculate a correction value for each transfer sheet in accordance with the output value of the humidity detector and the time counted by the time counter; and a controller to control a corona discharging output for each transfer sheet in accordance with the correction value.

Charger control in an electrophotographic copying apparatus

In a device for sensing a temperature of a fixing roller, a thermistor is provided on a flat upper surface of a support member made of a foamed silicone material, with a heat conductive material provided between them. A heatproof protective sheet is wrapped around so that the thermistor is partially sunk into the support member by the tightness of the wrapping. The heat conductive material is thereby deformed to the thermistor's shape. At the same time, the top part of the thermistor is always protruded from the upper part of the support member. A holder keeps this construction in contact with the circumferential surface of the fixing roller.

Temperature sensing device for a rotating fixing roller

This invention relates to a toner density control method for an image recording apparatus including the steps of: obtaining, as a sensitivity of a toner density sensor, a change amount in output voltage of the sensor with respect to that in control voltage for controlling a strength of the magnetic field generated by the sensor; calculating a ratio of the sensitivity of the sensor to that of a standard toner density sensor, thus obtaining a correction value; discriminating which one of plurality of ranges bounded in accordance with operational results of a value of the output voltage of the standard toner density sensor and the correction value of the output voltage of the sensor belongs to, and changing a replenishing amount of the toner on the basis of a discrimination result, and relates to an apparatus for practicing the method.

Toner density control method for image recording apparatus and apparatus

In a copying apparatus provided with a platen glass located on the top of the apparatus, an exposure lamp moves under the platen glass in parallel with it for illuminating a document on the platen glass, mirrors move concurrently with the exposure lamp for illuminating an image carrier, and a cooling fan is positioned laterally to the moving paths of the exposure lamp and the mirrors for cooling the platen glass. The cooling fan is operated some time after the start of a copying operation, in accordance with light amount of the exposure lamp, the number of copies to be made, the document size, the image magnification, or by a combination of these factors.

Copying apparatus with cooling device

A copying machine for reproducing an image with toner on a recording sheet. The copying machine has a photoreceptor to hold a latent image corresponding to the image on its surface, in which the surface is charged to a predetermined electric potential before holding the latent image. The latent image is developed with toner, transferred onto the recording sheet, and fixed on the recording sheet with heat. The heater of the copying machine heats up the fixing unit to a predetermined temperature, and terminates heating the fixing unit when an operation of the machine is ended. The copying machine has a capability to detect a temperature of the fixing unit and determining an interval between the time when the operation is ended and the time when the operation is restarted, based on the determined temperature of the fixing unit.

Image forming apparatus having temperature sensor for estimating the off

A copying apparatus is adapted to suppress the temperature rise of a platen glass by decreasing the copy speed from a first speed to a second speed after the apparatus has copied a threshold number of sheets in succession. The above parameters of the first speed, the second speed and the threshold number are basically predetermined based on the size of the copy paper and the magnification in copying, and modified based in accordance with the source voltage of a lamp to emit scanning light to scan an original on the platen glass.

Copier technique for determining speed and threshold number of sheets

A toner density control method wherein a change in a toner density when a developer of a standard density is stirred, a correction coefficient is calculated from the change, and a toner density of the developer of the standard density under stable condition is calculated from the toner density of the developer which has been stirred and from the correction coefficient, in order to control the toner density.

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Hachioji, Japan

Kiyohari Nakagama