Kyocera Document Solutions Inc.

Kyocera Mita Corporation

Mita Industrial Co., Ltd.

Koji Kuramashi

Eiji Nimura

Yoshihiro Yamagishi

Masaki Hayashi

Hiroshi Yamazaki

Kuniaki Nakano

Takahisa Nakaue

Kenichi Tamaki

Ikuo Makie

Sueaki Okamoto

Tamotsu Shimizu

Akifumi Yamaguchi

Takashi Morita

Teruhiko Nagashima

Hiroaki Iwasaki

Hirokazu Fujii

Masaru Hatano

Yu Sasaki

Ryo Taniguchi

Eiji Gyotoku

Tatsuya Yamanaka

Takashi Nagai

Yukihiro Ito

Nobuyasu Honda

Yukikatsu Imanaka

Mitsuo Ihara

Tomohide Iida

Toshiaki Akiyama

Asao Toda

A developing device has a housing, a developer carrying member, a regulating blade, and a magnetic member. The regulating blade forms a regulating portion regulating the thickness of toner carried on the developer carrying member. The magnetic member is arranged inside the developer carrying member and has a plurality of magnetic poles including a regulating pole arranged at a position where the developer carrying member and the regulating blade are close together. The regulating pole is movable to a first position facing the regulating portion and to a second position rotated to the upstream side from the first position in the rotation direction of the developer carrying member during image formation. The developing device is operable in the developer removing mode in which, when no image is formed, the regulating pole is moved from the first position to the second position and is then returned to the first position.

Developing device and image forming apparatus therewith

An image forming apparatus includes a conveyance section, an image forming section, a fixing section, a sheet output tray, a toner container, a suitable product determining section, and a control section. The suitable product determining section determines whether the toner container loaded in an apparatus body is a suitable product. When the suitable product determining section determines that the toner container is not a suitable product, on condition of successive feeding of sheets, the control section allows, after every predetermined number of sheets have been subjected to an image forming operation, a fixing aging operation for stopping the image forming operation and rotating rotating bodies of the fixing section to be performed. When the suitable product determining section determines that the toner container is a suitable product, the control section keeps the fixing aging operation conditional on successive feeding of sheets from being performed.

Image forming apparatus for forming image on sheet

A developing device has a developer carrier, a regulating member, a regulating pole, and a magnetic pole generation member. The regulating member has a magnetic body for regulating the thickness of developer on the surface of the developer carrier. The regulating pole is arranged inside the developer carrier to face the regulating member. The magnetic pole generation member is arranged upstream of the regulating member in the developer carrier rotation direction, and has a magnet for generating, at an end portion of the regulating member, a magnetic pole of a polarity different from that of the regulating pole. The regulating member has, in its side face, a depressed portion having an inner face with an arc-shaped cross-section. The magnetic pole generation member is cylindrical, with a radius substantially equal to that of the inner face of the depressed portion, and is rotatable while staying fitted in the depressed portion.

An image forming apparatus includes a conveyance section, an image forming section, a fixing section, a sheet output tray, a toner container, a suitable product determining section, and a control section. The suitable product determining section determines whether the toner container loaded in an apparatus body is a suitable product. When the suitable product determining section determines that the toner container is not a suitable product, the control section allows the conveyance section, the image forming section, and the fixing section to form, on a sheet, a solid image having a circumferential length of one of rotating bodies of the fixing section or longer, and allows the sheet on which the solid image is formed to pass through a fixing nip, to thereby periodically allow a cleaning operation of removing a contamination adhering to surfaces of rotating bodies of the fixing section to be performed.

Image forming apparatus that executes cleaning operation on fixing section

An image forming apparatus includes a transport unit, an image forming unit, an output tray, a toner container, and a processor that realizes a function of a conformity decision unit, a change reception unit, and a controller. The controller discharges, when the conformity decision unit decides that the toner container is not a conforming product, a quality check sheet to the output tray each time a predetermined number of sheets have been printed, or each time a predetermined time has elapsed. The change reception unit receives a change of a quality adjustment value from a user. The controller controls the operation of the transport unit and the image forming unit, according to the quality adjustment value that has been changed and received by the change reception unit.

Image forming apparatus that forms image on sheet

An image forming apparatus of the present invention includes a developing device. In a case body of the developing device, a first storage chamber and a second storage chamber are formed. A first agitating screw is provided in the first storage chamber and a second agitating screw is provided in the second storage chamber. A developing roller is provided in the second storage chamber. A control portion controls driving of a first motor and a second motor. When toner installation is performed, the control portion controls driving of the first motor at a rotational speed higher than a rotational speed for development operation in a state where the second motor is stopped. When a certain condition is satisfied, the control portion starts control of driving of the second motor, to drive rotation of the second motor.

Image forming apparatus and developer supply method

A developing device includes a housing, a developer carrier, a conveying member and a surface layer. The conveying member conveys the developer in the first conveying direction and supplies the developer to the developer carrier. The surface layer is arranged on the circumferential surface of the developer carrier and formed on a surface of a predetermined cylindrical base member. The surface layer is formed by an immersion method of immersing the base member in an immersion tank so that an axial direction of the base member extends along a vertical direction. A lower end side of the base member at the time of the immersion is arranged in a downstream side of the housing in the first conveying direction and an upper end side of the base member at the time of the immersion is arranged in an upstream side of the housing in the first conveying direction.

Developing device and image forming apparatus provided with same

A developer conveying apparatus includes a developer housing portion, a first spiral feeder, a second spiral feeder, a driving unit, an operation control unit, and a sensor. The first spiral feeder and the second spiral feeder each include a hollow spiral member and rib members. The hollow spiral member is spirally formed and internally has a space. The rib members run in a first direction and bridge spiral pieces constituting the spiral member. The operation control unit causes: the driving unit to change the rotation speed of the first spiral feeder and the second spiral feeder according to a printing linear speed of an image forming part; and the driving unit to change a rotational phase difference between the first spiral feeder and the second spiral feeder referring positions of the rib members to a predetermined rotational phase difference according to the changed rotation speed.

Developer conveying apparatus, developing device, and image forming apparatus

A developing device includes a developing roller, a developer supply path, a developer conveyance path, a supply-side conveying member and an agitating-side conveying member. The developing roller is rotatably supported in the housing. The developer supply path is arranged along the developing roller. The developer conveyance path is arranged along the developer supply path. The supply-side conveying member is a conveying member arranged in the developer supply path and includes a first receiving portion arranged to face the communication path at an upstream side in the first direction and configured to receive the developer from the developer conveyance path, and has a hollow spiral shape at a side downstream of the first receiving portion. The agitating-side conveying member is a conveying member arranged in the developer conveyance path and includes a first transferring portion arranged to face the first receiving portion at a downstream side in the second direction.

Developing device comprising a conveying member having a hollow spiral shape and image forming apparatus provided with the same

A developing device includes a housing, a developing roller, a developer supply path, a developer conveyance path, a supply-side conveying member, an agitating side conveying member and first projection members. The developing roller is rotatably supported in the housing. The supply-side conveying member includes a supply-side spiral member formed by connecting spiral pieces, in the first direction and having a hollow interior formed by the connected spiral pieces and a first rib member extending in the first direction, is arranged in the developer supply path and conveys the developer in the first direction by being driven and rotated. The first projecting members extend in the first direction along an outer wall portion of the first rib member from a first area where the supply-side spiral member and the first rib member intersect and project radially outward in the rotation of the supply-side conveying member.

A conveyance device includes a housing, a formation member, and a detection section. The housing has a first conveyance path, a second conveyance path, and a first communication path. The first and second conveyance paths each are a conveyance path for conveying a developer. The first communication path allows a first end portion of the first conveyance path and a first end portion of the second conveyance path to be in communication with each other via a communication surface. The communication surface has a first region and a second region. The formation member forms the second region of the communication surface so that a height of the second region from a bottom portion of the first communication path is lower than a height of the first region from the bottom portion of the first communication path. The detection section detects the amount of the developer.

Conveyance device, development device including conveyance device, and image forming apparatus including development device

A developing device includes a first agitating member and a second agitating member. Each of the first and second agitating members includes a screw having a helical portion formed helically so as to define a hollow portion, and a plurality of ribs formed on the helical portion in the longitudinal direction of the screw. On at least one of the first and second agitating members, there is disposed a paddle opposed to the communicating portion on a downstream side in a transport direction of the developing powder. The paddle has a flat surface in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction, and a width of a distal end of the paddle is smaller than a width of a proximal end of the paddle disposed to the agitating member in a plan view.

Developing device and image forming apparatus including the same

A developing device includes a developing roller. The developing roller includes a magnetic roller configured to have multiple magnetic poles in a circumferential direction thereof and a roller-shaped developing sleeve sheathed on the magnetic roller, and supplies magnetic toner to a photosensitive drum. Further, the developing sleeve is configured such that a surface of an image region thereof, which is located in an intermediate portion thereof in a rotation axis direction thereof and which supplies the magnetic toner to the photosensitive drum, is coated with a non-magnetic material, and such that surfaces of non-image regions thereof, which are located at opposite ends thereof in the rotation axis direction and which supply no magnetic toner to the photosensitive drum, are coated with a magnetic material.

Developing device having magnetic roller and image forming apparatus

A developer conveyance device includes a housing and a conveyance member. The conveyance member is supported to the housing and rotates to convey developer. The conveyance member includes a shaft portion, a helical member, and a plurality of reinforcement members. The plurality of reinforcement members are disposed in a circumferential direction of rotation of the conveyance member. When viewing a cross section in a direction intersecting with the rotational axis, an outer circumferential surface of the helical member includes a facing region and a non-facing region, which are defined for one reinforcement member of the plurality of reinforcement members, the facing region being a region where the one reinforcement member of the plurality of reinforcement members is projected on an opposite side of an outer circumferential surface of the helical member through the rotational axis, and the non-facing region being a region of the outer circumferential surface of the helical member which is different from the facing region. The other reinforcement member of the plurality of reinforcement members is disposed in the non-facing region.

Developer conveyance device, development device, and image forming apparatus

A developer conveying device includes a housing with a pair of wall portions, a developer conveyance path extending between the pair of wall portions, and a conveying member. The conveying member is rotatably supported on the wall portions and conveys developer from one wall portion to the other. This conveying member includes a spiral member, shaft portions and a breaking member. The spiral member is formed by connecting spiral pieces, each forming one spiral turn, in a conveying direction of the developer and includes a hollow interior defined by the connected spiral pieces. The shaft portions are arranged at opposite end parts of the spiral member and rotatably supported on the wall portions and serve as a rotary shaft for the rotation of the conveying member. The breaking member extends across the hollow interior in a direction intersecting with the conveying direction.

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Osaka, Japan

Koji Kuramashi