Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Masahiko Shakuto

Osamu Naruse

Yuji Arai

Hiroshi Ono

Hiroyuki Nagashima

Toshio Koike

Ken Amemiya

Hiroyuki Sugiyama

Kazuhiko Watanabe

Tomoko Takahashi

Yoshinori Nakagawa

Nobuo Kuwabara

Ryuji Yoshida

Hidetoshi Yano

Nobutaka Takeuchi

Kaoru Yoshino

Yasushi Nakazato

Toshihiko Baba

Kei Yasutomi

Hideki Zemba

Shuji Tanaka

Kenji Sugiura

Hitoshi Yamamoto

Masanori Horike

Naomi Sugimoto

Takeshi Uchitani

Hideki Kimura

Hiroshi Nakai

Toshiya Satoh

Masayuki Yamane

Nozomu Tamoto

Tsukuru Kai

Tadashi Kasai

Satoshi Hatori

Yasuo Suzuki

Hiroaki Maeda

Nekka Matsuura

Hiroshi Ikuno

Emiko Shiraishi

Makoto Yasuda

Hisashi Shoji

Eisuke Hori

Michiya Okamoto

Fumihito Itoh

Takamasa Ozeki

Taichi Urayama

Shotaro Hoshi

Takuma Iwasaki

Ryusuke Mase

Hirokatsu Suzuki

Kenji Honjoh

Takahiko Tokumasu

Tohru Nakano

Tetsuya Muto

Yasunobu Takagi

Mutsuki Morinaga

Masahiko Katoh

Ryota Kidera

Tatsumi Yamada

Keiko Kajimura

Hidetosi Yano

Akira Fujimori

Kunio Hasegawa

Kazuaki Kamihara

Yuta Azeyanagi

Kazuhito Watanabe

Hiromichi Ninomiya

Daichi Yamaguchi

Yuuichiroh Uematsu

Tokuya Ojimi

Kohichi Ohshima

Naoyuki Ozaki

Tomohide Takenaka

Keita Sone

Yusuke Mitani

Tomoya Ohsugi

Jun Hitosugi

Daisuke Sawada

Keita Gotoh

Hajime Teraji

Ryoh Tanoue

Shinji Minami

Kentaroh Nodera

Shigekazu Koguchi

Tomokazu Mochizuki

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer, a toner image forming device, a plurality of image density detectors, and a controller. The plurality of image density detectors are disposed at predetermined intervals opposite the image bearer in a width direction of the image bearer. The controller causes the toner image forming device to form toner image patterns having an identical density at the plurality of positions on the image bearer and the plurality of image density detectors detects a density of the toner image patterns. Based on the detected density of the toner image patterns, the controller identifies multiple cyclic fluctuations of the density of the toner image patterns and adjusts an image forming condition based on the multiple cyclic fluctuations of the density of the toner image patterns to decrease an amplitude caused by the multiple cyclic fluctuations of the density of the toner image patterns.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An image forming apparatus includes a toner pattern bearer to bear a first toner pattern having a first image area and a second toner pattern having a second image area different from the first image area. A toner adhesion amount detector detects a toner adhesion amount of toner of each of the first toner pattern and the second toner pattern. A toner degradation rate calculator calculates a first deviation in the toner adhesion amount of the first toner pattern and a second deviation in the toner adhesion amount of the second toner pattern based on the toner adhesion amount detected by the toner adhesion amount detector. The toner degradation rate calculator compares the first deviation with the second deviation and calculates a toner degradation rate based on a comparison result.

Image forming apparatus and method for calculating a toner degradation rate

An image forming apparatus includes an electrostatic latent image bearer; a charger to charge a surface of the electrostatic latent image bearer; a power source to output a charging bias supplied to the charger; an electrostatic latent image writing unit to write an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the electrostatic latent image bearer charged by the charger; a developing unit including a developing member to develop the electrostatic latent image to obtain a toner image; a developing power source to output a developing bias supplied to the developing unit; a processor to adjust the charging bias output from the power source to a predetermined target value; and a storage unit to store an adjustment value algorithm.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer rotating in a first direction while bearing a toner image thereon in a normal image forming operation; a toner image forming device to form the toner image on the image bearer; a transferring device to transfer the toner image to a recording medium eventually; a cleaning blade to block toner remaining on image bearer without being transferred; and a controller. The controller controls the image bearer to perform an inverse rotation operation in which the image bearer rotates in a second direction opposite to the first direction after controlling the toner image forming device to perform a special image forming operation such that the amount of toner input to the cleaning blade in the special image forming operation is greater than the amount of toner input to the cleaning blade in the normal image forming operation, and then stopping the image bearer.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method that remove toner from a cleaning blade for an image bearer by inversely rotating the image bearer

An image forming apparatus includes a driving device, a transfer body, a toner detector, an error notification device, and a controller. The toner detector detects, at a preparation running and while the driving device drives a latent image bearer, one of a toner adhesion amount at a background portion of the latent image bearer and a toner adhesion amount at a background corresponding region of a transfer body. The error notification device notifies a user of an error with the toner adhesion being equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value. The driving device stops only a developer bearer after driving both the latent image bearer and the developer bearer at the preparation running, but before a trailing edge of a detection target region of one of the background portion of the latent image bearer and the background corresponding region advances to an opposite position to the toner detector.

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image bearing member, a charging unit, a charging power source, a latent image writing unit, a development unit, a transfer unit, a toner detector, and a controller. The controller causes a background fog pattern to be formed on a surface of the latent image bearing member. In addition to the background fog pattern, the controller causes a latent image to be developed to form a toner image used for position identification on the surface of the latent image bearing member. The controller identifies a time when the toner image used for position identification has entered a detection range of the toner detector based on a change in outputs of the toner detector to determine a time when each of sections of the background fog pattern enters the detection range based on the identified time.

An image forming apparatus includes: an image bearer on which a latent image is formed and developed into a toner image; a transfer member that is arranged so as to come in contact with or face the image bearer to form a transfer position; a cleaning unit that removes and collects untransferred toner; a guide member that guides conveyance of the recording medium; a neutralizing light source that irradiates a position downstream of the transfer position and upstream of the cleaning unit in a running direction of the image bearer with neutralizing light which is incident on and reflected by the recording medium sent out from the transfer position and/or the guide member; and a shielding member that blocks light such that the image bearer is not irradiated directly with a part or whole of neutralizing light emitted from the neutralizing light source.

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image carrier, a charging device, a latent image forming device, a developing device, a transfer device, a toner amount detector, and a control circuit to execute an imaging condition determination process. The control circuit obtains a linear approximation formula of a developing potential and an amount of toner according to an exposure potential of the patch pattern and a detected amount of toner to calculate a developing gamma and a developing start voltage according to a gradient of the linear approximation formula, determines target charging potential, exposure potential and developing bias according to the developing gamma and the developing start voltage, determines an amount of a background potential to be corrected according to a difference between the developing start voltage and a target developing start voltage obtained according to environmental information, and corrects the target charging potential.

Image forming apparatus and image density control method employed by the image forming apparatus

The image forming apparatus includes a process unit, a latent image writer, a power source, and a controller. The process unit is detachably attachable relative to the image forming apparatus and includes, as a single integrated unit, a latent image bearing member to bear a latent image on a surface thereof, a charging device to charge the surface of the latent image bearing member, and a development device to develop the latent image with toner. The controller causes the power source to output a charging bias at a predetermined target level supplied to the charging device. The process unit includes a first storage device to store correction information for calculating the predetermined target level of the charging bias in accordance with a combination of the latent image bearing member and the charging device. The controller corrects the predetermined target level based on the correction information in the first storage device.

An image forming apparatus includes a charging bias output device, a developing bias output device, a transfer bias output device, and a controller. The controller controls the transfer bias output device to supply a transfer bias from a time at which a first position of a photosensitive member arrives at a transfer position after the charging bias output device starts supplying a charging bias. An initial value of the transfer bias is controlled to be smaller than a normal set value for a predetermined time period which is a time after the transfer bias starts to be supplied and within a time corresponding to a rise time during which a surface potential of the photosensitive member reaches a predetermined potential after the charging bias starts to be output. The first position of the photosensitive member is a position at which the charging device starts charging the photosensitive member.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image carrier to carry a latent image on a surface thereof, a developing device to develop the latent image with toner to form a toner image on the surface of the latent image carrier, a transfer unit to transfer the toner image onto a recording medium, and a controller. The controller executes an image density adjustment control of adjusting a developing bias to obtain a target image density. The controller further executes a forced toner consumption control of forcibly consuming the toner contained in the developing device by attaching the toner to the latent image carrier to form a toner pattern on the surface of the latent image carrier. The controller executes the forced toner consumption control to forcibly consume a smaller amount of toner in response to a higher developing bias as adjusted by the image density adjustment control.

A lubricant applicator includes: a lubricant application unit that is arranged so as to be in contact with a surface of an image carrier, scrapes a solid lubricant, and applies the solid lubricant onto the surface of the image carrier while moving a surface of the lubricant application unit; a lubricant holding member that holds the solid lubricant; and a lubricant biasing unit that biases the solid lubricant against the lubricant application unit. The lubricant biasing unit is housed in a housing under a state that one end of the lubricant biasing unit is held by the lubricant holding member so that a position of the one end of the lubricant biasing unit is restricted, and another end of the lubricant biasing unit is held by a biasing-unit holding member that is provided to restrict a position of the another end of the lubricant biasing unit.

Lubricant applicator, image forming apparatus, and method of mounting lubricant applicator

A cleaning device that can be incorporated in an image forming apparatus which includes an image carrier configured to form a toner image, and a cleaning device configured to clean residual toner on the surface of the image carrier. The cleaning device includes a cleaning blade having a blade member provided to contact the surface of the image carrier and a holder to hold the blade member. The cleaning device further includes a frame to hold the cleaning blade and a vibration suppression member provided across the cleaning blade and the frame to couple the cleaning blade and the frame together and suppress vibration.

Cleaning device including cleaning mechanism having noise reduction mechanism and image forming apparatus incorporating same

An image forming device includes: a collecting container that collects a waste toner; a rotation member that rotates and spreads a waste toner inside the collecting container; a torque detection unit that detects torque applied to the rotation member by a waste toner inside the collecting container; and a rotation direction switching unit that switches a rotation direction of the rotation member. When a torque value detected by the torque detection unit is more than a first threshold, the rotation direction of the rotation member is switched by the rotation direction switching unit.

Image forming device

A collection container for collecting and containing waste toner includes a leveling member, a detector, and at least one inlet. The leveling member levels the waste toner contained in the collection container. The detector detects an amount of the waste toner contained in the collection container. The leveling member levels the waste toner delivered to the collection container through the at least one inlet by conveying the waste toner simultaneously in a first direction toward the detector and a second direction opposite to the first direction, starting from an origination position corresponding to the at least one inlet.

Collection container, cleaning unit, and image forming apparatus capable of collecting waste toner efficiently

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Masahiko Shakuto