Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Masahito Kato

Atsushi Toda

Taku Watanabe

Katsuichi Abe

Kenta Shibukawa

Norihito Naito

Yosuke Kishi

Akira Suzuki

Junichi Matsumura

Naoki Fukushima

Go Shindo

Naoya Asanuma

Naoki Matsumaru

Yuichiro Hirata

Takayoshi Kihara

Motonari Ito

Daisuke Baba

Takashi Kase

Masato Tanabe

Takatoshi Hamada

Satoru Inami

Kodai Hayashi

Masaki Hirose

Kazumi Yamauchi

Takuya Oka

Yusuke Jota

Koichi Ooishi

Yu Akiba

Hirokazu Fujino

Harunobu Maeda

Masaki Ojima

Yoshihiro Mitsui

Tomonori Matsunaga

Takahiro Ikeda

Bunro Noguchi

Go Torii

Shinichi Agata

Tadashi Dojo

Nobuyoshi Yoshida

Hisashi Yamauchi

Keitaro Nakata

Kosuke Ikada

A developing device includes a stirring member including a flexible sheet member having a first sheet portion and a second sheet portion overlapping each other with respect to a thickness direction of the sheet member. With respect to a lateral direction of the sheet member which is a direction from a fixed end fixed to a rotating shaft portion to the free end, a length of the first sheet portion is longer than a length of the second sheet portion, and when the stirring member is rotated, a free end of the first sheet portion is capable of contacting an inner wall surface of a toner accommodation chamber. The sheet member is provided with a through hole penetrating in a thickness direction of the sheet member in a region where the first sheet portion and the second sheet portion overlap each other.

Developing device, cartridge, image forming apparatus

A developing device includes a frame having an accommodation chamber where a developer is accommodated, and a replenishing port replenishing a developer to the accommodation chamber from outside, and a stirring member stirring the developer in the accommodation chamber. The stirring member includes a rotating shaft portion rotatably supported by the frame and a sheet member having one end fixed to the rotating shaft portion and another end as a free end and being rotatable with the rotating shaft portion. When the stirring member is rotated, the free end of the sheet member is capable of contacting an inner wall surface of the accommodation chamber in which the replenishing port is formed, and a through hole penetrating in a thickness direction of the sheet member is provided in a region of the sheet member that comes into contact with the inner wall surface of the accommodation chamber.

An image forming apparatus that executes an image forming operation for forming a toner image on a recording material and an application operation of applying a metal soap to a surface of an image bearing member by supplying a toner stored in a toner storing unit to the surface of the image bearing member from the developing member. A surficial moving speed of the image bearing member during the application operation is lower than the surficial moving speed of the image bearing member during the image forming operation, and a speed difference between the surficial moving speed of the developing member and the surficial moving speed of the image bearing member during the application operation is larger than that during the image forming operation.

Image forming apparatus that suppresses occurrence of image smearing by maintaining a metal soap on a surface of a photoconductor

A developing apparatus, includes: a developer bearing member that encloses a magnet roller having a plurality of magnetic poles and is rotatable; a wall that forms a developer storing chamber for storing a magnetic developer therein; a restricting member configured to restrict a layer thickness of the magnetic developer carried by the developer bearing member; and a moving member configured to move the magnetic developer carried by the developer bearing member before the magnetic developer is restricted by the restricting member, the moving member being brought into contact with a surface of the developer bearing member, the moved developer being on the developer veering member after the moving member moved the developer on the developer bearing member, wherein the moving member is disposed at a position opposed to any of the magnetic pole positions of the plurality of magnetic poles.

Developing apparatus, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A method of manufacturing a developer container including a frame configured to define a developer containing portion, a first electrode, and a second electrode arranged on a surface of the frame and having a surface opposed to the first electrode, a developer amount in the developer containing portion being detected based on a capacitance between the first electrode and the second electrode, the method including: holding a conductive resin member constituting the second electrode on a mold configured to mold the frame, a surface of the conductive resin member being in contact with a surface of the mold configured to mold a surface of the frame on a side of the developer containing portion; injecting a resin to be formed into the frame, into the mold on which the conductive resin member is held; and curing the resin to form the frame to which the second electrode is fixed.

Method of manufacturing developer container, developer container, developing apparatus, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A developing apparatus, includes: a developer bearing member that is rotatable; an moving member configured to move the magnetic developer carried on the developer bearing member before the magnetic developer is restricted by a restricting member, the moving member being rotatable and brought into contact with a surface of the developer bearing member; and a control portion, wherein, at a contact position between the developer bearing member and the moving member, assuming that a moving speed vector of a surface of the developer bearing member is taken as R and a moving speed vector of a surface of the moving member is taken as r, the control portion controls rotational operation of the developer bearing member and the moving member such that a direction of a vector R&#x2212;r during image formation and a direction of a vector R&#x2212;r during non-image formation be opposite to each other.

Developing apparatus for providing developer to an image bearing member and image forming apparatus having the developing apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an agitating member, a first electrode, a second electrode disposed with a gap from the first electrode such that the gap has a smallest portion located below a rotation center of the agitating member and a remote portion wider than the smallest portion and located above the smallest portion, and a frame body having a first wall surface having the first electrode disposed thereon and a second wall surface having the second electrode disposed thereon, and a developer detecting unit configured to detect an amount of developer from an output value output in accordance with a capacitance formed between the first electrode and the second electrode. The image forming apparatus performs correction and detects the amount of developer.

Image forming apparatus having a developer detecting unit

A developer container includes: a housing chamberwhich includes an openingand which houses developer; a stirring memberwhich includes a sheet-like stirring portionand a rotary shaftto which the stirring portionis attached; and a first electrodeand a second electrodewhich are used to detect an amount of the developer and which are arranged with an interval therebetween, wherein an area Xbetween the first electrodeand the second electrodein the housing chamberis positioned below the rotary shaftof the stirring member, and the sheet-like stirring portioncomes into contact with the area Xdue to rotation of the stirring member

Developer container, developing apparatus, process cartridge, apparatus main body, and image forming apparatus

Method of manufacturing developer container

This disclosure provides a developer container in which a conductive resin sheet is used as an electrode for detecting an amount of developer by using electrostatic capacitance. A configuration in which an end of the conductive resin sheet in a longitudinal direction is provided outside an end of a sheet member in a longitudinal direction, or a configuration in which the sheet member starts contact with the conductive resin sheet from a second surface on the downstream side in a direction or rotation than a first surface are also provided.

Developer container, developing apparatus, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus for detecting an amount of developer based on a change in electric capacitance

A developer container includes: a housing chamberwhich includes an openingand which houses developer; a stirring memberwhich includes a sheet-like stirring portionand a rotary shaftto which the stirring portionis attached; and a first electrodeand a second electrodewhich are used to detect an amount of the developer and which are arranged with an interval therebetween, where in an area Xbetween the first electrodeand the second electrodein the housing chamberis positioned below the rotary shaftof the stirring member, and the sheet-like stirring portioncomes into contact with the area Xdue to rotation of the stirring member

A process cartridge includes a drum unit configured to rotatably hold a photosensitive drum, a developing unit that is assembled in such a manner as to be rotatable relative to the drum unit and includes a developing roller, gap maintaining members provided to the photosensitive drum or the developing roller on both end portions of the photosensitive drum in an axial direction, and urging members configured to bias the developing unit toward the drum unit. The urging members are respectively disposed on outer sides of the gap maintaining members disposed at both end portions in the axial direction. The drum unit or the developing unit includes an electric contact portion configured to come into contact with an electric contact of an image forming apparatus when the process cartridge is attached to the image forming apparatus, the electric contact portion being disposed between the gap maintaining members in the axial direction.

Process cartridge and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a potential detection portion that determines a surface potential of an image bearing member on the basis of an applied voltage value of a detection voltage applied to a voltage application member by a voltage application portion and a detected current value detected by a current detection portion in response to the applied voltage, and a control unit that sets an image formation condition for performing image formation in order to form a toner image on the image bearing member on the basis of the surface potential determined by the potential detection portion. When the surface potential is determined by the potential detection portion, the voltage application portion applies the detection voltage after applying, to the voltage application member, a voltage having an opposite polarity to an image formation voltage that is applied to the voltage application member during image formation.

Determining surface potential of image bearing member of image forming apparatus

Voltages are applied to an image bearing member using at least three application voltage values which are larger than a discharge start voltage value and which have different magnitudes, at least one of the application voltage values having a value at which a direction of a current corresponding to the one of the application voltage values is reverse to those of currents corresponding to the other application voltage values. A relation between the application voltage value and the detection current value in a discharge area is calculated based on at least three application voltage values V, V, Vand at least three detection current values I, I, Idetected by a current detection portion in relation to at least three application voltage values V, V, Vand a voltage value Vat which the detection current value is zero is calculated based on the relation in the discharge area.

Image forming apparatus

A developer container including a frame configured to define a developer containing portion, a first electrode, and a second electrode arranged on a surface of the frame and having a surface opposed to the first electrode, a developer amount in the developer containing portion being detected based on a capacitance between the first electrode and the second electrode.

Developer container for detecting developer amount based on capacitance, developing apparatus, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Gotemba, Japan

Masahito Kato