Konica Minolta, Inc.

Masanori Kawada

Yohei Ito

Hidetoshi Noguchi

Hiroaki Umemoto

Tomohisa Yoshida

Kazuyoshi Ota

Shinya Tokutake

Tsugihito Yoshiyama

Yoshiki Nakane

Futoshi Okazaki

Toshiaki Shima

Junji Murauchi

Shinichi Yoshimoto

Morio Osada

Tetsuo Sano

An image formation apparatus includes: an image carrier having a surface on which a toner image is formed; a transfer roller cooperating with a surface of the image carrier to form a nip at a first position in a direction in which the image carrier rotates; a discharging member provided at a second position downstream of the nip in a direction in which the transfer roller rotates; a first power supply that applies a first voltage opposite in polarity to toner to the transfer roller to transfer the toner image to a recording medium when the recording medium is inserted in the nip; and a second power supply that applies a second voltage identical in polarity to the toner to the discharging member to cause an electric discharge to electrically charge the toner on the surface of the transfer roller to electrically attract the toner to the transfer roller.

Image forming apparatus including a second power supply that applies a voltage with a same polarity as a toner to a discharging member to charge toner on a secondary transfer roller

An image forming apparatus includes: an image carrier that rotates while carrying a toner image; an image former that forms the toner image; a transfer roller that transfers the toner image to a recording medium; and a bias voltage applier that applies a voltage to the transfer roller, wherein the image former forms transfer images and forms a patch image with toner between a first transfer image and a second transfer image, and the bias voltage applier applies a first voltage having a polarity opposite to a charge polarity of the toner to the transfer roller, applies a second voltage having the polarity opposite to the charge polarity of the toner and larger than the first voltage to the transfer roller, and applies a third voltage having the polarity opposite to the charge polarity of the toner and smaller than the second voltage to the transfer roller.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image former which forms an image on an image carrying member with toner stored in a storage, a toner supplier which supplies toner to the storage by driving a conveyance member, a density measurer which causes the image former to form an image having a predetermined density at a predetermined timing and measures density of the formed image, a corrector which corrects a driving amount of the conveyance member based on the density measured by the density measurer, and a changer which changes a timing when the density measurer measures the density in response to an event that a predetermined condition is satisfied.

Image forming apparatus which determines a toner supplying amount based on predicted toner consumption and predicted density of stored toner, toner supply method, and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium encoded with toner supply program

A development device includes: a developer carrier including a magnet roller and a sleeve around the magnet roller; and a restriction member provided opposed to the sleeve surface. When a region on the surface opposed to the restriction member is defined as a first region and regions adjacent to the first region are defined as second and third regions, a magnetic flux density is largest in the second region. When a position where the density is largest in the second region is defined as a reference position, a position where the density is a predetermined value in the second region is defined as a downstream position, and a position where the density is the predetermined value in the third region is defined as an upstream position, the width between the reference position and the upstream position is longer than the width between the reference position and the downstream position.

Development device and image forming apparatus

A method applicable to an image forming apparatus with a lubricant to be applied to a surface of a photoreceptor for measuring surface roughness of the surface of the photoreceptor after lubricant application, the method including: a first step of measuring a surface profile of the photoreceptor and obtaining first data indicating the surface profile; a second step of generating second data on the basis of the first data, the second data indicating arithmetic mean roughness Ra within a predetermined range; and a third step of calculating a difference value &#x394;Ra between second data before lubricant application and second data after lubricant application obtained by performing the first and second steps both before and after the lubricant is applied to the photoreceptor.

Method for measuring lubricant-induced surface roughness and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus for forming an image on a rotative image carrier and transferring the image onto an object, including: a cleaning unit removing a residual material from the image carrier; and a lubricant applying unit applying lubricant to a circumferential surface of the image carrier, the lubricant applying unit including: a rotative transporter picking up and retaining lubricant, transporting the lubricant to a lubricant application point, and supplying a portion of the lubricant to the image carrier at the lubricant application point; an ejector causing the transporter to eject a portion of the lubricant retained by the transporter; a collector collecting the portion of the lubricant ejected from the transporter; and a controller controlling ejection of the portion of the lubricant so as to maintain the amount of the lubricant retained by the transporter as no greater than a predetermined upper limit.

Image forming apparatus and lubricant application method

An image forming apparatus includes a photoreceptor rotatable about an axis, and having a surface with a photosensitive layer abraded during use, a charging unit configured to charge the surface of the photoreceptor, an exposure unit configured to form an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the photoreceptor, a developing unit configured to form a toner image on the surface of the photoreceptor, and a control unit configured to obtain a film thickness of the photosensitive layer for each of a plurality of different positions in a direction of a rotation axis of the photoreceptor, and perform abrasion operation at a first or second position of the plurality of positions, when a difference in film thickness between the first position and the second position exceeds a predetermined reference value.

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Toyokawa, Japan

Masanori Kawada