Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Minoru Matsuguma

Kenji Matsuda

Masaki Ojima

Katsuhiro Kojima

Hideki Matsumoto

Masaharu Ohkubo

Kazuaki Ono

Takayasu Yuminamochi

Yoshihiro Ito

Masaru Shimura

Akihiko Takeuchi

Tomio Noguchi

Masanobu Saito

Akira Higeta

Toshio Miyamoto

Jun Miyamoto

Hiroaki Sakai

Hiroto Hasegawa

Kazuhiro Okubo

Kenji Kanari

Katsuhiko Nishimura

Masao Ando

Norio Hashimoto

Yasunari Kobaru

Kei Sawanaka

Kazuhisa Maruyama

Jun Haruna

A lubricant supplying method for supplying a lubricant to a sliding portion between a cylindrical rotatable member for use in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus and a supporting member for slidably supporting an inner peripheral surface at one end side of the rotatable member with respect to a rotational axis direction of the rotatable member, includes a step of engaging the supporting member, including a hollow portion and an opening which communicates with the hollow portion and is provided at a position in which the opening opposes the sliding portion, with the rotatable member at the one end side; and a step of supplying the lubricant from the hollow portion toward the sliding portion through the opening.

Lubricant supplying method, supporting member and rotatable member unit

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member; a plurality of developing cartridges including respective toner accommodating portions for accommodating toners for forming an image on the image bearing member; a discriminating portion for discriminating color of the toner accommodated in each of the plurality of developing cartridges; a controller capable of controlling an image forming operation in a state in which the developing cartridges, of the plurality of developing cartridges, accommodating the toners of the same color are mounted; and a storing portion for storing lifetime information of the plurality of developing cartridges, respectively. When the developing cartridges accommodating the toners of the same color are mounted, the controller determines the developing cartridge, of the developing cartridges accommodating the toners of the same color, to be used for performing the image forming operation, on the basis of the lifetime information.

Image forming apparatus with controller controlling an image forming operation

An image forming apparatus has: a photosensitive drum onto which images are formed; and a primary transfer roller which sequentially forms the color images onto the photosensitive drum by using a plurality of developing devices having different color developers and transfers the color images formed on the drum onto a transfer member or a recording medium. Order of forming the images onto an image bearing member on a photosensitive member is switched based on a use amount of each of the plurality of developing devices.

Image forming apparatus and control method of the image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member; a charging member for contacting a peripheral surface of the image bearing member to electrically charge the peripheral surface; a first developing device for forming a first developed image on the peripheral surface of the image bearing member charged by the charging member; a second developing device for forming a second developed image on the peripheral surface, wherein a combined developed image is formed by superimposing the first developed image and the second developed image on a common transfer material, wherein when the combined image is being formed, the charging member is cleaned by transferring, by an electric field, material deposited on the charging member to a region between the first developed image and the second developed image on the peripheral surface of the image bearing member, and wherein the first developed image and the second developed image are not formed in the region.

Image forming apparatus with charging member cleaning capabilities

A unit includes cartridge electrical contacts provided at respective ends of the cartridge in a longitudinal direction and electrically connecting with body electrical contacts when the cartridge is properly mounted to the image forming apparatus. The cartridge electrical contacts are electrically connected to each other. Mounting the cartridge to the image forming apparatus forms a detection circuit via the cartridge.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus and unit

An image forming apparatus for forming an image on a recording material, includes a rotatable image bearing member; a developing member for developing a latent image formed on the image bearing member; a cleaning blade for removing a developer from the image bearing member, the cleaning blade being cooperative with the image bearing member to form a nip in which the cleaning blade is contacted to the image bearing member within a predetermined area; and a controller for executing a first step of stopping rotation of the image bearing member after completion of an image forming operation for forming an image on the recording material; a second step of rotating, after the first step, the image bearing member through a predetermined peripheral distance in a rotational direction which is the same as a direction in which the image bearing member is rotated during the image forming operation; a third step of rotating, after the second step, the image bearing member in a rotational direction which is opposite the direction in which the image bearing member is rotated during the image forming operation; and a fourth step of stopping rotation of the image bearing member after the third step.

Image forming apparatus featuring a four-step image bearing member controller

A method of detecting the end of the life of an image bearing member has: a contact time detecting step of detecting the contact time when a developer carrying member that can be in contact with or have a clearance with an image bearing member contacts the image bearing member, the developer carrying member developing an electrostatic image formed in the image bearing member by a developer; and a determining step of determining the end of the life of the image bearing member in accordance with a parameter calculated by using the contact time detected in the contact time detecting step.

Method of detecting life of image bearing member, image forming apparatus and cartridge

In a color image forming apparatus of a tandem type, a full color image forming mode and a monochrome image forming mode are made selectable. In the monochrome image forming mode, toner is supplied between photosensitive drums for colors that do not contribute to image formation and cleaning devices therefor. Consequently, defective cleaning can be prevented and formation of high quality images becomes possible.

Image forming apparatus having different modes for preventing defective cleaning

An image bearing member life detecting method capable of accurately detecting that the life of an image bearing member has expired or will expire soon, an image forming apparatus using the method, and a cartridge detachably attachable to the image forming apparatus, are provided. An image bearing member damage index number D representing the consumption degree of an image bearing member is calculated on the basis of an applying period under each condition of an electrostatic charge bias applied to an electrostatic charging portion for forming an electrostatic latent image on the image bearing member, and/or the contact period of a developing portion for developing the electrostatic latent image on the image bearing member. When the process speed is switched, the calculation method is switched in accordance with the process speed, and the image bearing member damage index number D is calculated. The image bearing member damage index number D is integrated and stored as an image bearing member damage integration value S. The image bearing member damage integration value S is compared with life information R corresponding to the image bearing member damage integration value S for a predetermined life of the image bearing member, thereby detecting the life of the image bearing member.

Image forming apparatus, image bearing member life detecting method, and process cartridge detachably attachable to image forming apparatus

A sheet conveying apparatus and an image forming apparatus include a transfer roller which transfers a developer developing an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive drum to a sheet, a pair of registration rollers which nip the sheet into a conveying nip formed by a pair of rotary members and conveys the sheet to the transfer roller, and an upper transfer guide for leading the sheet from the pair of registration rollers to the transfer roller. In addition, a conveyance regulating member regulates a conveying direction of the sheet conveyed by the pair of registration rollers and brings the sheet into contact with the upper transfer guide.

Sheet conveying apparatus and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, an electrostatic image forming device for forming an electrostatic image based on an image signal on the image bearing member, a developing device for developing the electrostatic image on the image bearing member, a detector for detecting the amount of a toner in the developing device, an integrating device for integrating a number of image signals produced by the apparatus, and an estimator for estimating and indicating whether the apparatus has consumed a predetermined amount of toner, on the basis of the integrated amount integrated by the integrating device before the detector detects the consumption of all the toner.

Image forming apparatus indicating the residue of toner and the deficiency of toner

In a fixing device used in an image forming apparatus, temperature changes in a heating member are reduced by gradually reducing a power supply duty ratio while the heating member is subjected to temperature control aiming at a set temperature.

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Suntou-gun, Japan

Minoru Matsuguma