Kyocera Document Solutions Inc.

Kyocera Mita Corporation

Mitsunobu Honda

Minoru Wada

Masahito Ishino

Hisashi Mukataka

Eiji Gyoutoku

A head cleaning mechanism includes a recording head and a wiper. The recording head includes an ink ejection face provided with an ink ejection region in which a plurality of ink ejection openings for ejecting ink onto a recording medium are open. The wiper wipes the ink ejection face in a predetermined direction. The ink ejection face has, downstream of the ink ejection region in the wiping direction, an elevated portion extending in the head width direction perpendicular to the wiping direction. The elevated portion includes an upstream side inclined face which inclines downward from the ink ejection face to the downstream side in the wiping direction, and a downstream face which is arranged downstream of the upstream side inclined face in the wiping direction and which faces the downstream side in the wiping direction.

Head cleaning mechanism and ink-jet recording apparatus provided with the same

A head cleaning mechanism includes a recording head and a wiper. The recording head includes an ink ejection face having an ink ejection region where a plurality of ink ejection openings for ejecting ink onto a recording medium are open. The wiper wipes the ink ejection face in a predetermined direction. The ink ejection face has, downstream of the ink ejection region in the wiping direction, a depressed portion extending in the head width direction perpendicular to the wiping direction. The depressed portion includes an upstream side inclined face which inclines upward from the ink ejection face to the downstream side in the wiping direction, and a downstream side inclined face which is arranged downstream of the upstream side inclined face in the wiping direction and which inclines downward to the downstream side in the wiping direction.

A cleaning apparatusis provided with a cleaning rollerthat is a rotating member, a scraper, a partition wall, opening/closing members, and a discharge screwthat is a discharging member. The scrapersupported by the partition wallscrapes toner by bringing the tip thereof into contact with the cleaning roller. The partition wallhas a plurality of openings, and partitions between a space Sformed on an upstream side of the cleaning rollerin a rotation direction of a drum and a space Sin which the discharge screwis provided. The opening/closing membersare individually provided for the openingsso as to permit toner to move through the openingsonly in a direction from the space Sto the space S. With this structure, it is possible to make toner present in the vicinity of the cleaning rollersmoothly move toward the discharge screw

Cleaning apparatus and electrophotographic image forming apparatus provided therewith

In an image forming apparatus that uses toners of a plurality of different colors, amorphous toner is used during image forming with a first color. Then, a controller, by using a toner remaining-removing switching device, causes toner scraped off from an image carrier by a blade during cleaning to remain at a predetermined region near the blade. Spherical toner is used during image forming with a second color and thereafter. The controller switches the toner remaining-removing switching device during any one of processes starting from the process of the second color until the end of image formation to remove toner remaining at the predetermined region, and the toner subsequently scraped off, from the image carrier.

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Osaka, Japan

Mitsunobu Honda