Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Other

Mitsubishi Kasei Corporation

Mitsubhishi Kasei Corporation

Mitsuru Tokuyama

Kiyofumi Morimoto

Hiroo Naoi

Masatsugu Nakamura

Toshiaki Ino

Kazuma Hinoue

Mihoko Tanimura

Masaaki Ohtsuki

Kunio Ohashi

Motoyuki Itoyama

Kouichi Takenouchi

Kohichi Takenouchi

Takashi Kitagawa

Yasuhiro Nishimura

Hiroshi Kinashi

Hirofumi Sakita

Hideji Saiko

Mamoru Nozomi

Syouichi Fujita

Masayasu Narimatsu

Takeshi Ohkawa

Tomoki Minamikawa

Tadashi Umehara

Norihide Yasuoka

Toshiya Asari

Hiroshi Kubota

Jitsuo Masuda

Toshihisa Ishida

Haruo Nishiyama

Yasushi Adachi

Toshio Nishino

Masato Asanuma

Itaru Kawabata

Katsuaki Sumida

Yasuo Kitabatake

Kouji Shinkawa

Yuichiro Takesue

Hideji Saikoh

Kanshiro Okamoto

Mihoko Okada

Eisaku Hatanaka

Hirohumi Sakita

An image forming apparatus includes a developing device having a toner supply sensor, a toner supply device supplying toner to the developing device, a toner supply controller controlling toner supply from the toner supply device to the developing device based on predetermined conditions, a toner empty determiner determining whether toner is present inside the toner supply device. In the image forming apparatus, the toner supply device includes a storage for recording multiple measured values of toner supply detected by the toner supply sensor, and the toner supply controller corrects the amount of toner supply, based on the moving average of multiple measured values of the amount of toner supply.

Image forming apparatus and toner supply method

A developing device includes a developer tank for housing a two-component developer containing toner and magnetic carrier; a first conveying portion having a first rotary shaft rotatable about its axis and a first screw blade which surrounds the first rotary shaft and rotates together with the first rotary shaft and contains a ferromagnetic substance; a second conveying portion having a second rotary shaft rotatable about its axis and a second screw blade which surrounds the second rotary shaft and rotates together with the second rotary shaft and contains a ferromagnetic substance; a first electromagnet for magnetizing the first screw blade; and a second electromagnet for magnetizing the second screw blade.

Developing device, image forming apparatus, and cleaning method for the developing device

The change in an output voltage when a control voltage is changed is calculated, and the change in the control voltage divided by the calculated change in the output voltage is defined as a sensitivity coefficient. The sensitivity coefficient is recalculated for each predetermined time interval or whenever a predetermined condition is satisfied, and the control voltage is corrected based on the recalculated sensitivity coefficient. Example of the predetermined condition include the time of start-up of the apparatus, the time at which the accumulated number of printed sheets reaches a predetermined number, and the time of carrying out process control.

Developing device, image forming apparatus including the same and developing method

In an image forming apparatus comprising a charging section, an exposure section, a developing section, a transfer section, a peeling section, a cleaning section including a cleaning blade, and a fixing section, the cleaning blade is composed by dispersing 15 parts by weight through 33 parts by weight of fluorine resin particulate and secondary particles thereof into 100 parts by weight of a synthetic resin of a base material and, on a surface of the cleaning blade, and a number of the secondary particles of the fluorine resin particulate having a particle diameter of 0.5 &#x3bc;m or more existing in unit area of 100 &#x3bc;mis made to be 50 or less.

Cleaning blade

An image forming apparatus includes a toner image forming section including a developing device having a developer tank for storing a two-component developer, a transfer section, a fixing section, a recording medium feeding section, and a discharging section. The image forming apparatus further includes a toner concentration detecting section for detecting the toner concentration in the developer tank, a printing speed switching section, a toner concentration calculating section for correcting a detection result obtained by the toner concentration detecting section according to a speed of printing to calculate the toner concentration, and a toner replenishment control section for replenishing the toner into the developer tank according to a calculation result by the toner concentration calculating section.

Image forming apparatus with toner concentration sensor

An image forming apparatus capable of performing monochrome printing and color printing in which all the developing units share a single development transformer is constructed such that at the time of monochrome printing the photoreceptor drums for colors are stopped rotating while all the developing units are constantly applied with a high voltage. Further, the cumulative operation time in which the black photoreceptor drum has been operated for monochrome printing is calculated so that the color-printing photoreceptor drums which are stopped during monochrome printing are rotationally driven by a predetermined angle when the cumulative operation time exceeds predetermined fixed time. Thus, the surface of each color-printing photoreceptor drum that is being worn is restored by making the fresh surface of the drum oppose the associated color developing unit, whereby it is possible to prevent occurrence of defects on the surface of each photoreceptor drum.

Image forming apparatus and drive control method of the same

An image forming apparatus that includes: an image forming portion for forming an image in accordance with image data contained in an input command; and a controller for controlling the image forming portion, and is constructed such that the controller includes: a mode switch for switching the image forming portion from a standby mode in which image forming is instantly enabled into a power-saving mode in which power supply to the image forming portion is partially stopped when no subsequent command has been received after a predetermined period elapsed from when image forming portion was operated last; a mode restoring portion for restoring the image forming portion from power-saving mode to standby mode when a subsequent command is received; and an image quality controller for performing image quality control of the image every time a predetermined time elapsed from when the image forming portion was last operated, and the image quality controller starts execution of the image quality control before the mode restoring portion restores the image forming portion from the power-saving mode to the standby mode.

Image forming apparatus with power saving sleep mode

A developing device includes a developing roller and a blade. The developing roller includes: a developing sleeve which rotates while holding two-component developer composed of toner and magnetic carrier on the outer surface having a plurality of grooves extending in parallel to an axis of the rotation; and a magnetic member, provided inside the developing sleeve in such a manner as to be unrotatable, for attracting the two-component developer onto the outer surface of the developing sleeve. The blade is provided outside the rotating sleeve with a gap from the outer surface of the developing sleeve for scraping off a part of the two-component developer on the outer surface of the developing sleeve. Also, the magnetic member includes a magnet for controlling magnetic flux density in the gap to range from 70 mT to 150 mT. This allows preventing image degradation caused by generation of development memory.

Developing device and image forming apparatus having a developing roller with a grooved sleeve

The image forming apparatus according to the present invention carries out intake and exhaust so as to generate air flow between a photoconductor drum and a charger in a long side direction of the charger. As a result, it is possible to always exhaust O, NOx, and the like caused by corona discharge. Therefore, it is possible to always form a high-quality image without deterioration of images caused by charge unevenness.

Image forming apparatus including a charger and intake/exhaust

An image forming apparatus of the present invention includes main control section for controlling the charging control section and the development bias control section so that a potential difference between the photoconductor potential and the development bias potential in developer discharge from the development section is smaller than that in the image forming. Therefore, even when an amount of developer in the development section decreases due to developer discharge, increase of beads-carry-over onto the photoconductor from the development section can be prevented. Accordingly, damage to the photoconductor or image errors due to incomplete cleaning that are caused by beads-carry-over can be prevented.

Image forming apparatus, method of controlling same, program for controlling, and recording medium for program

In an optical discharge apparatus used in an electrographic image forming apparatus, by forming, on a light guiding member, a diffusing reflecting face for reflecting light from an LED lamp towards a photosensitive drum, and by supplementing the amount of light by altering the height of the diffusing reflecting face to the light emitting face and the width of the diffusing reflecting face in accordance with their distance from the light source, the light intensity distribution of the irradiating light that is irradiated onto the photosensitive drum is made uniform. An optical discharge apparatus may include a light guiding member arranged facing a photoreceptor; and a light source, a diffusing reflecting face for reflecting the light from the light source toward the photoreceptor is formed on the light guiding member, and a reflecting member is arranged on an upper face in the vicinity of an end portion of the light guiding member.

Optical discharge apparatus and image forming apparatus containing the same

The developing device according to the present invention includes a developing tank for containing two-component developer, a toner density sensor, and a toner cartridge. Further, the developing device according to the present invention includes a control section for inputting, to the toner density sensor, a control voltage (Vc) for correcting a sensor output. The control section sets the control voltage (Vc), by using a standard control voltage having been set so as to correspond to each of the stirring velocities, so that a sensor output (Vo) has a value within a range indicative of predetermined toner density. With the arrangement, it is possible to set the toner density sensor so that the toner density sensor operates in the most suitable manner so as to correspond to each of the stirring velocities, thereby realizing a developing device capable of detecting toner density with high accuracy.

Developing device with corrected toner density sensing, control method, and computer-readable storage medium

An image forming apparatus is arranged such that one reference test pattern image expressed in a tone expression is formed on the predetermined image bearing member, the tone expression being different from a tone expression of an image formed in the print modes that carry out a normal print process, and density of the formed reference test pattern image is detected, and subsequently sets of density correction data for the print modes are created based upon the detected density.

Image forming apparatus and density correction data creation method used therein

One embodiment of an image correction method is an image correction method for correcting image forming condition(s). The image correction method includes forming, on photoreceptor(s), correction test pattern(s) having continuously varying toner gradation; wherein a single correction test pattern in which density is varied in sequence from high to low in paper transport direction(s) is formed as a result of controlling exposing unit laser power(s) while photoreceptor charging potential(s) is/are held constant, or while develop bias(es) is/are held constant, or while photoreceptor charging potential(s) is/are held constant and develop bias(es) is/are held constant. In such case, total length(s) in paper transport direction(s) of such correction test pattern(s) is/are less than or equal to circumference(s) of photoreceptor(s).

Image correction method and image forming apparatus

An information processing apparatus includes a motion information receiving portion that receives multiple pieces of motion information, which is time-series information, a motion information alteration portion that alters a positional relationship in a time axis direction between the multiple pieces of the motion information, a correlation information acquisition portion that acquires, for multiple pieces of the motion information, correlation information, which is information relating to a correlation between pieces of the motion information, and a motion information acquisition portion that acquires, based on the correlation information acquired by the correlation information acquisition portion, multiple pieces of the motion information having a positional relationship in the time axis direction at which the correlation between the pieces of the motion information is optimal. This configuration makes it possible to align multiple pieces of information relating to motion in a good balance as a whole, without disturbing their original waveforms.

Information processing apparatus and program

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Mitsuru Tokuyama