Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Shotaro Hoshi

Yoshinori Nakagawa

Masahiko Shakuto

Hiroyuki Sugiyama

Tomoko Takahashi

Ryuji Yoshida

Taichi Urayama

Takamasa Ozeki

Ryusuke Mase

Hideki Zemba

Yusuke Mitani

Hiroaki Maeda

Yasunobu Takagi

Ryoh Tanoue

Ryota Kidera

Hiroki Atari

Tatsumi Yamada

An image forming apparatus include an image forming device, an image bearer, a transferrer, a cleaner, and an adhesion amount detector. The image forming device forms, on the image bearer, a toner image to be transferred to a recording medium and a toner image pattern to be input to the cleaner without being transferred to the recording medium. The cleaner cleans the image bearer. The adhesion amount detector detects a toner adhesion amount of the toner image. The toner image pattern is a belt-shaped pattern elongated in an orthogonal direction orthogonal to a traveling direction of the image bearer and having a greater amount of toner input to a portion of the cleaner corresponding to a position of the adhesion amount detector in the orthogonal direction than that input to a portion of the cleaner not corresponding to the position of the adhesion amount detector in the orthogonal direction.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus include a latent image bearer, charger, latent image forming unit, developing unit, receiver unit, transfer unit, information acquisition unit, and correction unit. The charger charges the latent image bearer with a predetermined charging potential. The latent image forming unit forms an electrostatic latent image on the latent image bearer. The developing unit develops the electrostatic latent image to form a toner image. The receiver unit receives the toner image from the talent image bearer. The transfer unit applies a predetermined transfer bias to transfer the toner image to the receiver unit. The information acquisition unit acquires residual image generation determination information. When predetermined residual image generation condition is satisfied, a correction unit corrects image forming condition such that surface potential unevenness of the latent image bearer subsequent to transfer is smaller than that generated where predetermined residual image generation condition is not satisfied.

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer rotating in a first direction while bearing a toner image thereon in a normal image forming operation; a toner image forming device to form the toner image on the image bearer; a transferring device to transfer the toner image to a recording medium eventually; a cleaning blade to block toner remaining on image bearer without being transferred; and a controller. The controller controls the image bearer to perform an inverse rotation operation in which the image bearer rotates in a second direction opposite to the first direction after controlling the toner image forming device to perform a special image forming operation such that the amount of toner input to the cleaning blade in the special image forming operation is greater than the amount of toner input to the cleaning blade in the normal image forming operation, and then stopping the image bearer.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method that remove toner from a cleaning blade for an image bearer by inversely rotating the image bearer

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image bearing member, a charging unit, a charging power source, a latent image writing unit, a development unit, a transfer unit, a toner detector, and a controller. The controller causes a background fog pattern to be formed on a surface of the latent image bearing member. In addition to the background fog pattern, the controller causes a latent image to be developed to form a toner image used for position identification on the surface of the latent image bearing member. The controller identifies a time when the toner image used for position identification has entered a detection range of the toner detector based on a change in outputs of the toner detector to determine a time when each of sections of the background fog pattern enters the detection range based on the identified time.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image carrier, a charging device, a latent image forming device, a developing device, a transfer device, a toner amount detector, and a control circuit to execute an imaging condition determination process. The control circuit obtains a linear approximation formula of a developing potential and an amount of toner according to an exposure potential of the patch pattern and a detected amount of toner to calculate a developing gamma and a developing start voltage according to a gradient of the linear approximation formula, determines target charging potential, exposure potential and developing bias according to the developing gamma and the developing start voltage, determines an amount of a background potential to be corrected according to a difference between the developing start voltage and a target developing start voltage obtained according to environmental information, and corrects the target charging potential.

Image forming apparatus and image density control method employed by the image forming apparatus

The image forming apparatus includes a process unit, a latent image writer, a power source, and a controller. The process unit is detachably attachable relative to the image forming apparatus and includes, as a single integrated unit, a latent image bearing member to bear a latent image on a surface thereof, a charging device to charge the surface of the latent image bearing member, and a development device to develop the latent image with toner. The controller causes the power source to output a charging bias at a predetermined target level supplied to the charging device. The process unit includes a first storage device to store correction information for calculating the predetermined target level of the charging bias in accordance with a combination of the latent image bearing member and the charging device. The controller corrects the predetermined target level based on the correction information in the first storage device.

An image forming apparatus includes a charging bias output device, a developing bias output device, a transfer bias output device, and a controller. The controller controls the transfer bias output device to supply a transfer bias from a time at which a first position of a photosensitive member arrives at a transfer position after the charging bias output device starts supplying a charging bias. An initial value of the transfer bias is controlled to be smaller than a normal set value for a predetermined time period which is a time after the transfer bias starts to be supplied and within a time corresponding to a rise time during which a surface potential of the photosensitive member reaches a predetermined potential after the charging bias starts to be output. The first position of the photosensitive member is a position at which the charging device starts charging the photosensitive member.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image carrier to carry a latent image on a surface thereof, a developing device to develop the latent image with toner to form a toner image on the surface of the latent image carrier, a transfer unit to transfer the toner image onto a recording medium, and a controller. The controller executes an image density adjustment control of adjusting a developing bias to obtain a target image density. The controller further executes a forced toner consumption control of forcibly consuming the toner contained in the developing device by attaching the toner to the latent image carrier to form a toner pattern on the surface of the latent image carrier. The controller executes the forced toner consumption control to forcibly consume a smaller amount of toner in response to a higher developing bias as adjusted by the image density adjustment control.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Shotaro Hoshi