Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Konica Minolta, Inc.

Takashi Harashima

Katsuyuki Hirata

Tetsuya Sakai

Soh Hirota

Hironori Akashi

Hideaki Tanaka

Kazuomi Sakatani

Toru Yamaguchi

Masahiro Kouzaki

Tatsuya Isono

Kazuhiro Saito

Toshio Tsuboi

Masaki Tanaka

Daiki Yamanaka

Mitsuru Obara

Takaaki Kooriya

Kanako Kibihara

Osamu Yamada

Takahiro Kusunoki

An image forming apparatus includes a pressure roller, a driver that drives rotation of the pressure roller, an endless fixing belt, a pressing member that is provided inside the fixing belt and opposite to the pressure roller and forms a nip portion in which the fixing belt and the pressure roller come into contact with each other, a pressing force adjustment mechanism that adjusts a pressing force for pressing one of the pressure roller and the pressing member toward another one of the pressure roller and the pressing member, and a drive controller that controls the pressing force adjustment mechanism and the driver to rotate the pressure roller with the pressing force being smaller than a normal value defined for a normal state.

Image forming apparatus,adjustment method and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium encoded with adjustment program

An image inspection apparatus includes: a light source configured to emit white light onto a test image formed on a paper sheet; an optical lens system configured to receive light reflected by the paper sheet, the reflected light being of the white light emitted from the light source; a separating unit configured to separate light having passed through the optical lens system; a reading unit configured to receive the separated light at the different wavelengths, and optically read the test image of the light; and a control unit configured to calculate edge blurs at a rising edge and a falling edge of each set of image data of the light obtained by the reading unit reading the test image, calculate widths of the test image, and determine the width calculated from the set of image data having the smallest edge blur to be the width of the test image.

Image inspection apparatus that determines a line width of a test image, and image forming apparatus

In image-checking equipment, a detector reads a line-shaped check image formed on a sheet and acquires image data on the check image. A controller calculates an edge blur in a rising edge and a falling edge of the image data, calculates a line width of the check image. The controller refers to a correction table with the measured values of the edge blur and the line width of the check image, and acquires a corrected line width value based on the correction table to obtain the real line width of the check image.

Equipment to determine line width of check image and image-forming apparatus using the same

In an image-forming apparatus such as a printer, a controller judges whether or not a determination processing of fixity saturation state is performed to determine a fixing condition in which an image density of a patch is the fixity saturation state. The controller then performs the determination processing of fixity saturation state when a use condition is changed. The controller settles fixing conditions in which the image density of patch is highest as the set value when the image density of the patch is saturated. Next, the controller performs a toner adhesion amount adjustment using an intermediate transfer belt. A target value of the toner adhesion amount on the intermediate transfer belt corresponding to the target image density is set and then, an optimal developing voltage that is the set target value is set. After the toner adhesion amount adjustment, the controller performs fixity adjustment.

Image-forming apparatus with controller and fixing portion to control toner adhesion amount

An image forming apparatus has a detector that includes a toner density sensor arranged on the downstream side of a fixing section. When performing a control to determine an image forming condition of an image forming section based on the detection result of an image-adjusting pattern image obtained by the detector, the temperatures of a plurality of points in the axial direction of the fixing section are detected by a fixing temperature detector. Further, based on the temperature detection values obtained by the fixing temperature detector, a controller sets a detection area of the detector in a place where the fixing temperature is equal to a desired temperature, so that the detector detects the information about the image-adjusting pattern image at such place.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a detection unit detecting information about an image-adjusting pattern image fixed to a paper; a determination unit which, on the basis of an image-noise detecting pattern image that is formed on the paper prior to forming the image-adjusting pattern image, determines the presence or absence of an image noise generated in the image-adjusting pattern image; and a control unit. On the basis of the determination result of the determination unit, the control unit sets a detection region where the detection unit detects information about the image-adjusting pattern image, to a region where the image noise is not generated, and determines the image forming condition by using the information detected in the detection region.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An image forming apparatus and a gradation correction method for the same are provided. An image forming apparatus includes an image forming section that forms a plurality of patch bands in a plurality of positions in a main scanning direction on an image bearing member, each of the plurality of patch bands having a plurality of gradation patches disposed in a sub-scanning direction; a density detection section that detects densities of the plurality of patch bands; and a control section that performs gradation correction based on detection results from the density detection section. The plurality of patch bands differs from each other.

Image forming apparatus and gradation correction method for the same

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit, a storage unit, an image processing unit and a control unit. The image processing unit (i) calculates a summed height of a color toner image formed on a sheet by summing up a height of the color toner image on the basis of input image data, (ii) calculates, on the basis of a target value for glossiness stored in the storage unit, a target total height of the color toner image and a clear toner image to realize the target value for glossiness, and (iii) calculates a height of the clear toner image by subtracting the summed height from the target total height. On the basis of the calculated height of the clear toner image, the control unit adjusts the height of the clear toner image formed on the sheet.

Image forming apparatus () creates a toner pattern on intermediate transfer belt () as a preprocessing of gradation correction, and calculates a cycle at which density unevenness is largest. Then, a toner image for gradation correction is formed so as to cancel cyclic unevenness at a cycle at which the largest density unevenness occurs. As a result of this, it becomes possible to suppress the deterioration of density detection accuracy and perform a highly accurate gradation correction even if density unevenness of any cycle occurs.

Image forming apparatus and gradation correction method with density unevenness detection

An image forming apparatus has an image bearing member that moves at a specified speed; a toner pattern forming section for forming toner patterns of a specified type on the image bearing member under specified image forming conditions; a toner pattern detection member for detecting the toner patterns formed on the image bearing member; a toner amount varying section for varying a target amount of toner to adhere to the toner patterns; and a control section that calculates a toner adherence amount and a toner adherence position from detection results outputted from the toner pattern detection member and that performs image stabilization control to adjust the image forming conditions based on the calculation results. In the image stabilization control, the control section uses detection results of the same toner patterns both to calculate the toner adherence amount and to calculate the toner adherence position.

Image forming apparatus that performs image stabilization control

A color image forming apparatus having photosensitive members; developing devices for developing electrostatic latent images formed on the photosensitive members into toner images with developers comprising toner and carriers; toner concentration sensors for detecting toner concentrations of the developers in the respective developing devices; a toner image bearing member for bearing the toner images temporarily; a toner adherence amount sensor for detecting toner adherence amounts of the toner images held on the image bearing member; and a controller for calculating, with respect to the developing devices, individual optimal developing bias voltage ranges within which a target toner adherence amount can be achieved while the toner concentrations of the developers are within a predetermined toner concentration range from a lower limit to an upper limit, so as to specify a common optimal developing bias voltage range that are commonly suitable for all the developing devices to achieve the target toner adherence amount while the toner concentrations of the developers in the developing devices are within the predetermined toner concentration range, and for calculating target toner concentrations of the developers in the respective developing devices to achieve the target toner adherence amount while a voltage within the common optimal developing bias voltage range is applied between each of the photosensitive members and each of the developing devices.

Color image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus of the invention includes an image carrier, an exposure device performing exposure for forming a toner image on a surface of the image carrier and having at least a first exposure light source and a second exposure light source, a sensor for detecting specified patterns, which are formed on the image carrier at a specified time with use of the first and second exposure light sources, a storing unit for storing a correlation, which is attained from a detection result by the sensor, between the first and second exposure light sources, and a controller for controlling the first and second exposure light sources based on the correlation.

Image forming apparatus, and exposure control method therefor

The present invention aims to provide an image forming apparatus and the like that perform a highly-accurate tone correction in a relatively short time and includes the following: a pattern former, with use of each image forming unit, on a sheet, forming tone patches in the main or sub scanning direction () and aligning markers, which indicate positions of the tone patches, in the same direction as the tone patches (); a pattern reader reading the sheet with the tone patches and markers formed thereon; a coordinate determiner determining coordinates of the tone patches in the direction of the aligned tone patches based on the read markers (); a density determiner determining densities of the tone patches () read based on the determined coordinates; and an updating part updating the tone correction table based on relationships between the determined densities and tone levels.

Image forming apparatus, tone correction method using tone patches and alignment markers, and computer-readable recording medium recorded with a tone correction program using tone patches and alignment markers

A tandem-type color image forming apparatus forms a toner pattern and toner markers on an intermediate transfer member. Tone levels in the toner pattern vary in a sub scanning direction, and the toner markers which are a same color with the tone pattern each oppose, in a main scanning direction, a different one of the tone level portions in the toner pattern, each tone level portion representing a different one of the tone levels. Positions of the toner markers in the sub scanning direction are determined to detect densities in the toner pattern corresponding to the determined positions. Tone of image data is corrected in an image formation based on a relationship between the densities and the tone levels corresponding to the determined positions.

Image forming apparatus and tone correction method

An image forming apparatus is provided with a control section which stores detection results of a toner sensor regarding detection patterns. When forming a plurality of detection patterns on an intermediate transfer belt, the control section determines circumference-directional lengths of the detection patterns formed this time, based on the detection results of the toner sensor regarding the detection patterns formed immediately before. Thereby, the waste toner amount and toner consumption are not only decreased but also the time taken to detect the density of a detection pattern is reduced, while maintaining the detecting accuracy thereof.

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Sagamihara, Japan

Takashi Harashima