Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica-minolta Holdings, Inc.

Takeshi Maeyama

Junya Hirayama

Shigeo Uetake

Toshiya Natsuhara

Masahiko Matsuura

Makiko Watanabe

Atsuto Hirai

Kunitomo Sasaki

Nofumi Mizumoto

Satoshi Nishida

Yuji Nagatomo

Tomo Kitada

Yuuya Sato

Daisuke Murakami

Toshiki Hayami

Hirofumi Nakagawa

Takashi Kawanago

Yuya Sato

Yasuo Shirodai

A cleaning device includes a thin plate-shaped first blade that cleans a surface of a toner carrying body by making a tip portion come in contact with the toner carrying body to carry toner. The first blade includes a substrate and a coat layer covering a surface of the substrate. In the first blade, a cross-sectional shape, in a thickness direction, of the tip portion is a convex shape, or a protruding shape in which a center side protrudes more than an end portion of a contact side.

Cleaning device and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus which forms a toner image on an image carrier based on image formation data, and transfers the toner image onto a sheet having an unevenness on a surface and forms an image, the image forming apparatus including a hardware processor which detects a parameter value regarding a charging amount of a toner that forms the toner image, sets a size of a dot of the toner image according to the detected parameter value, and generates the image formation data of the dot of the set size.

Image forming apparatus and computer readable storage medium storing program

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a latent image forming device, a developer, an intermediate transfer belt, a second transfer device, a cleaner, an abutting angle adjuster and a hardware processor. The intermediate transfer belt supports and carries a toner image which is transferred from the image carrier by primary transfer. The second transfer device performs secondary transfer to transfer the toner image transferred on the intermediate transfer belt to a recording medium. The cleaner abuts the intermediate transfer belt to remove toner attached to a surface of the intermediate transfer belt. The abutting angle adjuster adjusts an abutting angle between the cleaner and the intermediate transfer belt. The hardware processor controls the abutting angle adjuster to maintain the abutting angle at a predetermined angle.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method for cleaning the intermediate transfer belt

The present wet development device includes a developer carrying member, a supply member that supplies a liquid developer to the developer carrying member, a charger that charges the liquid developer on the developer carrying member, a cleaner that removes the liquid developer on the developer carrying member, and a bias applying member that applies alternating bias in contact with the developer carrying member before removing by the cleaner. In a direction in alignment with an axis of rotation of the developer carrying member, a range to which the alternating bias is applied by the bias applying, member is located within a range in which the liquid developer is supplied onto the developer carrying member.

Wet development device and wet image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a rotatable image carrier; an image forming unit configured to form an electrostatic latent image on the image carrier based on information defining at least one of a toner region and a non-toner region; a development unit configured to develop the electrostatic latent image as a toner image; a cleaning unit configured to remove toner remaining on the image carrier, after transfer of the toner image; an application unit configured to apply lubricant on the image carrier; and a hardware processor configured to control an amount of the lubricant applied, calculate a ratio of a toner region for each of regions obtained by dividing a surface of the image carrier in a direction perpendicular to a rotation direction of the image carrier, and control the amount of the lubricant applied according to a difference between a maximum value and a minimum value of the ratio.

Image forming apparatus and method for controlling an amount of lubricant applied on the image carrier

An image forming apparatus includes: an image carrier; an image forming unit configured to form, on the image carrier, an electrostatic latent image; a developing unit including a toner carrier configured to develop, on the image carrier, a toner image corresponding to the electrostatic latent image; an application unit configured to apply a lubricant onto the image carrier; a calculation unit configured to calculate an image portion ratio representing a ratio of a toner sticking region to the electrostatic latent image or the toner image; and a control unit configured to cause the lubricant mixed into the developing unit to stick to the toner carrier, and change, depending on the image portion ratio, an amount of the lubricant caused to stick to a non-image-formation region which is a region on the image carrier and in which the electrostatic latent image or the toner image is not formed.

Image forming apparatus, control method, and non-transitory storage medium encoded with computer readable program

The present wet-type developing device includes: a developer carrier for carrying a wet-type developer, which contains a charged toner particle and carrier liquid, and supplying the wet-type developer to an image carrier on which an electrostatic latent image is formed; a charge neutralizing unit for neutralizing a charge of the toner particle contained in the wet-type developer remaining on the developer carrier after supplying the wet-type developer to the image carrier; a dispersing unit for dispersing the toner particle in the carrier liquid by acting on the toner particle contained in the wet-type developer neutralized in charge by the charge neutralizing unit; and a removing unit for removing, from the developer carrier, the wet-type developer containing the toner particle dispersed by the dispersing unit.

Wet-type developing device and wet-type image forming apparatus

A wet-type developing device and a wet-type image forming apparatus each employ a developer including a carrier liquid and toner particles dispersed in the carrier liquid. A charging unit is applied with positive voltage. A neutralizing unit is applied with negative voltage. The charging unit and the neutralizing unit are made different from each other in one of a sectional configuration and a length to a developer carrier such that an absolute value of a voltage-current characteristic of the neutralizing unit becomes smaller than an absolute value of a voltage-current characteristic of the neutralizing unit including a constituent element equal to a constituent element of the charging unit.

Wet-type developing device and wet-type image forming apparatus with charging unit and neutralizing unit

In the present wet-type image formation apparatus, when setting a standard image formation condition, a control unit adjusts both a conveyance amount of toner and a charge amount of the toner in order to obtain a predetermined developing characteristic. During normal image formation, the control unit obtains the image density of a patch image formed at a high contrast potential and the image density of a patch image formed at a low contrast potential, adjusts the conveyance amount of the toner when the image density of the patch image formed at the high contrast potential is varied from the developing characteristic for the standard image formation condition, and adjusts the charge amount of the toner when the image density of the patch image formed at the low contrast potential is varied from the developing characteristic for the standard image formation condition.

Wet-type image formation apparatus adjusting toner conveyance amount and toner charge amount

When a toner charging amount for toner in a liquid developer conveyed to a development portion is set, a wet-type image formation apparatus performs a sensing operation in which a sensing unit senses image densities of a plurality of patch images formed at different development biases with the toner charging amount being set to a constant value, and a setting operation in which, in a case where a control unit calculates current development characteristics based on the image densities of the plurality of patch images sensed by the sensing unit, and determines that the current development characteristics are not included within a set target range, the control unit controls a charging unit to set the toner charging amount such that the development characteristics are included within the set target range.

Wet-type image formation apparatus

In a wet-type image forming apparatus, a plurality of patch images are successively transferred to a recording medium corresponding to a plurality of transfer biases obtained as bias value of the transfer bias is changed; density detecting unit measures image density of each of the plurality of patch images on the recording medium and detects a range of bias values of transfer bias in which the image density of patch image is substantially saturated; and the bias value of transfer bias when a normal image is formed on the recording medium is set to be within the range of bias values of transfer bias in which the image density of patch image is substantially saturated and to be not larger than absolute value of the bias value at which the image density of patch image is substantially saturated.

Wet-type image forming apparatus and method of setting transfer bias in wet-type image forming apparatus

A wet-type image forming apparatus includes a density detection unit and a charge amount control unit for controlling the charge amount of toner on a liquid developer carrier. An image forming unit forms patch images while the charge amount control unit successively changes the charge amount of toner on the liquid developer carrier in a state in which a development bias is held at a prescribed value. The density detection unit detects the image density of each patch image thereby detecting a range of the charge amount of toner in which the image density of the patch image is almost saturated. The charge amount of toner in normal image formation is set to be equal to or greater than the range of the charge amount of toner in which the image density of the patch image is almost saturated.

Wet-type image forming apparatus

A development apparatus and an image forming apparatus wherein optical high-precision detection of the toner amount of a toner layer formed on a toner carrying member is ensured even when the great amount of the toner is deposited on the toner carrying member by transferring all or a part of the toner on the surface of the toner carrying member onto a detecting roller, and wherein stable images are provided at all times.

Development apparatus and image forming apparatus using the same

A paper conveying device includes an intermediate transfer member and a paper conveying member driven so as to rotate at the same rotational speed, and an adjusting device. On an outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer member, an elastic layer is provided. An axes distance between the intermediate transfer member and the paper conveying member is adjusted by the adjusting device so that drive torque for rotating the intermediate transfer member and the paper conveying member at the same rotational speed becomes smaller than a target set value. Accordingly, occurrence of the shear is suppressed without changing a rotational speed ratio of rollers arranged opposite to each other.

Paper conveying device, image forming apparatus, and push-in amount adjusting method

Provided is a deposited-toner measuring apparatus capable of accurate detection of the amount of toner deposited on the toner carrying member, and an image forming apparatus equipped with the aforementioned measuring apparatus and capable of controlling the amount of toner deposited on the toner carrying member to a desired level so as to provide stable image quality at all times. A deposited-toner measuring apparatus that removes a toner layer in a part of the surface of the toner carrying member, detects change in the capacitance at the portion with a toner layer and the portion without such a toner layer, and detects the amount of the deposited toner based on the detection result of the said change in the capacitance.

Deposited toner measuring apparatus having a capacitor and a capacitance change detector for detecting a change in capacitance of the capacitor, and an image formation apparatus, and method for controlling image formation apparatus related thereto

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Ikeda, Japan

Takeshi Maeyama