Minolta Company, Ltd.

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Konica Minolta, Inc.

Teruhiko Fujikura

Akira Takasu

Toshikazu Higashi

Tomonobu Tamura

Munehiro Natsume

Yuji Kobayashi

Tadayuki Ueda

Yoshihito Sasamoto

Satoshi Miyajima

Katsuyuki Ikuta

Mutsuto Oe

Kenichi Hayashi

Kenji Matsuhara

Eiji Nishikawa

Takahiro Tsujimoto

Akinori Kimata

Makoto Fujii

Toru Kasamatsu

Yuta Tachibana

Naoyoshi Kinoshita

Takanobu Shiki

Kou Yamada

Yoshihiko Sezukuri

Hideki Matsuura

Ichiro Bessho

Yasushi Hieno

Shintarou Ono

Iwao Fujii

An image forming apparatus forms decision registration mark for deciding whether or not a color registration correction for correcting color shifts in the color image carries out on an intermediate transfer belt. The decision registration mark is formed by registering four color registration marks. Color registration sensors detect a detection width of the decision registration mark along a sub scanning direction. A control portion receives the detection width of the decision registration mark and decides whether or not the color registration correction carries out based on whether or not the detection width of the decision mark detected by the detection portion exceeds the period of reference time. When the detection width of the decision mark detected by the detection portion exceeds the period of reference time, the control portion carries out the color registration correction.

Image forming apparatus

A mount damper comprises electrode plates placed on a motor side and a support body side respectively, a control unit for adjusting voltage between the electrode plates, and an electrostrictive polymer member for changing a distance between the electrode plates by the voltage therebetween. The electrostrictive polymer member is also an elastic body sandwiched between the electrode plates and has a hardness changeable with a change in the interelectrode distance. A motor is mounted through this mount damper. The control unit adjusts voltage applied between the electrode plates to a value different from a value causing resonance of the motor and the electrostrictive polymer member, thereby absorbing vibration of the motor during rotation thereof, irrespective of a rotation speed. Thus, the mount damper and the image forming apparatus using it can reliably prevent resonance and absorb vibration constantly even if a device selectively uses plural levels of the rotation speed.

Mount damper and image forming apparatus using the mount damper

The present invention is capable of changing the system speed quickly and highly accurately while using a CVT device with an advantage in its quietness to transmit a driving force to rotative parts. Specifically, in the case of using a sheet of thick paper as a recording sheet, the controller changes, for each of the pulleys, the distance between the pulley segments (S) while starting up the DC motor as the driving source (S). After that, the controller performs the feedback control on the rotation of the DC motor, based on a detection signal received from the encoder of the load shaft of the driven pulley, to achieve the target rotation speed of the load shaft (S: NO, S).

Provided are an image forming apparatus, a fixing device, and an image forming system using the same, including: an image forming section for transferring a toner image onto a recording sheet; a first and second fixing rollers for thermally fixing the toner image on the recording sheet; a first and second temperature sensors each provided at a plurality of positions in a longitudinal direction of the fixing roller; and a rocking section for reciprocally shifting at least one of the fixing rollers in the longitudinal direction of the fixing roller, wherein the temperature gradient of each of the fixing rollers is detected, a central position of reciprocal shift of one fixing roller which can be shifted is set such that the temperature gradient of the other fixing roller is cancelled, and then the one fixing roller is reciprocally shifted by the rocking section.

Image forming apparatus, fixing device, and image forming system using the same

In order to facilitate an input of a process condition for allowing any of a plurality of image forming apparatuses to form an image, a PC communicative to a plurality of MFPs connected via a network obtains function information defining a function held by each of a plurality of MFPs, displays a common condition setting window for accepting an input of a process condition for performing a common function held by all of a plurality of image forming apparatuses, based on the obtained function information, accepts an input of a process condition, and outputs the accepted process condition to any one of a plurality of MFPs.

Information processing apparatus for setting process condition for allowing any of plurality of image forming apparatuses connected to network to form image, image formation condition setting method, and image formation condition setting program stored on a computer readable recording medium

A controller of a color copier according to the invention includes a drive controller section, a pattern generation section, and a velocity information acquisition section. The drive controller section changes the phase relationship in rotation angle between a drive roller driving the transfer belt and individual photosensitive drums of a plurality of imaging sections. The pattern generation section forms registered marks on the transfer belt by using the plurality of imaging sections before and after the drive controller section changes the phase relationship. The velocity information acquisition section acquires at least one of a velocity fluctuation component of individual photosensitive drums and a velocity fluctuation component of the transfer belt in accordance with the result of sensing by a mark sensor for two registered marks formed by the pattern generation section.

Imaging apparatus and imaging method therefore

Rotational force of a driving motor is transferred to a photosensitive drum via a planetary-roller reduction device, so that the photosensitive drum is rotated. A speed detector set on the shaft of the photosensitive drum detects the rotational speed of the photosensitive drum. In accordance with the detected rotational speed of the photosensitive drum, the rotational speed of the driving motor is adjusted so that the photosensitive drum is rotated at a constant speed.

Rotator driving device, image forming apparatus using the rotator driving device, and method of driving rotator

A rotational shaft of a photosensitive drum is connected to a rotational shaft of a stepping motor by a coupling, so that the stepping motor directly drives the photosensitive drum. Here, &thgr; (&deg;) indicating a step angle of the stepping motor, p (mm) indicating a distance between scanning lines on the photosensitive drum, &pgr; indicating the circular constant, and d (mm) indicating a diameter of the photosensitive drum are set so as to satisfy an equation n&middot;&thgr;&equals;(360&middot;p)/(&pgr;&middot;d) to make an optical unit scan the photosensitive drum by one scanning line every time the photosensitive drum is made to rotate n steps, n being a positive integer.

Image forming apparatus having photosensitive drum driven by stepping motor

In an image forming apparatus which forms images by transferring to a transfer drum a toner image formed on the surface of the photosensitive member directly driven by a stepping motor, the relationship between the stepping angle '.theta.' (.degree.) of the stepping motor and the rotational speed 'N' (rpm) of the photosensitive drum is expressed by the equation .theta..ltoreq.(360.times.N)/(60.times.a.times.b). Where 'a' is a natural number, optimally 10, which is less than the initial predetermined tolerance value when the harmonic content of rotational variation generated by the step period of the stepping motor is '1/a', and 'b' is the target frequency (Hz) of 100.

An apparatus and method for eliminating position deviations of a photosensitive drum which is rotated by a stepping motor driven by full step and half step drive pulses. The apparatus includes a photosensitive drum, a stepping motor which rotates the photosensitive drum; and a controller which controls the stepping motor to be driven with half step drive pulses when the photosensitive drum is being scanned. In the apparatus and method, a scanning starting control is performed by driving the stepping motor by full step drive pulses so that salient poles of the rotor are aligned with salient poles of the stator such that the rotor is in a stable position. The full step drive pulses are switched to half step drive pulses before scanning is started, and the scanning of the photosensitive drum is started on an even numbered half step drive pulse.

Method and apparatus for eliminating positional deviations of a

An image forming apparatus is provided with a printer section for printing an image on a sheet and a sorter having a plurality of bin trays. Printed sheets discharged from the above printer section are discharged onto the designated bin tray corresponding to the destination of the print job among the plurality of bin trays. There are provided a page number counting section for counting the number of pages of the print job and a capacity changing section for increasing the capacity of the designated bin tray when the number of pages of the print job is greater than a specified number. This image forming apparatus can improve the ease of use in a mail bin mode.

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Toyokawa, Japan

Teruhiko Fujikura