Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Konica Corporation

Konica Minolta Technosearch Co., Ltd.

Toshiki Hayami

Hidetoshi Katayanagi

Hajime Tanaka

Satoshi Nishida

Masashi Saito

Masami Maruko

Masato Kubota

Takeshi Maeyama

Daisuke Murakami

Hiroshi Funabiki

Kazunori Katada

Takashi Kawanago

Tomo Kitada

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 intermediate transfer belt (image carrier) includes a first layer and a surface layer disposed on the first layer and including an inorganic oxide containing an organic component, in which when the surface layer has a layer thickness of A &#x3bc;m and the first layer has a ten-point average roughness of B &#x3bc;m, a relationship of 0.25&#xd7;A&#x2264;B is satisfied.

Image carrier and image forming apparatus

An image formation apparatus includes: a plurality of image formers each of which is provided for each color and forms a toner image; a plurality of image carriers each of which is provided in accordance with each of the image formers and carries the toner image formed by each image former; a first intermediate transfer body on which multiple toner images are formed; a secondary transferor that secondarily transfers to a sheet, the multiple toner images formed on the first intermediate transfer body; and an adhesion force reducer that is provided between a position where the multiple toner images are formed on the first intermediate transfer body and a secondary transfer position of the secondary transferor and that reduces an adhesion force of toner included in the multiple toner images formed on the first intermediate transfer body.

Image formation apparatus and image formation method

An electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes: an electrostatic latent image retainer; an intermediate transfer body; a primary transfer member to transfer toner image retained by the electrostatic latent image retainer to an imaging region of the intermediate transfer body; a secondary transfer member to transfer the transferred toner image from the intermediate transfer body to a transfer medium; a toner forcible discharger to forcibly discharge toner into a non-imaging region of the intermediate transfer body; and a controller to control a volume of the toner to be forcibly discharged. The intermediate transfer body is a multi-layer belt including a base layer and an outermost coating layer. The coating layer contains silicon dioxide. The controller reduces the volume of the toner to be forcibly discharged based on use history information of the intermediate transfer body, compared to the volume at an initial stage of use.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus and electrophotographic image forming method

A transfer device includes a voltage applying section configured to apply a transfer bias to a transfer member, and a control section configured to control the voltage applying section to apply a transfer bias in which a first application period for applying a first transfer bias and a second application period for applying a second transfer bias are alternately provided to the transfer member when a first sheet having a small surface smoothness passes through a nip.

Transfer device, image forming apparatus and recording medium

An image forming apparatus includes: an image forming unit which forms a toner image on an image carrier; a conveying unit which conveys a recording medium; a transfer unit which transfers the toner image formed on the image carrier to the recording medium conveyed by the conveying unit in a transfer nip; a pre-transfer charging unit which imparts an electrical charge, having a polarity opposite to a normal charge polarity of a toner, to the recording medium conveyed by the conveying unit on an upstream side of the transfer nip in a conveyance direction; and a destaticizing unit which removes a part of the electrical charge that is imparted to a surface of the recording medium by the pre-transfer charging unit and corresponds to unevenness on the surface of the recording medium on an upstream side of the transfer nip in the conveyance direction.

Image forming apparatus that imparts an electrical charge to a recording medium

A volume resistivity RA of an elastic layer of an intermediate transferrer is larger than a volume resistivity RB of a base layer of the intermediate transferrer under a HT/HH environment, and is smaller than RB under a LT/LH environment. A transfer device includes the intermediate transferrer. A volume resistivity RC of a transfer member of the transfer device is smaller than RA and RB under any temperature or humidity environment. An image forming apparatus includes the transfer device. The apparatus can suppress the occurrence of a transfer failure due to a change in temperature or humidity.

Intermediate transferrer, transfer device, and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a transfer member, a controller, a discharge electrode, a detector, and a storage section. The controller, based on an amount of change between parameter value detected by the detector after transfer by the transfer member and parameter value stored in the storage section, determines voltage necessary for the discharge electrode to take the same amount of current as an increase in transfer current of the transfer member from previously determined transfer current and applies the determined voltage to the discharge electrode.

Image forming apparatus and method of controlling transfer current in the image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus, including: an image carrier; an image forming section to form a toner image on the image carrier; a transfer section to transfer the toner image formed on the image carrier to an intermediate transfer body or a recording sheet; a cleaning section to remove not transferred toner particles remaining on the image carrier, an image covering density calculating section to calculate an average image covering density of the toner image formed on plural areas divided in a lateral direction of the image carrier, during a predetermined time period; an obtaining section to obtain a difference of the average image covering density in each divided area, based on the image covering density calculated by the image covering density calculating section; and an adjusting section to adjust an amount of abrasive particles to be supplied to each divided area, based on the differences obtained by the obtaining section.

Image forming apparatus with image covering density calculating section

An image forming apparatus which forms a toner image, includes: an image carrier which carries the toner image thereon; a transfer section which interposes a transfer member at a transfer nip between the image carrier and the transfer section thereby to transfer the toner image on the image carrier onto the transfer member; a voltage applying member provided downstream of the transfer nip in a moving direction of the transfer member; a power source section which applies a voltage to the voltage applying member; and a control section which controls the voltage applied by the power source section. The control section controls the power source section to apply a prescribed voltage to the voltage applying member so that the prescribed voltage has the same polarity as that of a toner used in the apparatus and the voltage applying member does not carry out a self-discharge to the transfer member.

Image forming apparatus having transfer device

An image forming apparatus, includes: a fixation device comprising a plurality of heaters; and a control unit which performs energization control for the plurality of heaters, wherein any one of at least three priorities which are first, second and third priorities for energizing the plurality of heaters so that power consumptions of the heaters does not exceed a predetermined total power consumption is given to each of the plurality of heaters in response to an operation state of the image forming apparatus, and the control unit performs the energization control for the heaters to which the first priority and the second priority are given when the image forming apparatus is in the operation state, does not energize the heater to which the third priority is given while the heater to which the second priority is given is energized, and performs the energization control for the heater to which the third priority is given while the heater to which the second priority is given is not energized.

Image forming apparatus for fixing an image

An image forming apparatus having a fixing device for fixing toner including wax on a transfer sheet including a fixing rotating member for fixing toner on the transfer sheet with a rotation thereof, and first cleaning member contacting to the fixing rotating member so as to remove melted wax on the fixing rotating member. A surface roughness Rz of the first cleaning member is not more than 1.6 &#x3bc;m.

Image forming apparatus having a fixing device for fixing toner including wax on a transfer sheet

The fixing apparatus prevents transfer paper from sticking or jamming. This fixing apparatus is intended to fix polymerized toner on transfer material and has a heating roller and a pressure roller. The difference in hardness between the heating roller and pressure roller is 5 through 10 degrees in AskerC, and the hardness of the pressure roller is higher than that of the heating roller. A fixing nip portion, convex-shaped on the side closest to the heating roller, is formed between the heating roller and pressure roller and the nip pressure of the fixing nip portion is 24.5 N/cm or more.

Fixing apparatus

An image forming apparatus equipped with a heat fixing device includes a heating member having an elastic layer on a substrate and a fluorine resin coated on the elastic layer, a pressure member having a substrate covered with a fluorine resin tube through an elastic layer or without the elastic layer in pressure contact with the heating member, and at least one heater as a heat source. The surface roughness of the fluorine resin of the heating member is greater than the surface roughness of the fluorine resin tube of the pressure member.

Fixing device with specific surface roughness

A fixing apparatus includes a fixing roller, a fixing belt forming a nip between them, a heat source for heating at least one of the rollers, wherein a recording medium carrying an unfixed toner image passes through the nip to perform fixing operation, and a flattener having a conveyance roller and a pressure contact member which is in pressure contact with the conveyance roller, which is provided downstream in the conveying direction of the recording medium of the nip. A convex shape of the nip formed by the fixing roller and the fixing belt, and a convex shape of a nip of the flattener formed by the conveyance roller and the pressure contact member are arranged to have opposite directions to each other, when viewed from a direction perpendicular to the conveyance direction of the recording medium.

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Hachioji, Japan

Toshiki Hayami