Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Yasuhiro Ishihara

Toshiaki Tanaka

Satoshi Chikazawa

Kosuke Sasaki

Isao Watanabe

Kosuke Masumoto

Toshikazu Higashi

Katsuhide Sakai

Toshinori Inomoto

Masazumi Ito

Masahiro Kamiya

Shiro Umeda

Shigetaka Kato

Naoki Ohashi

Yuji Kobayashi

Hiroshi Yamaguchi

Yuhei Tatsumoto

Akihiro Hayashi

Harumitsu Fujimori

Takashi Honda

Natsuyo Higashi

Shigeo Ogino

Makoto Shimazoe

Kunio Furukawa

Toshiya Furubayashi

Munehiro Natsume

Yoshiki Nakazawa

Takahiro Doi

An image forming apparatus includes: a sheet feeding conveyor that feeds and conveys a recording medium to a conveyance path; an image former that performs image formation on the recording medium; a medium sensor that is disposed on an upstream side of the recording medium from the image former on the conveyance path and measures one or more sheet physical properties regarding the recording medium conveyed; a first hardware processor that determines a type of the recording medium on a basis of the sheet physical properties measured by the medium sensor; a second hardware processor that determines conveyance performance for the recording medium; and a third hardware processor that determines whether or not to perform the image formation on a basis of the conveyance performance in a case where the type of the recording medium determined by the first hardware processor is a type out of product specifications.

Image forming apparatus and control program

An image forming device includes: a sheet feeder that feeds a sheet; a controller that: discriminates a sheet type of the sheet, and receives a user input to specify a sheet type; and an image forming device that has two setting modes including an automatic discrimination mode in which an image is formed based on the discriminated sheet type and a user specified mode in which an image is formed based on the sheet type specified by the user input. The controller automatically switches one of the two setting modes to the other based on a defined condition.

Image forming device

A heater includes: a planar heat generator; a power supply circuit that controls supply of power to the planar heat generator; a plurality of temperature sensors that is provided on the planar heat generator and measures a temperature; and a hardware processor that detects abnormality of the temperature sensor in a case where a difference in temperature measured by each of two of the temperature sensors out of the plurality of temperature sensors exceeds an abnormality threshold value after a predetermined waiting time has elapsed since the supply of power to the planar heat generator is stopped.

Heater and inkjet printer

An image forming apparatus that forms an image on a sheet includes: a rotating body that forms the image; a motor that rotationally drives the rotating body; a current measurer that measures a motor current flowing through a current supply path including a winding of the motor at a measurement timing that is a timing after the motor is started; a torque acquisitor that acquires a torque value of the motor, based on a measured value of the motor current; and a corrector that performs correction to cancel a current change amount based on a characteristic change depending on a temperature state of the motor at the measurement timing, in acquisition of the torque value by the torque acquisitor.

Image forming apparatus

A power control apparatus that supplies an AC current to a load and adjusts a current amount by setting a portion of a phase range among each of half-wave periods of the AC current to be supplied as a conduction angle and setting the remainder as a non-conduction angle, includes: a reference value determiner that defines a period across a plurality of half-wave periods as a current determination period and that determines a reference value of the conduction angle; and a distribution processor that determines a distribution value to distribute the conduction angle and performs current amount adjustment by distributed conduction angles, wherein the distribution processor determines the distribution value within one current determination period such that the value includes a positive distribution value and a negative distribution value, and an average value of the distributed conduction angles is within &#xb1;2.5% with respect to the reference value.

Power control apparatus and image forming apparatus using the same

An image reading apparatus includes: three or more light sources configured to each emit light; a light receiving unit including a common light receiving surface configured to detect each light emitted; and an image generation unit configured to cause the three or more light sources to be switched over in a predetermined order and emit the corresponding light, and generate an image read from a document, wherein at least one of the three or more light sources includes a white light source and an optical filter, and the optical filter is configured such that a half-value width of a wavelength with respect to a maximum intensity of a spectral characteristic of the emitted light after transmission is wider than a half-value width of a wavelength with respect to a maximum intensity of the spectral characteristic of the light emitted from at least one of the other light sources.

Image reading apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: an array of m light-emitting elements extending in a main scanning direction, the m being an integer satisfying m&#x2267;3; a memory that stores a cumulative light emission time of each of the m light-emitting elements; a light intensity adjusting portion that obtains a light intensity adjusting value for the each light-emitting element; an activating portion that controls the activation and deactivation of the each light-emitting element with the light intensity adjusting value; and a selecting portion that selects n light-emitting elements from an end of the array, the n being an integer satisfying n&#x2267;2 and n&#x3c;m, wherein the activating portion forcibly activates the n light-emitting elements such that the cumulative light emission times of them are adjusted to a predetermined typical value less than the greatest value of cumulative light emission time among the m&#x2212;n light-emitting elements.

Image forming apparatus and light intensity adjusting method

An image display and photographing system includes a display device configured to display a target image on a surface; a photographing device configured to photograph the surface; a first detector configured to detect that an object moves away from a space between the surface and the photographing device; a second detector configured to detect that, after the first detector detects that the object moves away from the space, the surface is touched at a predetermined position; a third detector configured to detect that, after the second detector detects that the surface is touched at the predetermined position, the object moves away from the space; and a photographing control portion configured to control, after the third detector detects that the object moves away from the space, the photographing device to photograph the surface.

Image display and photographing system, photographing device, display device, image display and photographing method, and computer-readable storage medium for computer program

An image forming apparatus forms a toner image of text on a recording sheet based on PDL data prescribing text data and one or more print conditions of thereof, and thermally fixes the toner image, and includes: condition acquisition unit analyzing the PDL data to acquire, as the conditions, one or more of character number, character spacing, and line spacing from the PDL data; judgment unit judging for each condition, by comparing the condition with reference value, the judgment indicating whether the condition is suitable for ensuring fixability of the toner image if thermally fixed at a temperature that is lower than predetermined temperature; and temperature control unit, when the judgment unit judges negatively for at least one condition, setting a fixing temperature for thermally fixing the toner image to the predetermined temperature, when the judgment unit judges affirmatively for all conditions, setting the fixing temperature to the lower temperature.

Image forming apparatus and non-transitory recording medium having recorded therein temperature control program for use in image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a sheet feeding unit configured to feed a plurality of sheets to an image forming unit one by one; the image forming unit configured to form a toner image based on image data; a fixing unit configured to fix the toner image formed on each sheet by the image forming unit with a fixing member, the fixing unit including the fixing member configured to be brought into contact with each sheet supplied from the image forming unit and heat each sheet; a measuring unit configured to measure a temperature of the fixing member; and a control unit configured to instruct the fixing unit to start and stop a temperature increasing operation, and provide the image data to the image forming unit, wherein the control unit includes: a temperature drop rate calculating unit; a temperature rise rate predicting unit; and an instructing unit.

Image forming apparatus with fixing member temperature control

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming section to form a toner image and transfer the toner image to a recording medium and a fixing section to heat the recording medium transferred with the toner image and further an image analyzing section to extract a density value or a size value of an imaging object included in an image, and a temperature determining section to determine a minimum fixing temperature based on the density value or size value of the imaging object included in a page image. The temperature determining section determines the minimum fixing temperature to be lower when a highest one of the density values is lower than when the highest value is higher or determines the minimum fixing temperature to be lower when a largest one of the size values is smaller than when the largest size value is larger.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and non-transitory computer readable medium storing control program

An image forming apparatus forming toner images sequentially on recording sheets transported at intervals, and thermally fixing the toner images by passing the recording sheets through a fixing position on a heating roller. The target fixing temperature is determined according to information of an image on each page. When a first fixing temperature for a given page is higher than a second fixing temperature for the succeeding page and the difference therebetween is greater than a predefined value, part or all of a first period, during which the thermal fixing operation for the given page is performed, and a second period, which corresponds to an interval between the two pages, are reserved for raising the surface temperature by the difference, and temperature control is performed during the reserved periods such that the surface temperature reaches the second temperature before the thermal fixing operation for the succeeding page starts.

Image forming apparatus and fixing temperature control unit

An image forming apparatus having: an endless fixing belt; a heating member heating the fixing belt; a support member maintaining the fixing belt substantially circular; a pressing member in contact with the fixing belt to form a fixing nip portion; a temperature sensor; a position detector; a storage storing temperatures and positions of the fixing belt detected by the temperature sensor and the position detector; and a control unit. The control unit is operable in a characteristic storing mode and in a fixing mode. In the characteristic storing mode, temperatures of the fixing belt associated with positions are detected, and the detected temperatures and positions are stored in the storage. In the fixing mode, temperatures of the fixing nip portion are predicted with reference to the temperatures and positions stored in the storage, and the heating member is controlled such that the predicted temperatures become a target temperature.

A fixing device for fixing an unfixed toner image on a recording sheet by passing the recording sheet through a fixing nip and applying heat and pressure to the recording sheet, the fixing device comprising: a heater including a resistance heater part and a supporting member, the resistance heater part having a positive resistance-temperature characteristic in a temperature range above a predetermined level, and the supporting member being insulative and supporting the resistance heater part such that the resistance heater part applies heat to the recording sheet; a current detector detecting a current supplied to the resistance heater part; and an abnormality determiner determining whether the resistance heater part has an abnormality, based on an initial current detected by the current detector at a predetermined time after a beginning of power supply to the resistance heater part and before the temperature of the resistance heater part reaches the predetermined level.

Fixing device and image formation apparatus

A heater control device that performs phase control of AC power and supplies phase-controlled power to a heater, the heater control device including: a control unit configured to, in the phase control, gradually increase an on-duty ratio until a target power amount is supplied to the heater; and a judgment unit configured to judge whether or not the on-duty ratio is within a predetermined range of on-duty ratios including a 50% on-duty ratio. The control unit (i) increases the on-duty ratio by a first amount while the on-duty ratio is within the predetermined range, and (ii) increases the on-duty ratio by a second amount while the on-duty ratio is not within the predetermined range. The first amount is greater than the second amount.

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Toyohashi, Japan

Yasuhiro Ishihara