Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Konica-minolta Holdings, Inc.

Yuji Nagatomo

Tetsumaru Fujita

Yoshio Sakagawa

Yasuhide Matsuno

Kyoko Abe

Takahiro Sanada

Naoki Nakatake

Tomoya Adachi

Yasuhiro Fujiwara

Shintaro Yamada

Takeshi Yamashita

Takafumi Miyazaki

Shin Murayama

Makiko Tango

Tomohiro Kubota

Masahiko Matsuura

Shigeo Uetake

Takeshi Maeyama

Ryuji Inoue

Junya Hirayama

Masato Tsuji

Rumi Miyazaki

Yutaro Kaku

Shinji Aoki

Toshiya Natsuhara

Tomofumi Yoshida

Yoshie Iwakura

Hirobumi Ooyoshi

Yoshimichi Ishikawa

Chiyoshi Nozaki

Kazuki Matsumoto

Shoh Tsuritani

Shin Yamamoto

Manabu Hamada

Mitsutoshi Kichise

Hiroaki Katoh

Kenichiroh Hashimoto

Shuuichi Nakagawa

Takuei Nishio

Kazushige Oonishi

Hisataka Takagi

A fabricating apparatus includes a powder layer forming device, a fabrication liquid discharge device, and processing circuitry. The powder layer forming device is configured to form a powder layer. The fabrication liquid discharge device is configured to discharge fabrication liquid onto the powder layer. The processing circuitry is configured to control the fabrication liquid discharge device to discharge the fabrication liquid with a first kinetic energy and then discharge the fabrication liquid with a second kinetic energy higher than the first kinetic energy.

Fabricating apparatus and method for altering the kinetic energy of liquid droplets

A developing device includes a developer bearer facing a latent image bearer, to rotate and supply developer to the latent image bearer, and a developer regulator to regulate an amount of the developer on a surface of the developer bearer. The developer regulator is in contact with the surface of the developer bearer. In the developing device, a ratio of a ten-point mean roughness of the developer regulator to a volume average particle diameter of the developer is not greater than 3.5%. The ratio is defined asRzjis/Dv&#xd7;100,

Developing device, and image forming apparatus and process unit incorporating same

A developing device includes a toner bearer to rotate while bearing toner and a toner regulator including a bend on a free end side. The bend is disposed in contact with a surface of the toner bearer and defines a regulation nip to adjust an amount of the toner on the toner bearer. The toner regulator further includes an area having a water contact angle greater than or equal to 70 degrees. The area having the water contact angle includes, at least, a downstream end of the bend in a rotation direction of the toner bearer.

Developing device and image forming apparatus incorporating same

An image forming apparatus is provided. The image forming apparatus includes a photoconductor, an irradiator, a developing device including a developing roller, a development bias applying device, a toner supplying roller and a supply bias applying device, and a controller. The controller changes supply bias offset by reference to at least one of five parameters including photoconductor travel distance, operation temperature of the developing device, operation humidity of the developing device, continuous operating time of the developing device, and color information of image to be produced. After changing the supply bias offset, the controller forms plural toner patterns for image density adjustment on the photoconductor by changing the development bias, and sets the development bias to a certain bias based on the image densities of the plural toner patterns so that the image produced by the developing device has a targeted image density.

Image forming apparatus that utilizes toner roller bias voltages for image density adjustments

A seal is provided to contact a rotating body installed in an image forming apparatus. Pencil hardness of the sealing element is about 2H or more and a water drop contact angle thereof is about 90 degrees or more.

Seal, cleaning unit with seal, transfer unit with seal, developing unit with seal, process cartridge with seal, image forming apparatus with seal, and image forming method

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image forming device that forms a latent image, a latent image carrier that carries the latent image, a development device that develops the latent image, and a controller. The development device includes a developer carrier that faces the latent image carrier and carries toner on a rotary surface thereof that rotates in a rotation direction perpendicular to a width direction of the developer carrier, and a regulation member that regulates the thickness of a layer of the toner on the surface of the developer carrier. The controller moves the toner on lateral end regions in the width direction of the surface of the developer carrier toward the latent image carrier. The end regions are located outside a maximum image forming region within a regulation member facing region of the surface of the developer carrier facing the regulation member.

Reducing toner adhesion to a development device of an image forming apparatus

Provided is a color image forming apparatus that includes: image carriers that form toner image of black and other colors; an intermediate transfer body that makes contact with the image carriers; and transfer units that transfer the toner images on the image carriers to the intermediate transfer body. A line velocity difference is set between the image carriers and the intermediate transfer body. An accelerated cohesion degree of toner is equal to or larger than 54%. A linear velocity difference Xbetween the image carrier for black and the intermediate transfer body satisfies a relation of 0&#x3c;X&#x2266;1.2 mm/sec. A linear velocity difference Xbetween the image carriers for the colors and the intermediate transfer body satisfies a relation of 2.1&#x2266;X&#x2266;4.0 mm/sec.

Color image forming apparatus with a line velocity difference set between image carriers

An image forming apparatus includes a rotatable photoconductor, a charging unit, an exposure unit to expose the photoconductor to reduce an electrical potential at the photoconductor, a developing unit to charge the toner held on a toner bearing member with friction and attract the toner to the exposed portion on the photoconductor by supplying a development voltage from a first power source and using an electrical potential difference between the toner bearing member and the photoconductor in the development area, a reverse development voltage controller to supply a reverse development voltage while a non-charged portion on the photoconductor passes the development area, and a developer reducing potential applier to supply a development restraining potential and an absolute value smaller than a target charging potential to the photoconductor while the reverse development voltage is supplied.

Image forming apparatus including a controller configured to regulate a potential difference between a photoconductor and a developing member

An image forming apparatus including a latent image bearing member, a charger, a latent image forming device, a developing device, and a transfer device is provided. The transfer device is adapted to transfer a toner image formed on the latent image bearing member onto an intermediate transfer member or a recording medium by action of a transfer elected field in a transfer position where the latent image bearing member faces the transfer device. When a non-charged portion of the latent image bearing member that has not been charged to a predetermined potential by the charger passes through the transfer position, a strength of the transfer electric field is lowered than that in transferring the toner image.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

A developer regulator to restrict an amount of a developer, including a base portion; an intermediate portion continuous with the base portion, the intermediate portion having a flat area on one face, the flat area having a roughened surface; and a distal end continuous with the intermediate portion, the distal end being bent relative to the base portion in a direction opposite the one face in which the flat area is formed.

Developer regulator, development device, and image forming apparatus incorporating same

An image developing device includes a developer supporting body; a first conveyance path in which a first conveyance member is arranged; a second conveyance path in which a second conveyance member is arranged; and a partition member that partitions the first conveyance path and the second conveyance path and that has a first communication port and a second communication port. The first communication path and the second communication path communicates with each other through the first communication port and the second communication port. The image developing device includes a developer amount detection unit that includes an optical detection unit arranged in the second conveyance path and that optically detects an amount of the developer in the image forming device. The developer is caused to accumulate in the vicinity of the developer amount detection unit.

Image developing device, process cartridge including image developing device, and image forming device including image developing device

An image forming apparatus includes a plurality of image carriers, a latent image forming unit, and a plurality of developing units. Each of the developing unit forms an image to have a color difference of equal to or less than about five with respect to an initial unicolor image formed by using a toner not containing a reversely-transferred toner of another color when a toner contained in a toner container is consumed by about 70%.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and developing device

A semiconductive member including an alkali metal salt having the formula (M).X in a surface layer thereof. M represents Na, K, or Li; X represents Cl, Br, I, F, CHCOO, CFCOO, CH(COOH)CHCOO, (CHCOO), CH(COOH)CHCOO, (CHCOO), (HOOC)Ar(COO), Ar(COO), (HOOC)Ar(COO), (HOOC)Ar(COO), Ar(COO), (HOOC)Ar(COO), (HOOC)Ar(COO), (HOOC)Ar(COO), Ar(COO), Ar&#x2014;SO, Ar(SO), an oligomer or a polymer having an acrylic acid anion unit, or an oligomer or a polymer having an methacrylic acid anion unit; Ar represents a benzene ring, a naphthalene ring, or a biphenyl ring; and n is a numeral equivalent to the anionic valence of X.

Semiconductive member, and developing roll, charging roll, transfer belt, and image forming apparatus using same

An image forming apparatus that is more capable of preventing the occurrence of image quality deterioration caused by defective charging of a photoreceptor than the conventional one. As a charging device, there is used a member which has: a conductive sheet that causes the surface thereof applied with a predetermined bias to abut against the surface of the photoreceptor after passing through a primary transfer nip obtained by abutment between the photoreceptor and an intermediate transfer belt and before entering a development step performed by a developing device; a conductive brush member that applies a predetermined bias to the surface of the photoreceptor obtained after passing through the position of abutment with the sheet and before entering the development step; and a charging roller that uniformly charges the surface of the photoreceptor after passing through the position of abutment with the brush and before entering the development step. Furthermore, at least during a predetermined first period, a bias having a polarity same as the uniformly charging polarity of the photoreceptor is applied to the conductive sheet and brush member.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus capable of maintaining cleaning performance of a cleaning brush and downsizing the apparatus main body. Transfer residual toner accumulated on the cleaning brush is transferred onto a photoreceptor by an electrostatic force, hence the cleaning brush becomes clean and the cleaning performance thereof improves. Therefore, the photoreceptor and a charging roller can be cleaned well by the cleaning brush over a long period of time, and the photoreceptor can be charged well by the charging roller over a long period of time. Moreover, because the transfer residual toner that is transferred from the cleaning brush onto the photoreceptor is recovered by a developing device, it is not necessary to provide the apparatus main body with a toner recovery portion that is specially designed for recovering the transfer residual toner, hence the apparatus main body can be downsized.

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Osaka, Japan

Yuji Nagatomo