Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Yusuke Nishisaka

Hideo Yamaki

Satoshi Nishida

Hiroshi Morimoto

Shigetaka Kurosu

Hajime Kawakami

Satoru Shibuya

Hiroshi Akita

Nobuyasu Tamura

Kuniya Matsuura

Midori Shimomura

Yusuke Mamiya

Shinya Tokutake

Yukimasa Azuma

Keishi Suzuki

Mei Suzuki

Katsuhiro Umeda

Taiya Munenaka

Keiki Katsumata

Nobuyasa Tamura

An image forming apparatus includes: an ink-jet head including a storage that stores phase transition ink, the ink-jet head forms an image on a recording medium by ejecting the phase transition ink; and one or more hardware processors. The one or more hardware processors change a driving condition of the ink-jet head for a case of ejecting the phase transition ink on a basis of a first reading result of a pattern image formed by the ink-jet head; estimate occurrence of a state change of the phase transition ink in the storage when the driving condition that is changed satisfies a predetermined condition; and determine whether a lifetime of the ink-jet head is over in accordance with whether the occurrence of the state change is estimated.

Image forming apparatus, lifetime determination method and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing lifetime determination program

An inkjet-type image forming apparatus, includes: an intermediate transfer body that has an outmost surface layer and transfers a photo-curable ink to a recording medium; a light irradiator that performs a tentative-curing treatment by photo-curing the photo-curable ink after the ink is landed on the intermediate transfer body and before the landed ink is transferred to the recording medium; a temperature controller that causes the outmost surface layer to be melted, expanded, or contracted; and a transferor that transfers the photo-curable ink landed on the intermediate transfer body to the recording medium.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An image forming method includes: providing an active light curable ink on a surface of an intermediate transfer body; irradiating the active light curable ink provided on the surface of the intermediate transfer body with first active light; and transferring the active light curable ink to a recording medium, wherein the wavelength of the first active light is a wavelength that causes the transmittance of the intermediate transfer body to be 70% or more, and causes the absorbance of the active light curable ink to be 0.01 or more.

Image forming method and image forming apparatus

An inkjet recording apparatus includes an ink jetter; a transfer unit that has an intermediate transfer body and transfers ink on its transfer surface to a recording medium to record an image; a thickening device that thickens the ink landed on the transfer surface before transfer to the recording medium; a cleaner that removes residual ink remaining on the transfer surface; and a hardware processor. The cleaner has a first ink remover that removes the thickened residual ink in first ink removing operation in which an adhesive member brought into contact with the thickened ink is separated from the transfer surface. If the transfer surface has a region occupied by the thickened ink of a predetermined reference area or more, the hardware processor causes the first ink remover to perform the first ink removing operation.

Inkjet recording apparatus and cleaning method of intermediate transfer body

An image forming method, includes: forming a precoat layer by applying a precoat agent onto a front surface of an intermediate transfer body; forming an ink layer by applying an ink onto a front surface of the formed precoat layer, according to an ink jet method; and transferring the formed precoat layer and ink layer to a recording medium, wherein a contact angle of the precoat agent with respect to the front surface of the intermediate transfer body is less than a contact angle of the ink with respect to the front surface of the intermediate transfer body, and a viscosity of the precoat agent is lower than a viscosity of the ink.

An image forming apparatus according to the present invention includes: an opposite roller switching mechanism which switches an opposite roller forming a transfer nip to a second opposite roller of which the outer diameter is different from the outer diameter of a first opposite roller; a paper type information acquirer which acquires the type information of a recording medium used; and a controller which controls the opposite roller switching mechanism based on the type information acquired from the paper type information acquirer.

Image forming apparatus having opposite roller switching and image forming system

A lubricant application device includes: a lubricant supply unit; a roller-type rotatable lubricant application member that applies a lubricant agent to a lubricant-applied member, the lubricant agent being supplied from the lubricant supply unit; and a flicking member to be brought into contact with the lubricant application member in a position that is on the downstream side of the lubricant supply unit and is on the upstream side of the lubricant-applied member in the rotation direction of the lubricant application member, the flicking member being brought into contact with the lubricant application member so that the amount of the lubricant agent to be applied to either end portion of the lubricant-applied member becomes smaller than the amount of the lubricant agent to be applied to the middle portion of the lubricant-applied member in the axial direction of the lubricant application member.

Lubricant application device with a flicking member, cleaning device having the lubricant application device, and image forming apparatus having the lubricant application device

An image forming apparatus includes: a transfer belt that is stretched on a plurality of support rollers including a backup roller in a loop-like manner and has an outer surface for carrying thereon a toner image; a transfer roller that is brought into pressurized contact with the backup roller across the transfer belt and forms a transfer nip with the transfer belt; a restriction member that is placed upstream of a transfer nip in a sheet conveying direction so as to be switchable between a first state in which the restriction member is brought closer to an inner surface of the transfer belt and a second state in which a distance of the restriction member from the inner surface of the transfer belt is larger than that in the first state; and a control section that switches a state of the restriction member.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus including: an image forming section having a intermediate transfer body to carry a toner image on a photoreceptor and transfer the toner image onto a sheet of paper; a cleaning section for removing residual toner on the intermediate transfer body by bringing a cleaning blade into close contact with the intermediate transfer body; and a control section for controlling a rotation of the intermediate transfer body so as to carry out a return action of a blade configuration which stops or reverses the rotation of the intermediate transfer body, when a rotation amount reaches a predetermined value, wherein the control section carries out the return action when the rotation amount reaches a value smaller than the predetermined value, in a case where a plurality of previous printing jobs is determined to be intermittent printing.

An image forming apparatus includes a transfer belt, a pressure receiving roller, a suspension roller, a secondary transfer roller, and an endless support belt. The support belt is stretched over at least one of the pressure receiving roller and the suspension roller. When pressing the transfer belt between the pressure receiving roller and the secondary transfer roller, and nipping paper between the transfer belt and the secondary transfer roller, an angle defined by the portion, upstream from the secondary transfer roller, of the transfer belt and an imaginary line connecting the pressure-receiving-roller axis with the secondary-transfer-roller axis is less than 90 degrees. A part of the support belt is held between the transfer belt and at least one of the two rollers over which the support belt is stretched.

Image forming apparatus with support belt deforming member

An image forming apparatus includes a transfer belt, a pressure receiving roller, a secondary transfer roller, and a belt movement restricting section. The belt movement restricting section is disposed close to the back of the belt. When pressing the belt between the pressure receiving roller and the secondary transfer roller, and nipping paper between the belt and the secondary transfer roller, an angle defined by the portion, upstream from the secondary transfer roller, of the belt and an imaginary line connecting the pressure-receiving-roller axis with the secondary-transfer-roller axis is less than 90 degrees. During non-secondary-transfer mode, the belt movement restricting section is separated from the belt. During secondary transfer, the belt movement restricting section holds the belt not to let the belt pushed by the paper move toward the pressure receiving roller.

A cleaning device for cleaning a belt member, includes a cleaning blade; a removing member coming in contact with the surface of the belt member so as to remove foreign matter adhering on the surface of the belt member; and a contact pressure changing section to change a contact pressure between the removing member to the belt member, wherein, when the contact pressure between the removing member and a region of the belt member corresponding in position to a toner image to be not transferred to a paper sheet is made P, and the contact pressure between the removing member and a region of the belt member corresponding in position to a toner image to be transferred to a paper sheet is made P, the contact pressure changing section changes the contact pressure to satisfy the conditional formula: (PP).

Cleaning apparatus and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus including a transfer section for transferring a toner image formed on an image bearing member onto a sheet by pressure contact of the sheet against the image bearing member with a transfer member; a cleaning section having a cleaning blade to remove residual toner on the image bearing member; and a control section for controlling a rotation of the image bearing member so as to carry out a return action of a blade configuration which stops or reverses the rotation of the image bearing member, when the rotation amount reaches a predetermined value, wherein the control section additionally carries out the return action when the rotation amount reaches a value smaller than the predetermined value, in a case where a size of a sheet in a current job is larger than a size a sheet having been passed through in a previous job.

An electric charge eliminating device for eliminating electric charge on an image carrying member or on a recording medium carrying member which is incorporated in an image forming apparatus, comprises a needlelike electrode having a plurality of protruding sections which form a plurality of discontinuous discharge points; an insulating holder for holding the needlelike electrode; a discharging power source for applying an electric voltage to the needlelike electrode; and a conductive shielding member arranged between the needlelike electrode and the image carrying member or the recording medium carrying member.

Electric charge eliminating device and image forming apparatus equipped with the same

An image forming apparatus includes: a cleaning blade provided on an intermediate transfer member to which a toner image formed on at least one image forming section is primary transferred and on a secondary transfer section which transfers the toner image transferred on the intermediate transfer member onto a transfer material, respectively, which cleans the toner image remained thereon, respectively; a bias power source which is electrically connected to the secondary transfer section; and a controller which causes the image forming section to form a patch toner image onto a non-image area on the image carrier corresponding to an area between adjoining two transfer materials, and causes the bias power source to conduct a power control in synchronization with a positional movement timing of the patch toner image, to supply selectively the patch toner image to the intermediate transfer member and the secondary transfer section.

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Tokyo, Japan

Yusuke Nishisaka