Image forming apparatus
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorShoji Tanaka
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In a case that a toner concentration of a liquid developer in a mixer is high and a liquid amount is small, when a supply flow rate of a carrier liquid by a carrier supplying pump is set, a “carrier amount for concentration adjustment” is preferentially assigned. Then, a remaining one is assigned to a “carrier amount for liquid amount adjustment”. By doing so, by a non-interacting function, a supply agent can be supplied to the mixer. That is, the carrier liquid can be supplied by decreasing the supply agent so that a liquid amount can be easily satisfied while improving followability of a toner concentration.
Claims12
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- an image bearing member;
- a developing portion for developing an electrostatic image, formed on said image bearing member, with a liquid developer containing toner and a carrier liquid;
- a supplying device, accommodating the liquid developer, for supplying the liquid developer to said developing portion;
- a liquid amount detector for detecting a liquid amount of the liquid developer in said supplying device;
- a concentration detector for detecting a concentration of toner relative to the liquid developer in said supplying device;
- a carrier liquid supplying device for supplying the carrier liquid to said supplying device;
- a toner supplying device for supplying the toner to said supplying device;
- and
- a controller for controlling an amount of the carrier liquid supplied from said carrier liquid supplying device to said supplying device and an amount of the toner supplied from said toner supplying device to said supplying device so that the liquid developer in which the concentration of the toner relative to the liquid is a set concentration on the basis of a detection result of said concentration detector is in a predetermined amount in said supplying device on the basis of a detection result of said liquid amount detector,
- wherein said controller is capable of executing, in a case that the concentration of the liquid developer detected by said concentration detector is higher than the set concentration, a carrier liquid supplying mode in which a first supply amount of the carrier liquid is supplied from said carrier liquid supplying device to provide the set concentration of the toner in said supplying device, and in which the carrier liquid is supplied into said supplying device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.