Image forming apparatus
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsKoji Miyake, Satoru Furuya, Kensuke Nakajima, Shun Ikeura
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes a rotatable cylindrical component to be cleaned, and a bar brush having a base substrate and bristles. The base substrate of the bar brush is located at a fixed position relative to the component to be cleaned. The bristles extend from the base substrate to contact the component to be cleaned. The bristles have free ends that form a tip end surface of the bar brush. The tip end surface has a curved shape that conforms with a surface of the component, when the bristles are not in contact with the surface to be cleaned.
Claims18
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a transfer roller;
- an image carrier to carry a plurality of adjusting toner images spaced apart along an axial direction of the image carrier and to form a transfer nip region between the image carrier and the transfer roller;
- and
- a bar brush comprising a base substrate located at a fixed position relative to the transfer roller, and bristles extending from the base substrate to contact the transfer roller,
- wherein the bristles have free ends that form a tip end surface of the bar brush,
- wherein the tip end surface has a curved shape that conforms with a surface of the transfer roller when the bristles are not in contact with the transfer roller, and
- wherein the bar brush is disposed discontinuously along an axial direction of the transfer roller in alignment with the plurality of adjusting toner images.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a rotatable cylindrical component to be cleaned;
- and
- a bar brush comprising a base substrate located at a fixed position relative to the component to be cleaned and bristles extending from the base substrate to contact the component to be cleaned,
- wherein the bristles have free ends that form a tip end surface of the bar brush,
- wherein the tip end surface has a curved shape that conforms with a surface of the component to be cleaned when the bristles are not in contact with the surface to be cleaned,
- wherein the cylindrical component to be cleaned comprises a cylindrical metal core and a cylindrical foam layer disposed around the cylindrical metal core,
- wherein, in a cross section of the foam layer, a diameter of cells in the foam layer is 500 μm or less, and
- wherein a static coefficient of friction of the foam layer to the image carrier is approximately 10.6 or less at a temperature of approximately30° C. and a humidity of approximately 85%.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.