Imaging device
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsYoichi Yoshida, Yasuyuki Ishii, Koichiro Takashima
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a toner supply unit, an application roller adjacent to the image carrier, a toner measuring unit, and a control unit. The toner supply unit supplies toner to the image carrier. The application roller applies a lubricant to the image carrier. The toner measuring unit measures an amount of toner transferred from the image carrier to the application roller. The control unit adjusts the supply of toner to be supplied to the image carrier in accordance with the amount of toner measured by the toner measuring unit.
Claims15
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- an image carrier;
- a toner supply unit to supply toner to the image carrier;
- an application roller located at a position adjacent to the image carrier and to apply a lubricant to the image carrier;
- a toner measuring unit to measure an amount of toner transferred from the image carrier to the application roller;
- and
- a control unit to adjust the supply of toner to be supplied to the image carrier in accordance with the amount of toner measured by the toner measuring unit.
A method comprising;
- measuring an amount of toner transferred from an image carrier to a lubricant application roller in an imaging device;
- comparing the amount of toner measured to a threshold toner amount;
- and
- increasing a supply of toner to the image carrier when the measured amount of toner transferred to the lubricant application roller is below the threshold toner amount.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.