Image forming apparatus
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsYusuke Mitani, Shotaro Hoshi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer, a transfer member, a cleaning member, and a control unit. The transfer member contacts the image bearer to form a transfer nip and transfer a toner image on the image bearer to a recording medium at the transfer nip. The cleaning member cleans a surface of the image bearer. The control unit executes a cleaning operation of moving an extraneous matter adhering to the transfer member to the image bearer to clean the transfer member. The control unit executes the cleaning operation after a toner image pattern that is not transferred to the recording medium passes through the transfer nip and before the recording medium enters the transfer nip.
Claims18
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- an image bearer;
- a transfer member configured to,
- contact the image bearer to form a transfer nip, and
- transfer a toner image on a surface of the image bearer to a recording medium at the transfer nip, the toner image corresponding to an image to be transferred to the recording medium;
- a cleaning member configured to clean the surface of the image bearer;
- and
- processing circuitry configured to,
- execute a cleaning operation to clean the transfer member, the cleaning operation consisting of moving extraneous matter adhering to the transfer member to the image bearer, and
- cause at least one scraping toner pattern, the at least one scraping toner pattern formed on the surface of the image bearer and input into the cleaning member, to pass through the transfer nip during the cleaning operation.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- an image bearer;
- a transfer member configured to,
- contact the image bearer to form a transfer nip, and
- transfer a toner image on a surface of the image bearer to a recording medium at the transfer nip, the toner image corresponding to an image to be transferred to the recording medium;
- a cleaning member configured to clean the surface of the image bearer;
- and
- processing circuitry configured to execute at least one image forming operation of forming the image on the recording medium, the at least one image forming operation including at least one of,
- a pre-sheet-passage cleaning operation to clean the transfer member before a first recording medium of a plurality of continuously conveyed recording media reaches the transfer nip, the pre-sheet-passage cleaning operation consisting of moving extraneous matter adhering to the transfer member to the image bearer, and
- a post-sheet-passage cleaning operation to clean the transfer member after a last recording medium of the plurality of continuously conveyed recording media passes through the transfer nip, the post-sheet-passage cleaning operation consisting of moving the extraneous matter adhering to the transfer member to the image bearer,
- the processing circuitry being further configured to cause at least one scraping toner pattern to pass through the transfer nip during at least one of points in time 1 to 2 during the at least one image forming operation,
- the point in time 1 being during the pre-sheet-passage cleaning operation, and
- the point in time 2 being during the post-sheet-passage cleaning operation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.