US 2006/0188288 A1Published application

Image forming apparatus

AssigneeKyocera Mita Corporation

InventorsNorio Tomiie, Akane Tokushige

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Abstract

Charge removing light is guided by an optical path defining member (623) from a charge removing unit (6) toward a photosensitive drum (2). A distance between an end surface (623e) of the optical path defining member (623) and a surface on an axially central part of the photosensitive drum (2) is less than a distance between the end surface (623e) and the surface on the axially opposite ends of the photosensitive drum (2). Thus an irradiation width and an amount of the charge removing light projected onto the surface of the photosensitive drum (2) are increased on the opposite ends. With this arrangement, the amount of generated light carriers can be reduced on the axially central part, as compared with the axially opposite ends, and a surface potential distribution non-uniformity due to a difference in nip distance between the photosensitive drum (2) and a charging roller (31) can be eliminated.

Claims21

Dependent claims

An image forming apparatus for forming an image by transferring a toner image onto a transfer member, the image forming apparatus comprising:

a photoconductor, rotatably supported about a rotational axis thereof, for forming an electrostatic latent image on a surface of the photoconductor, and forming a toner image on the surface of the photoconductor by attracting a toner onto the electrostatic latent image;
a charger for charging the photoconductor by contact charging;
and
a charge remover for removing charge residues from the surface of the photoconductor after the toner image is transferred from the surface of the photoconductor onto the transfer member, wherein the charge remover includes
a light source for emitting a certain amount of charge removing light;
and
a light guiding member for linearly projecting the charge removing light onto the surface of the photoconductor, the light guiding member having an incident end facing the light source, and an exit end facing the surface of the photoconductor, the light guiding member being operative to control the amount of the charge removing light to be projected onto the surface of the photoconductor in a direction of the rotational axis of the photoconductor.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.