Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• an image bearing member;
• an electrostatic image forming portion configured to from an electrostatic image on a surface of the image bearing member according to an image information;
• a developing unit including a developing member configured to supply toner onto the surface of the image bearing member and form a toner image by developing the electrostatic image formed on the surface of the image bearing member, and a developing container configured to accommodate the toner to be supplied to the developing member;
• a transfer member configured to transfer the toner image formed on the surface of the image bearing member to a recording material;
• a moving mechanism capable of moving the developing unit to a first position where a distance between the image bearing member and the developing member is a first distance and a second position where a distance between the image bearing member and the developing member is a second distance longer than the first distance;
• a control portion configured to control so as to execute an image forming operation in which a toner image is formed with the toner;
• and
• a toner amount acquiring portion configured to acquire toner amount information correlating with a toner amount in the developing container,
• wherein when a period between a first image forming operation and a second image forming operation subsequent to the first image forming operation is defined as a non-image forming period, the control portion controls the moving mechanism to execute a moving operation in which the developing unit is moved from the second position to the first position after the developing unit is moved from the first position to the second position in the non-image forming period in a case in which the toner amount indicated by the toner amount information is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold value after the first image forming operation and before the second image forming operation.

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• an image bearing member;
• an electrostatic image forming portion configured to form an electrostatic image on a surface of the image bearing member according to an image information;
• a developing unit including a developing member configured to supply toner onto the surface of the image bearing member and form a toner image by developing the electrostatic image formed on the surface of the image bearing member, and a developing container configured to accommodate the toner to be supplied to the developing member;
• a transfer member configured to transfer the toner image formed on the surface of the image bearing member to a recording material;
• a moving mechanism capable of moving the developing unit to a first position where a distance between the image bearing member and the developing member is a first distance and a second position where a distance between the image bearing member and the developing member is a second distance longer than the first distance;
• a control portion configured to control so as to execute an image forming operation in which a toner image is formed with the toner according to the image information;
• and
• a consumption amount acquiring portion configured to acquire consumption amount information correlating with consumption amount of the toner based on the image information,
• wherein when a period between a first image forming operation and a second image forming operation subsequent to the first image forming operation is defined as a non-image forming period, the control portion controls the moving mechanism to execute a moving operation in which the developing unit is moved from the second position to the first position after the developing unit is moved from the first position to the second position in the non-image forming period in a case in which the consumption amount of the toner indicated by the consumption amount information is equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value in the first image forming operation.