US 6,439,788 B1Granted

Image forming apparatus

AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha

InventorsShirou Wakahara, Kazuya Masuda, Hajime Yoshinaga

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Abstract

An image forming apparatus of the present invention includes ring electrodes for controlling flying of toner from a carrier to a sheet, and a control power source section for applying a potential that is in accordance with an image signal to each ring electrode. The control power source section carries out, in the case where the image signal is applied to each ring electrode so that the potential is applied at the same timing, a control of shifting the timing of applying ON potential so that the sum of transient current flowing through each ring electrode at a predetermined time is smaller than the sum of maximum value of the transient current flowing through each ring electrode. This ensures that the amount of transient current supplied at a predetermined time to each ring electrode by the control power source section is reduced.

Claims20

Dependent claims

An image forming apparatus, comprising:

a carrier for carrying developer particles;
a counter electrode positioned so as to face said carrier;
a control electrode section having a plurality of passage pores constituting a passage of developer particles flying from said carrier to said counter electrode, and a plurality of gate electrodes formed one to one around the plurality of passage pores;
and
potential applying means for applying a potential that is in accordance with an image signal to the plurality of gate electrodes,
wherein, in a case where a duration of a transient current generated when a flying preventing potential is applied to each of the plurality of gate electrodes is longer than a duration of a transient current generated when a flying potential is applied to each of the plurality of gate electrodes, said potential applying means applies the flying potential to each of the plurality of gate electrodes while adjusting an apply time of the flying potential so that durations of the transient current generated when the flying preventing potential is applied do not overlap one another.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.