Image forming apparatus
AssigneeOki Data Corporation
InventorJunichi Ito
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit having an image carrier, a developing agent container for holding a developing agent, and a developing agent supplier for supplying the developing agent from the developing agent container to the image carrier. A controller determines the amount of use of the image forming unit. A shaking mechanism shakes the image forming unit from time to time, at intervals determined by the controller according to the amount of use of the image forming unit. The shaking loosens the developing agent so as to maintain its fluidity, thereby avoiding faint image formation.
Claims20
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image forming unit having an image carrier, a developing agent container for holding a developing agent, and a developing agent supplier for supplying the developing agent from the developing agent container to the image carrier;
- a shaking mechanism for shaking the image forming unit;
- and
- controller means for determining an amount of use of the image forming unit and for controlling the shaking mechanism so as to shake the image forming unit when the amount of use of the imaging forming unit exceeds a predetermined threshold.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image forming unit having an image carrier, a developing agent container for holding a developing agent, and a developing agent supplier for supplying the developing agent from the developing agent container to the image carrier;
- a shaking mechanism for shaking the image forming unit;
- and
- a controller for determining an amount of use of the image forming unit and controlling the shaking mechanism so as to shake the image forming unit periodically, at intervals responsive to the amount of use of the image forming unit,
- wherein the controller determines the amount of use of the image forming unit by counting a number of pages on which images have been formed after the image forming unit has been shaken.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image forming unit having an image carrier, a developing agent container for holding developing agent, and a developing agent supplier for supplying the developing agent from the developing agent container to the image carrier;
- a shaking mechanism for shaking the image forming unit;
- and
- a controller for determining an amount of use of the image forming unit and controlling the shaking mechanism so as to shake the image forming unit periodically, at intervals responsive to the amount of use of the image forming unit,
- wherein the image carrier is a photosensitive drum, and the controller determines the amount of use of the image forming unit by counting a number of revolutions of the photosensitive drum after the image forming unit has been shaken.
An image forming apparatus, comprising
- an image forming unit having an image carrier, a developing agent container for holding a developing agent, and a developing agent supplier for supplying the developing agent from the developing agent container to the image carrier;
- a shaking mechanism for shaking the image forming unit;
- and
- a controller for determining an amount of use of the image forming unit and controlling the shaking mechanism so as to shake the image forming unit periodically, at intervals responsive to the amount of use of the image forming unit,
- wherein the controller determines the amount of use of the image forming unit from an amount of the developing agent consumed after the image forming unit has been shaken.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image forming unit having an image carrier, a developing agent container for holding a developing agent, and a developing agent supplier for supplying the developing agent from the developing agent container to the image carrier;
- a shaking mechanism for shaking the image forming unit;
- and
- a controller for determining an amount of use of the image forming unit and controlling the shaking mechanism so as to shake the image forming unit periodically, at intervals responsive to the amount of use of the image forming unit;
- and
- an environmental sensor for sensing an ambient environmental condition,
- wherein the controller determines the intervals between shakings of the image forming unit according to the ambient environmental condition as well as amount of use of the image forming unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.