Image forming apparatus that controls width of correction pattern
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorKunihiro Komai
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image forming apparatus generates a color image on a transfer belt by superimposing toner images of respective colors generated by image forming units, and transfers the color image onto a transfer medium. The image forming apparatus includes a correction pattern forming unit configured to form a correction pattern for correcting color misalignment on the transfer belt, a detection sensor configured to detect the correction pattern formed on the transfer belt by the correction pattern forming unit, and a correction control unit configured to control a width of the correction pattern in response to an output of the detection sensor produced by detecting the correction pattern.
Claims11
An image forming apparatus which generates a color image on a transfer belt by superimposing toner images of respective colors generated by image forming units, and transfers the color image onto a transfer medium, comprising:
- a correction pattern forming unit configured to form a correction pattern for correcting color misalignment on the transfer belt;
- a detection sensor including a regular-reflection receiving device configured to detect the correction pattern formed on the transfer belt by the correction pattern forming unit;
- and
- a correction control unit configured to control a width of a subsequent the correction pattern in response to an output of the detection sensor produced by detecting the correction pattern, the width of the subsequent correction pattern being controlled by checking whether a regular-reflection light peak and a diffuse-reflection light peak both appearing in an output of the regular-reflection receiving device satisfy respective threshold conditions.
An image forming apparatus which generates a color image on a transfer belt by superimposing toner images of respective colors generated by image forming units, and transfers the color image onto a transfer medium, comprising:
- a correction pattern forming unit configured to form a correction pattern for correcting color misalignment on the transfer belt outside an area in which said color image is formed;
- a detection sensor including a regular-reflection receiving device configured to detect the correction pattern formed on the transfer belt by the correction pattern forming unit;
- and
- a correction control unit configured to control at least one of a length of a subsequent correction pattern in a main-scan direction and a length of the subsequent correction pattern in a sub-scan direction by controlling the correction pattern forming unit in response to an output of the detection sensor produced by detecting the correction pattern, the at least one of the length of the subsequent correction pattern in the main-scan direction and the length of the subsequent correction pattern in the sub-scan direction being controlled by checking whether a regular-reflection light peak and a diffuse-reflection light peak both appearing in an output of the regular-reflection receiving device satisfy respective threshold conditions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.