Lubricant supplying device, image forming apparatus and process cartridge
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsKenji Honjoh, Takeshi Shintani, Kohsuke Yamamoto, Daisuke Tomita, Norio Kudo
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A lubricant supplying device used with a solid lubricant, includes a supplying member to supply lubricant taken from the solid lubricant to an object to be supplied with the lubricant, and a remaining amount detecting section to detect a remaining amount of the solid lubricant becoming below a predetermined value. A detection of the remaining amount of the solid lubricant is executed when an operation to supply the lubricant to the object to be supplied with the lubricant stops.
Claims20
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- a supplier that rotates to supply a solid lubricant to an object;
- and
- a detector to detect, when a rotation of the supplier stops, an amount of the solid lubricant.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image bearing member;
- a supplier that rotates to supply a lubricant to the image bearing member;
- a detector to detect a conductive state of conductive materials when a rotation of the supplier stops;
- and
- a controller to determine, based on the conductive state detected by the detector, an amount of the lubricant.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image bearing member
- a supplier that rotates to supply a lubricant to the image bearing member;
- a detector to measure a resistance between conductive materials when a rotation of the supplier stops;
- and
- a controller to determine, based on the resistance measured by the detector, an amount of the lubricant.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.