Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, P.C.
Image forming apparatus having a temporary toner holding device and a toner collecting device
A cleaningless image forming apparatus of the present invention uses spherical toner grains on surfaces of which a charge control agent and/or organic fine grains are present, thereby enhancing efficient image transfer. A brush roller collects, among toner grains left on a photoconductive drum after image transfer, toner grains of polarity opposite to preselected polarity and then releases them to the drum at preselected timing. The toner grains of opposite polarity are then transferred to an intermediate image transfer belt. When the toner grains of opposite polarity pass a charging zone assigned to a charge roller, a bias to the charge roller is interrupted or the charge roller is released from the drum.
Ricoh Company, Ltd.
G G G G G G G G G G G G G
G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G G03G
inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional inventional
Masami Masanori Hideo Eiji Takeshi Eisaku Takeshi Masato Atsushi Naohiro Hiroyuki Yoshiyuki Toshio Hideki
Tomita Kawasumi Yoshizawa Kurimoto Uchitani Murakami Shintani Yanagida Sampe Kumagai Nagashima Kimura Koike Zemba