IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS AND IMAGE FORMING METHOD

摘要

An image forming apparatus includes: an image bearing body; a developing unit which develops an electrostatic latent image formed on the image bearing body as a toner image; a transfer unit which transfers the toner image to a receiver medium; a cleaning member which collects residual toner on the image bearing body; a lubricant supply unit which supplies lubricant onto the image bearing body; a measurement unit which measures a static frictional force generated between the image bearing body and the cleaning member; and a control unit which corrects the amount of lubricant on the image bearing body, wherein the control unit estimates a state of the lubricant on the image bearing body based on a change between a first and a second static frictional force, and based on the estimated state, the control unit selectively executes one of processing of supplying lubricant and processing of removing lubricant.

主权项

1. An image forming apparatus comprising:
an image bearing body; a developing unit configured to develop an electrostatic latent image formed on the image bearing body as a toner image; a transfer unit configured to transfer the toner image to a receiver medium; a cleaning member configured to collect residual toner on the image bearing body after transfer; a lubricant supply unit configured to supply lubricant onto the image bearing body; a measurement unit configured to measure a static frictional force generated between the image bearing body and the cleaning member; and a control unit configured to be capable of executing correction processing of correcting the amount of lubricant on the image bearing body, wherein the control unit estimates a state of the lubricant on the image bearing body based on a change between a first static frictional force measured immediately after a start of the correction processing and a second static frictional force measured after processing of removing the lubricant on the image bearing body which has been executed after the measurement of the first static frictional force, and based on the estimated state of the lubricant, the control unit selectively executes one of processing from the options including processing of supplying lubricant onto the image bearing body and processing of removing lubricant on the image bearing body.