Abstract: A charging apparatus includes a charging member for being supplied with a voltage to charge a member to be charged, the charging member including an elastic member for forming a nip with the member to be charged, and said elastic member having a surface provided with a plurality of projections; wherein a speed A of a surface of said charging member(mm/sec) and a speed B of a surface of the member to be charged(mm/sec) satisfy: when B−A>0, said projections are inclined toward upstream with respect to a movement direction of the surface of the member to be charged in said nip, and when B−A<0, the projections are inclined toward downstream with respect to a movement direction of the surface of the member to be charged in said nip.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a charging member which has an electrically conductive base material and a surface layer including a foaming body of a continuous bubble.

Abstract: A thermal head including a protection layer having mutually opposed first and second surfaces, said first surface having a flat or protruded printing surface which is brought into contact with a heat sensitive record medium, a heat generating section including resistors and electrodes connected to the electrodes and provided on said second surface of the protection layer, and a reinforcing member made of a low melting pint glass and provided on a side of the heat generating section remote from the protection layer. The reinforcing member improves a mechanical strength of the thermal head. The reinforcing member made of a glass also serves as a heat storage member, and thus a thermal property of the thermal head is improved. The reinforcing member may be formed by an aggregate of ceramic particles. The reinforcing member may contain a heat storage layer made of a low melting point glass and a heat conduction layer provided on the heat storage layer.

Abstract: A charging apparatus for charging a member to be charged, the charging apparatus includes a charging member for electrically charging the member to be charged; and electroconductive particle supplying means for loosening electroconductive particles stored in the form of granules each comprising aggregated electroconductive particles and supplying the loosened electroconductive particles to the charging member.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus comprises an image bearing member for bearing an electrostatic image; a developing means for developing the electrostatic image on said image bearing member by toners charged with a predetermined polarity; a transfer means for transferring a toner image on said image bearing member to a transferring material; an electrifying means for inject-charging the image bearing member having transfer residual toners; an electrical conductive member provided and spaced apart from said image bearing member in a moving direction of the image bearing member downstream further than said transfer means and upstream further than said electrifying means; and an electrical field forming means for forming an alternative electrical field between said electrical conductive member and said image bearing member.

Abstract: An object of the present invention is to provide a developing apparatus which can prevent reduction in image density due to paper powder. A further object of the present invention is to provide a developing apparatus that has a developing container, a toner carrying member, and a toner container, wherein the toner container has a space portion which disposed below the toner carrying member and which is not substantially replenished with the toner.

Abstract: A charging apparatus includes a movable charging member for being supplied with a voltage to charge a member to be charged, said charging member being provided with a flexible member for forming a nip with the member to be charged, wherein a speed difference is provided between surfaces of the member to be charged and said flexible member; electroconductive particles supplying means, having a foam member contactable to said charging member, for supplying electroconductive particles to said charging member to provide the nip with the electroconductive particles.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus for injection charging which uses charging accelerating particles in a charging nip portion to rotate an image bearing body and a charging roller at different velocities and applies a bias in image forming which is different from a bias applied in non-image forming to feed substantially only the charging accelerating particles in non-image forming, thereby it is possible to enhance a charging property and to provide a favorable image.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a charging apparatus in which, when a is a volume resistance value (&OHgr;cm) of an electrically conductive particles, b is a volume resistivity value (&OHgr;cm) of a foam body layer, c is a thickness (cm) of the foam body layer and d is a diameter (cm) of a cell, the following relationship is satisfied: a≦bc/10d.

Abstract: A thermal head including a protection layer having mutually opposed first and second surfaces, said first surface having a printing surface which is brought into contact with a heat sensitive record medium and is protruded from the remaining portion of the first surface of the protection layer, a heat generating sections including resistors and electrodes connected to the electrodes and provided on said second surface of the protection layer at said protruded printing surface, a heat control section including a heat storage layer and a heat conduction layer and provided on said heat generating section, and a driving IC connected to said electrodes. In order to improve the mechanical strength of the thermal head, a reinforcing layer made of a glass is provided on said first surface of the protection layer except for said printing surface such that a surface of said reinforcing layer is not higher than said first surface of the protection layer at said protruded printing surface.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a charging unit for charging the image bearing member, an image forming unit for forming an electrostatic image on the image bearing member charged by the charging unit, a developing device for developing the electrostatic image on the image bearing member and for supplying to the image bearing member charging performance enhancing particles which have a polarity opposite from that of the toner, wherein the developing device has a developer carrying member, opposed to the image bearing member, for carrying the toner and charging performance enhancing particles and also which forms an alternating electric field between the developer carrying member and the image bearing member to supply the toner and the charging performance enhancing particles to the image bearing member.

Abstract: A charging apparatus for charging a member to be charged includes a charging member for contacting to the member to be charged to electrically charge it; charging performance enhancing particles existing at a contact portion between the charging member and the member to be charged; wherein the charging performance enhancing particles is triboelectrically charged at the contact portion to a polarity opposite from that of a voltage applied to the charging member.

Abstract: A charging apparatus includes a charging member, to which a voltage is applicable, for charging a member to be charged; the charging member including: a flexible member for forming a nip with the member to be charged, wherein the flexible member is moved with a peripheral speed difference between surfaces of the flexible member and the member to be charged at the nip; and electroconductive particles in the nip.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member with a recirculatively movable peripheral surface; and a device for forming electrostatic latent images on the peripheral surface of the image bearing member, the device including a charging member to which voltage is applicable to charge the image bearing member. The charging member includes a flexible member capable of forming a nip between itself and the image bearing member; a developer for developing the latent image with the use of developer composed of toner particles and electrically conductive particles. The developer is capable of cleaning the residual toner particles from the image bearing member. The electrically conductive particles transferred onto the image bearing member by the developer are delivered to the nip by the image bearing member. The flexible member is moved so that it maintains a peripheral velocity difference relative to the image bearing member.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a charging device for charging the image bearing member, the charging device including a charging member for being supplied with a voltage and for forming a nip with the image bearing member and including electroconductive particles in the nip, a developer develops, with one-component developer, an electrostatic latent image formed on the image bearing member using the charging device; the developer including a developer carrying member for carrying the developer, wherein the developer carried on the developer carrying member during a developing operation is contacted to the image bearing member at a contact position where peripheral movement directions of the image bearing member and the developer carrying member are the same, and wherein a surface speed of the image bearing member Vd and a surface speed of the developer carrying member Vs satisfy:1.2<Vs/Vd<2.5.

Abstract: A charging device includes a charging member to which a voltage is applicable to charge a member to be charged, the charging member including a flexible member for forming a nip with the member to be charged, wherein the flexible member is moved to provide a speed difference between a surface of the member to be charged and a surface of the flexible member; wherein not less than 10.sup.2 /mm.sup.2 electroconductive particles are provided in the nip.

Abstract: A charging apparatus for charging a member to be charged includes an elastic member, the elastic member being press-contacted to a surface of the member to be charged, and electroconductive particles carried on the surface of the elastic member to which a charging voltage is applied, wherein a triboelectric charging property of the member to be charged relative to the elastic member is the same as a charging polarity of the charging apparatus.

Abstract: A charging device includes a charging member to which a voltage is applicable to charge a member to be charged; an electroconductive particle supply member for supplying electroconductive particles, wherein the supply member produces the electroconductive particles by abrasion of itself, and the thus produced electroconductive particles are fed to the nip formed by the charging member and the member to be charged.

Abstract: A color image forming device that can certainly correct uniform velocity error associated with the characteristic of each optical system and can realize high-quality color image printing by performing a fine laser beam irradiating position control, in consideration of an error in surface accuracy of each mirror surface of a rotary polygon mirror. The color image forming device includes a storage unit for holding uniform velocity correction data previously created for each mirror surface of a rotary polygon mirror to correct a distortion in expansion or contraction of the electrostatic latent image in the main scanning direction due to the characteristic of an optical system, and an image clock generating unit for reading uniform velocity correction data on each mirror surface used in the rotary polygon mirror at a scanning time out of the storage unit and then generating image clock pulses for image signal creation with a period corresponding to the uniform velocity correction data.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes: an image bearing member including a surface layer having a volume resistivity which changes with intensity of the electric field; an image forming device for forming, on the image bearing member, an electrostatic image having a portion of dark potential VD (V) and a portion of light potential VL (V) with a resolution of A (dot/micron) the image forming means including a charging member contactable to the image bearing member to charge the image bearing member by applying a voltage of the charging member; wherein the volume resistivity RDL (Ohm.cm) of the surface layer under the electric field of .vertline.VD-VL.vertline..times.A, if larger than 1.0.times.10.sup.11 (Ohm.cm), and is not less than twice as large as RD which is a volume resistivity of the surface layer (Ohm.cm) under the electric field of VD.times.A, and the volume resistivity RD is smaller than 2.0.times.10.sup.13.