Electrostatigraphic image forming apparatus with droplet ejecting unit
An image forming apparatus includes a photosensitive drum, a developing device, a primary transfer part, a droplet ejecting unit and a controller. On the photosensitive drum, an electrostatic latent image is formed. The developing device forms a toner image by causing a developing agent to adhere to the electrostatic latent image. The primary transfer part transfers the toner image onto an intermediate transfer belt. The droplet ejecting unit ejects droplets onto the toner image on the photosensitive drum after forming the toner image on the photosensitive drum and before transferring the toner image to the transfer member. The controller controls an ejection area of the droplet ejecting unit in accordance with image information of the toner image.
1. An image forming apparatus comprising:
an image carrying member on which an electrostatic latent image is formed;
a developing part for forming a toner image by causing a developing agent to adhere to said electrostatic latent image;
a transfer part for transferring said toner image onto a transfer member;
a droplet ejecting unit for ejecting droplets onto said toner image on said image carrying member after forming said toner image on said image carrying member and before transferring said toner image to said transfer member; and
a controller for controlling an ejection area of said droplet ejecting unit in accordance with image information of said toner image;
wherein said droplets ejected by said droplet ejecting unit are micro droplets having a volume range of 0.06-0.2 pl.
2. The image forming apparatus claimed in claim 1 , wherein said controller controls said droplet ejecting unit in such a manner that said droplets are ejected on an outline of said toner image formed and its vicinity in terms of pixel unit based on said image information of said toner image.
3. The image forming apparatus claimed in claim 1 , wherein said droplets ejected by said droplet ejecting unit consists of pure water, or a mixed solvent produced by mixing pure water with an aqueous organic solvent.
4. An image forming apparatus comprising:
an image carrying member on which an electrostatic latent image is formed;
a developing part for forming a toner image by causing a developing agent to adhere to said electrostatic latent image;
a transfer part for transferring said toner image onto a transfer member;
a droplet ejecting unit for ejecting droplets onto said toner image on said image carrying member after forming said toner image on said image carrying member and before transferring said toner image to said transfer member;
a controller for controlling an ejection area of said droplet ejecting unit in accordance with image information of said toner image; and
a plurality of said image developing parts and said transfer parts corresponding with a plurality of colors wherein said droplet ejecting unit consists of a plurality of droplet ejecting units that eject droplets to said toner images of various colors, respectively;
wherein said controller controls said plurality of droplet ejecting unit in such a way as to cause the droplet ejection amount to vary according the colors that overlay on each other on said image carrying member;
wherein said controller controls the droplet ejection amount to reduce as number of overlaid colors increases.
5. The image forming apparatus claimed in claim 1 , wherein said controller controls the droplet ejection onto said toner image based on information of the image to be formed as to whether it is a photographic image or a character image.
6. The image forming apparatus claimed in claim 1 , wherein said controller controls the droplet ejection onto said toner image based on number of colors to be used for the image formation.
7. The image forming apparatus claimed in claim 1 , wherein said control unit controls the droplet ejection onto said toner image based on temperature and humidity during the image formation.
8. The image forming apparatus claimed in claim 1 , wherein said control unit controls the droplet ejection onto said toner image on said image carrier member based on an image forming condition during the image formation.