Toner cartridge
View Patent ↗A toner cartridge comprises a toner container which contains toner, a driving member which rotationally drives a conveying member, an agitating member which agitates a toner in the toner container while being rotated, a driven member which rotates in association with the driving member which is for rotationally driving the agitating member, and a rotational body which rotates according to rotation of the driven member, has a plurality of slits in rotational circumference for identifying a type of the toner cartridge, and has 1/K or more of the slits when a ratio of a rotational speed R 1 (rad/s) of the driving member and a rotational speed R 2 (rad/s) of the driven member is K=R 2 /R 1.
1. A toner cartridge comprising:
a toner container configured to contain toner;
a toner supplying opening formed in the toner container;
a conveying member configured to convey the toner toward the toner supplying opening in the toner container;
a driving gear configured to rotationally drive the conveying member;
an agitating member configured to agitate the toner in the toner container;
a driven gear configured to rotate in association with rotational driving of the driving gear to rotate the agitating member, wherein a number of teeth (N 1 ) of the driven gear is greater than a number of teeth (N 2 ) of the driving gear; and
a rotational body configured to rotate according to rotation of the driven gear, having a plurality of light incidence parts in rotational circumference, wherein the number of the light incidence parts is 1/K′ or more when a ratio of the number of the teeth (N 1 ) and the number of the teeth (N 2 ) is K′=N 2 /N 1 .
2. The toner cartridge according to claim 1 , wherein the rotational body has a cylindrical body, and the light incidence parts are provided on the rotational body with equal intervals in a rotational direction of an outer periphery.
3. The toner cartridge according to claim 2 , wherein the rotational body is provided on the same axis as the driven gear.
4. The toner cartridge according to claim 1 , wherein the conveying member is a screw, and the driving gear is provided at one end of the screw and the toner supplying opening is provided at the other end of the screw.
5. An image forming apparatus, which has a toner cartridge inserted therein to supply toner to the image forming apparatus, said apparatus comprising:
a toner container configured to contain toner;
a toner supplying opening formed in the toner container and supplies the toner to the image forming apparatus;
a conveying member configured to convey the toner toward the toner supplying opening in the toner container;
a driving gear configured to rotationally drive the conveying member;
an agitating member configured to agitate the toner in the toner container;
a driven gear configured to rotate in association with rotational driving of the driving gear to rotate the agitating member, wherein a number of teeth (N 1 ) of the driven gear is slower than a number of teeth (N 2 ) of the driving gear;
a rotational body configured to rotate according to rotation of the driven gear, having a plurality of light incidence parts in rotational circumference, wherein the number of the light incidence parts is 1/K′ or more when a ratio of the number of the teeth (N 1 ) and the number of the teeth (N 2 ) is K′=N 2 /N 1 ;
a detecting unit configured to detect rotation of the plurality of the light incidence parts provided on the rotational body; and
a control unit configured to discriminate a type of the toner cartridge according to a detection result of the detecting unit.
6. The toner cartridge according to claim 5 , wherein the detecting unit has a light emitting element and a light receiving element, which are arranged with a distance interposed therebetween so as to sandwich a peripheral wall of the rotational body.
7. A toner cartridge comprising:
a toner container configured to contain toner;
a toner supplying opening formed in the toner container;
a conveying member configured to convey the toner toward the toner supplying opening in the toner container;
a driving gear configured to rotationally drive the conveying member;
an agitating member configured to agitate the toner in the toner container;
a driven gear configured to rotate in association with rotational driving of the driving gear to rotate the agitating member, and
a rotational body configured to rotate according to rotation of the driven gear, having a plurality of light incidence parts in rotational circumference, wherein the number of the light incidence parts is larger than gear ratio of the driven gear against the driving gear when the driving gear is set as 1.