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 R1 (rad/s) of the driving member and a rotational speed R2 (rad/s) of the driven member is K=R2/R1.
1. A toner cartridge comprising:
a toner container which contains toner;
a toner supplying opening which is formed in the toner container;
a conveying member which conveys the toner toward the toner supplying opening in the toner container while being rotated;
a driving member which rotationally drives the conveying member;
an agitating member which agitates the toner in the toner container while being rotated;
a driven member rotated in association with rotation of the driving member to rotate the agitating member, wherein a rotational speed R2 (rad/s) of the driven member is slower than a rotational speed R1 (rad/s) of the driving member; and
a rotational body rotated according to rotation of the driven member, having a plurality of slits in rotational circumference, wherein the number of slits is 1/K or more when a ratio of the rotational speed R1 (rad/s) and the rotational speed R2 (rad/s) is K=R2/R1.
2. The toner cartridge according to claim 1 , wherein the rotational body has a cylindrical body, and the slits 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 member.
4. The toner cartridge according to claim 1 , wherein the conveying member is a screw, and the driving member 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 which contains toner;
a toner supplying opening which is formed in the toner container and supplies the toner to the image forming apparatus;
a conveying member which conveys the toner toward the toner supplying opening in the toner container while being rotated;
a driving member which rotationally drives the conveying member;
an agitating member which agitates the toner in the toner container while being rotated;
a driven member rotated in association with rotation of the driving member to rotate the agitating member, wherein a rotational speed R2 (rad/s) of the driven member is slower than a rotational speed R1 (rad/s) of the driving member;
a rotational body rotated according to rotation of the driven member, having a plurality of slits in rotational circumference, wherein the number of slits is 1/K or more when a ratio of the rotational speed R1 (rad/s) and the rotational speed R2 (rad/s) K=R2/R1;
a detecting unit which detects rotation of the plurality of the light incident portions provided on the rotational body; and
a control unit which discriminates 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.