IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS WITH PLURALITY OF OPTICAL SCANNING DEVICES

• US 20130222869A1
• Filed: 02/21/2013
• Published: 08/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: KYOCERA Document Solutions, Inc. (Kyocera Corporation)
• Original Assignee: KYOCERA Document Solutions, Inc. (Kyocera Corporation)
• Inventors: Maeda, Ryota, Yamashita, Hiroshi, Iwami, Naoki
• Granted Patent: US 8,804,149 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/504
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00018 Scanning arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00023 Colour systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00037 Detecting, i.e. determining the occurrence of a predetermined state H04N1/00031 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/0005 in service, i.e. during normal operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00082 Adjusting or controlling interrupting an operation H04N1/00915; inhibiting an operation H04N1/00925
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/33307 prior to start of transmission, input or output of the picture signal only
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/33378 Type or format of data, e.g. colour or B/W, halftone or binary, computer image file or facsimile data

Abstract

An image forming apparatus includes a plurality of optical scanning devices, a mode receiver, a temperature condition judger and a temperature adjuster. In the case of forming an image using one optical scanning device, the temperature adjuster drives motors of unused optical scanning devices at a first rotation speed if a predetermined temperature condition is satisfied and drives the motors of the unused optical scanning devices at a second rotation speed slower than the first rotation speed if image formation is finished during the drive at the first rotation speed.

Claims

1. An image forming apparatus including a plurality of optical scanning devices arranged in correspondence with a plurality of photoconductors, configured and scanning the corresponding photoconductors with laser light, comprising:

an optical scanning device including

a light source for emitting laser light,

a rotational polygon mirror for reflecting the laser light output from the light source to scan the photoconductor,

a motor for rotating the rotational polygon mirror, and

a temperature detector for detecting temperature of the optical scanning device;

a mode receiver for receiving selection of a single-color image forming mode for forming an image using only one of the plurality of optical scanning devices;

a temperature condition judger for judging whether or not a largest temperature difference out of temperature differences between temperature detected by the temperature detector of the one optical scanning device used in the received single-color image forming mode and temperatures detected by the temperature detectors of unused other optical scanning devices satisfies a temperature condition of being larger than a predetermined first temperature difference; and

a temperature adjuster for performing an image forming operation in the single-color image forming mode and executing a total motor driving process to drive the motors of the other optical scanning devices at a predetermined first rotation speed if the temperature condition is judged to be satisfied by the temperature condition judger and executing a speed switching process to drive the motors of the other optical scanning devices at a second rotation speed slower than the first rotation speed if the image forming operation in the single-color image forming mode is finished during the execution of the total motor driving process when the selection of the single-color image forming mode is received by the mode receiver.

2. An image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a state discriminator for discriminating in which of a plurality of possible operating states except the execution of the image forming operation the image forming apparatus is set; and

a storage for storing an individual rotation speed determined to correspond to each operating state as the second rotation speed for each operating state in advance;

wherein the temperature adjuster drives the motors of the other optical scanning devices at the individual rotation speed stored in the storage and corresponding to the operating state discriminated by the state discriminator when executing the speed switching process.

3. An image forming apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising an image reading unit for executing an image reading process for reading an image of a document, wherein:

the plurality of operating states include an image reading state in which the image reading process is executed and a standby state in which the image reading process is not executed; and

a second individual rotation speed stored in the storage and corresponding to the standby state is a rotation speed slower than a first individual rotation speed stored in the storage and corresponding to the image reading state.

4. An image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the temperature adjuster finishes the total motor driving process by stopping the motors of the other optical scanning devices when the largest temperature difference out of the temperature differences between the temperature detected by the temperature detector of the one optical scanning device and the temperatures detected by the temperature detectors of the other optical scanning devices becomes smaller than a seocnd temperature difference smaller than the first temperature difference during the execution of the total motor driving process.

5. An image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the optical scanning device includes an optical lens made of resin and configured to focus the laser light on a surface of the photoconductor; and

the temperature detector detects the temperature of the optical lens or temperature near the optical lens.

6. An image forming apparatus according to claim 5, wherein:

the optical lens is an fθ

lens.