TONER-STATE PREDICTING DEVICE, METHOD, AND STORAGE MEDIUM

• US 20140010559A1
• Filed: 01/18/2013
• Published: 01/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp. (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: FURUKAWA, Shigehiro
• Granted Patent: US 8,934,793 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 399/34
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/553 Monitoring or warning means for exhaustion or lifetime end of consumables, e.g. indication of insufficient copy sheet quantity for a job
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/556 for toner consumption, e.g. pixel counting, toner coverage detection or toner density measurement
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 21/105 Arrangements for conveying toner waste

Abstract

A toner-state predicting device includes a changing unit that changes a rotation speed of a stepping motor that drives a toner recovery mechanism in an image forming apparatus; a detecting unit that detects presence of synchronization loss of the stepping motor at the changed rotation speed; and a predicting unit that predicts toner clogging which will occur in future in the toner recovery mechanism, based on the rotation speed changed by the changing unit and the presence of the synchronization loss detected by the detecting unit.

Claims

1. A toner-state predicting device, comprising:

a changing unit that changes a rotation speed of a stepping motor that drives a toner recovery mechanism in an image forming apparatus;

a detecting unit that detects presence of synchronization loss of the stepping motor at the changed rotation speed; and

a predicting unit that predicts toner clogging which will occur in future in the toner recovery mechanism, based on the rotation speed changed by the changing unit and the presence of the synchronization loss detected by the detecting unit.

2. The toner-state predicting device according to claim 1, wherein the predicting unit predicts a timing at which the toner clogging occurs in the toner recovery mechanism, based on a relationship between a timing at which the synchronization loss is detected at a first rotation speed being higher than a reference rotation speed and a timing at which the synchronization loss is detected at a second rotation speed being higher than the reference rotation speed and lower than the first rotation speed.

3. The toner-state predicting device according to claim 2, wherein the predicting unit predicts the timing at which the toner clogging occurs in the toner recovery mechanism, if the synchronization loss is detected at a rotation speed being higher than the reference rotation speed.

4. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program causing a computer to realize functions, the functions comprising:

a changing function that changes a rotation speed of a stepping motor that drives a toner recovery mechanism in an image forming apparatus;

a detecting function that detects presence of synchronization loss of the stepping motor at the changed rotation speed; and

a predicting function that predicts toner clogging which will occur in future in the toner recovery mechanism, based on the rotation speed changed by the changing function and the presence of the synchronization loss detected by the detecting function.

5. A toner-state predicting method, comprising:

changing a rotation speed of a stepping motor that drives a toner recovery mechanism in an image forming apparatus;

detecting presence of synchronization loss of the stepping motor at the changed rotation speed; and

predicting toner clogging which will occur in future in the toner recovery mechanism, based on the changed rotation speed and the detected presence of the synchronization loss.