Image Formation Apparatus Toner Discarding via Divided Area Printing Rate
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing image formation apparatuses discard toner excessively in areas with high printing rates, leading to unnecessary deterioration and quality issues, as they do not differentiate between toner consumption rates across the entire and partial areas of a page.
Innovation Solution
An image formation apparatus that calculates both entire area and divided area printing rates, and only performs toner discarding operations in areas with low printing rates, while avoiding unnecessary discarding in areas with high toner consumption, using a threshold-based system to determine when to execute toner discarding operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the image formation apparatus discards toner in the entire area when the entire area printing rate is low, then the deteriorated toner is removed to maintain image quality, but the toner in high printing rate partial areas is discarded excessively in vain
Solution Approach 1:
The image formation area is divided into multiple divided areas in the main scanning direction, and the printing rate is calculated separately for each divided area. This segmentation allows selective toner discarding only in divided areas where the printing rate is low, rather than discarding toner across the entire area, thus preventing excessive toner loss while maintaining image quality in affected regions.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the image formation area are treated differently based on their local printing rate characteristics. Divided areas with low printing rates undergo toner discarding operations to remove deteriorated toner, while divided areas with high printing rates retain their toner since deterioration is minimal. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction by applying quality maintenance only where necessary.
2Reliability
If the image formation apparatus frequently performs toner discarding operations to prevent deteriorated toner accumulation, then image quality is maintained, but productivity decreases due to increased operation frequency
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces a printing rate threshold parameter to control when toner discarding operations are executed. By comparing the calculated printing rate against this threshold, the system intelligently determines whether to perform discarding operations, thereby reducing unnecessary operations in high printing rate scenarios while still maintaining image quality when needed, thus balancing reliability and productivity.
3Device complexity
If the image formation apparatus uses a simple entire area printing rate threshold system, then the control logic is simple, but it cannot accurately identify partial areas with high printing rates leading to excessive toner discarding
Solution Approach 1:
The image formation area is divided into multiple divided areas in the main scanning direction, and the printing rate is calculated separately for each divided area. This segmentation allows selective toner discarding only in divided areas where the printing rate is low, rather than discarding toner across the entire area, thus preventing excessive toner loss while maintaining image quality in affected regions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces a simple entire-area threshold check with a divided-area printing rate calculation mechanism. By substituting the coarse-grained entire area approach with a fine-grained divided area approach, the system achieves more precise control over toner discarding decisions, accurately identifying which specific regions need maintenance without unnecessarily processing high printing rate areas.
Data Source
AI summary
An image formation apparatus according to an embodiment may include: an image formation section to form an image with a developer; an entire area printing rate calculator configured to calculate an entire area printing rate, which is, a printing rate of an entirety of an image formation area; a divided area printing rate calculator configured to calculate each divided area printing rate, which is, a printing rate of each of plural divided areas, divided in a main scanning direction, of the image formation area; and a deteriorated developer discarding operation execution section configured, when the entire area printing rate is equal to or lower than an entire area printing rate threshold, to perform a deteriorated developer discarding operation to discard the developer in any one of the divided areas in which the divided area printing rate is equal to or lower than a divided area printing rate threshold thereof.