| CPC G03G 15/556 (2013.01) [G03G 15/0813 (2013.01); G03G 15/0856 (2013.01); G03G 21/1825 (2013.01); G03G 2215/0154 (2013.01)] | 10 Claims |
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1. An image forming apparatus comprising:
an image bearing member;
an electrostatic image forming portion configured to form an electrostatic image on a surface of the image bearing member according to an image information;
a developing unit including a developing member configured to supply toner onto the surface of the image bearing member and form a toner image by developing the electrostatic image formed on the surface of the image bearing member, and a developing container configured to accommodate the toner to be supplied to the developing member;
a transfer member configured to transfer the toner image formed on the surface of the image bearing member to a recording material;
a moving mechanism capable of moving the developing unit to a first position where a distance between the image bearing member and the developing member is a first distance and a second position where a distance between the image bearing member and the developing member is a second distance longer than the first distance;
a control portion configured to control so as to execute an image forming operation in which a toner image is formed with the toner according to the image information; and
a consumption amount acquiring portion configured to acquire toner consumption amount information correlating with consumption amount of the toner based on the image information,
wherein when a period between a first image forming operation and a second image forming operation subsequent to the first image forming operation is defined as a non-image forming period, the control portion controls the moving mechanism to execute a moving operation in which the developing unit is moved from the second position to the first position after the developing unit is moved from the first position to the second position in the non-image forming period in a case in which the consumption amount of the toner indicated by the consumption amount information is equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value in the second image forming operation, and
wherein the control portion controls the electrostatic image forming portion so that a length of the non-image forming period in a case in which the moving operation is executed in the non-image forming period becomes longer than in a case in which the moving operation is not executed.
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