Patent ID: 9360816
Filing Date: 2016-06-07
CPC Classification: G03G

Claim Text:
1. A toner bottle driving device control method comprising: driving one of multiple toner bottle driving devices connected to a single toner container at a time, the multiple toner bottle driving devices to drive toner bottles, respectively; detecting a driving status value of a toner bottle driving device being driven, out of the multiple toner bottle driving devices, at regular intervals; storing, in a memory device, an abnormality detection count representing a count of times when the driving status value exceeds an abnormality criterial value; resetting the abnormality detection count when the driving status value falls to or below the abnormality criterial value; determining that the toner bottle driving device being driven is in a first abnormality phase when the stored abnormality detection count exceeds a threshold; storing the first abnormality phase as a status of the toner bottle driving device being driven in the memory device; indicating the first abnormality phase of the toner bottle driving device being driven on a display of an image forming apparatus including the multiple toner bottle driving devices; determining that a toner bottle contained in the toner bottle driving device being in the first abnormality phase is empty regardless of an amount of toner remaining in the toner bottle; inhibiting the toner bottle driving device being in the first abnormality phase from driving until the first abnormality phase is resolved; driving a drivable toner bottle driving device containing a non-empty toner bottle, out of the multiple toner bottle driving devices when the toner bottle contained in the toner bottle driving device being driven is determined as empty; determining that the multiple toner bottle driving devices are in a second abnormality phase when the memory device stores the first abnormality phase as the status of each of the multiple toner bottle driving devices; indicating the second abnormality phase on the display; and inhibiting image forming in the image forming apparatus until the second abnormality phase is resolved.