Patent ID: 9557683
Date: 2017-01-31
CPC Classifications: G03G

Claim:
1. An image forming apparatus comprising: an image bearing member; a developing device configured to develop an electrostatic latent image, formed on said image bearing member, with a toner; a supplying device configured to supply the toner to said developing device; and a controller configured to control supply of the toner by said supplying device, wherein said controller is further configured for executing an operation in a supply mode and an operation in a forced supply mode, wherein in the supply mode, during a continuous image forming job for forming images on a plurality of recording materials continuously, said supplying device supplies the toner to said developing device without interrupting the image forming job, and wherein in the forced supply mode, during the continuous image forming job, when a toner amount in said developing device reaches a predetermined amount irrespective of supply of the toner in the operation in the supply mode, said supplying device supplies the toner after interrupting the image forming job, wherein said controller sets a flag for executing the operation in the forced supply mode when the toner amount reaches the predetermined amount during the continuous image forming job, and makes the following determination: (i) in a case where a state in which the toner amount reaches the predetermined amount is eliminated when the images are formed on a predetermined number of the recording materials after the flag is set, the flag is reset, (ii) in a case where the state in which the toner amount reaches the predetermined amount is maintained when the images are formed on the predetermined number of the recording materials after the flag is set, said controller executes the operation in the forced supply mode, and (iii) when the image forming job is ended before the images are formed on the predetermined number of the recording materials after the flag is set, said supplying device supplies the toner after image formation is ended.