Patent ID: 7123863

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a carrying member for carrying a toner image provided by forming an electrostatic latent image on a surface thereof and developing the electrostatic latent image; a plurality of development cartridges for forming the toner image that is to be transferred onto a surface of a recording medium by applying a toner to the electrostatic latent image on the surface of the carrying member to develop the image; a rotary unit which accommodates the development cartridges around a rotary shaft and rotates around the rotary shaft to cause one of the development cartridges to face the surface of the carrying member; and a control unit which controls a rotation of the rotary unit and a driving of the development cartridges to form the toner image, the rotary unit is configured to have at least one first accommodating position and at least one second accommodating position so as to be able to accommodate development cartridges containing toners in different colors to allow a formation of a color image, multi-color image, or single-color image; a conditioner is disposed only in a first development cartridge containing a toner in a color for forming a single-color image to condition the toner contained therein; an operation of conditioning the contained toner is performed in the other development cartridges, each of which is constituted by a second development cartridge without the conditioner, by turning the second cartridge upside down by a rotation of the rotary unit during an image formation, wherein a toner in the color for single-color image is capable of being contained in the second development cartridges without the conditioner and the second development cartridges are capable of being accommodated in the second accommodating position of the rotary unit; and an identification unit for identifying a development cartridge accommodated in the rotary unit, wherein the control unit controls the rotation of the rotary unit based on information from the identification unit.