An imaging system includes a lubricant roller to transfer a lubricant to the image carrier, a solid lubricant in contact the lubricant roller to supply the lubricant to the lubricant roller, and a pressing member to urge the solid lubricant against the lubricant roller. The lubricant roller includes a foam that is in contact with the image carrier. The foam is selected to have a permeability of approximately 0.15 dm.sup.3/s to 1.4 dm.sup.3/s.

During a print cycle of a print apparatus, a liquid print agent including a carrier fluid is applied to a photoconductive surface. A proportion of the carrier fluid in the liquid print agent on the photoconductive surface is reduced at a first location by removably collecting a portion of the carrier fluid from the liquid print agent applied to the photoconductive surface. During a non-print cycle of the print apparatus, the removably collected portion of the carrier fluid is added to the photoconductive surface at the first location.

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier; a charging section that charges a surface of the image carrier; an electrostatic charge image forming section that forms an electrostatic charge image on the charged surface of the image carrier; a developing section that has a container containing an electrostatic charge image developer and develops the electrostatic charge image formed on the surface of the image carrier into a toner image using the electrostatic charge image developer, the electrostatic charge image developer including toner for electrostatic charge image development, the toner containing toner particles and an external additive; a transfer section that transfers the toner image formed on the surface of the image carrier to a surface of a recording medium; a cleaning section that has a cleaning blade with which the cleaning section cleans the surface of the image carrier; and a lubricant supplying section that has a lubricant supplying member that supplies a lubricant to the contact portion between the cleaning blade and the image carrier. The toner satisfies the following relations: (ln (T1)ln (T2))/(T1T2)0.14; (ln (T2)ln (T3))/(T2T3)0.15; and (ln (T1)ln (T2))/(T1T2)<(ln (T2)ln (T3))/(T2T3), where (T1) represents a viscosity of the toner at 60 C., (T2) represents a viscosity of the toner at 90 C., and (T3) represents a viscosity of the toner at 130 C.

An image foil ling apparatus includes a latent image bearer, a charger, an exposure device, a developing device, a toner adhesion amount detector, and control circuitry. The control circuitry controls the charger, the exposure device, and the developing device to form a detection toner pattern shorter than a circumferential length of the latent image bearer in a circumferential direction of the latent image bearer at an area of the latent image bearer including at least a part of an opposite portion of the latent image bearer opposite the charger when the latent image bearer stops rotation, controls the toner adhesion amount detector to detect a toner adhesion amount of the detection toner pattern, and executes a refreshing operation to recover the surface of the latent image bearer from a deteriorated state due to a discharge product based on a result of the detection toner pattern detected by the toner adhesion amount detector.

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier; a charging section that charges a surface of the image carrier; an electrostatic charge image forming section that forms an electrostatic charge image on the charged surface of the image carrier; a developing section that has a container containing an electrostatic charge image developer and develops the electrostatic charge image formed on the surface of the image carrier into a toner image using the electrostatic charge image developer, the electrostatic charge image developer including toner for electrostatic charge image development, the toner containing toner particles and an external additive; a transfer section that transfers the toner image formed on the surface of the image carrier to a surface of a recording medium; a cleaning section that has a cleaning blade with which the cleaning section cleans the surface of the image carrier; and a lubricant supplying section that has a lubricant supplying member that supplies a lubricant to the contact portion between the cleaning blade and the image carrier. The toner satisfies the following relations: (ln (T1)ln (T2))/(T1T2)0.14; (ln (T2)ln (T3))/(T2T3)20.15; and (ln (T1)ln (T2))/(T1T2)<(ln (T2)ln (T3))/(T2T3), where (T1) represents a viscosity of the toner at 60 C., (T2) represents a viscosity of the toner at 90 C., and (T3) represents a viscosity of the toner at 130 C.

A liquid electro-photographic, LEP, printing system, comprising a photo imaging plate, PIP, an intermediate transfer member, ITM, and a control unit. The control unit causes the system to initiate a maintenance program, wherein the maintenance program comprises driving the PIP and the ITM while disabling particle transfer to the PIP and applying a voltage difference between the PIP and surface portions of the ITM.

A lubricant coating device preventing coating unevenness of lubricant powders is provided. The lubricant coating device includes a solid lubricant, a coating member and a film shaping member. The coating member in which first fibers composed of a material located on a positive polarity side and second fibers composed of a material located on a negative polarity side, on a triboelectric series with respect to the material of the solid lubricant are implanted, coats lubricant powders scraped off from the solid lubricant onto the image supporter. The film shaping member comes in contact with the image supporter and presses the lubricant powders onto the image supporter, to shape the lubricant powders into a form of a film. A scraping amount of the lubricant powders by the first fibers and a scraping amount of the lubricant powders by the second fibers are set to become substantially identical.

A photoconductive layer in an image forming apparatus is refreshed. A first refreshing cycle is performed, including applying, at a first refresh unit, a first refresh voltage to the photoconductive layer and applying, at a second refresh unit, a second refresh voltage to the photoconductive layer. A second refreshing cycle is performed, including applying, at the first refresh unit, a third refresh voltage to the photoconductive layer, the third refresh voltage being higher than the first refresh voltage and higher than the second refresh voltage. Each of the first and second refreshing cycles electrically bias the photoconductive layer to a refresh polarity opposite to a print polarity applied during a print routine of the image forming apparatus.

An example cleaning station for a liquid electrophotographic printer is provided. The cleaning station has a sponge arranged to remove particles from a photo imaging plate of the printer, a fluid supply arranged to apply cleaning fluid to the sponge, a squeezing component arranged to squeeze the sponge in order to remove cleaning fluid and particles from the sponge, and a charging component arranged to electrically charge the squeezing component such that particles are attracted from the sponge to the squeezing component. The squeezing component is electrically isolated within the cleaning station.

An image forming apparatus includes a lubricant application device to apply a lubricant to a photoreceptor surface of the image forming apparatus, and a lubricant residual amount detector to detect a residual amount of the lubricant. The residual amount of the lubricant is compared to a predetermined amount, and a charging device charges the photoreceptor surface by selectively applying a DC voltage of varying voltage to the photoreceptor surface in response to the comparison of the residual amount of the lubricant to the predetermined amount.