Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Akihiro Nishida

Kenji Sawada

Hideya Nishise

Takao Fujiwara

Masahiko Tanaka

Kouji Ito

Yukinobu Iguchi

An operation panel structure for an image forming apparatus, said operation panel structure having an operation panel protruding from a front side of the image forming apparatus. The operation panel structure has a first support unit for supporting the operation panel such that the operation panel is capable of pivoting in a first direction along a vertical direction and a second support unit for supporting the operation panel such that the operation panel is capable of pivoting in a second direction along a horizontal direction. A lock claw is capable of selectively engaging with a plural number of lock holes so that the operation panel can be locked in the plural number of locked positions while the operation panel is pivoting in the first direction.

Operation panel structure

An operation panel structure for an image forming apparatus, said operation panel, structure having an operation panel protruding from a front side of the image forming apparatus. The operation panel has a first section mainly functioning as a display and a second section mainly having operation keys, and the first section and the second section are arranged in a direction orthogonal to the width direction of the image forming apparatus at respective specified angles to a horizontal plane. The second section is located in front of the first section. The first section is rectangular in a plan view, and the second section is substantially semicircular in a plan view. A front edge of the first section and a rear linear edge of the second section are connected to each other.

A box for an image reading apparatus, the box comprising a box body and a reinforcing member, the box body comprising a rectangular frame and a base plate fixed to the rectangular frame, and the reinforcing member being attached to the box body. The reinforcing member has a downwardly drawn area, upwardly drawn areas which are adjacent to the downwardly drawn area on front side and rear side for placing a reading block without interfering with the movement of an original document scanning unit and a cutout portion for disposing at least an image processing unit formed from the downwardly drawn area to end-of-scan side in the subscanning direction of the box body. An image reading apparatus having reduced thickness is provided by employing this box. An image forming apparatus in which height position of the image reading apparatus is set to such a height position that allows easy operation is provided.

Box for image reading apparatus, image reading apparatus and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus comprising a toner image retaining member having an electrically conductive substrate and a dielectric layer formed thereon is disclosed. In the image forming apparatus, an electrostatic latent image corresponding to an image of a document is formed on a photoconductive member, and the electrostatic latent image is developed with a toner so as to form a visible toner image on the photoconductive member. Thereafter, in the primary transfer process, the dielectric layer is electrified and the electrified dielectric layer is brought into contact with the photoconductive member so as to transfer the toner image onto the toner image retaining member, and in the secondary transfer process, the transferred toner image is transferred onto a paper.

Image forming apparatus with and method using an intermediate toner

A color image forming method using a toner image retaining member is disclosed. In the color image forming method, a plurality of electrostatic latent images corresponding to respective color components of an image of a document are formed sequentially on a photoconductive member, and the electrostatic latent images are developed sequentially with respective toners of different colors so as to form the corresponding visible toner images on the photoconductive member. Thereafter, the toner images are transferred sequentially onto the toner image retaining member by electrifying the toner image retaining member every transfer process for each of the toner image so as to form a color image thereon, and the color image is transferred onto a paper.

Color image forming method

An image forming apparatus which includes a color editing function is provided with two developing units, each of the developing units contain an impeding device for impeding flow of the developer as it is transported on a peripheral surface of the developing sleeve locally in the axial direction of the roller. An image editing device is provided for specifying an optical area of a desired image to be produced and a controller is provided for controlling the developing units so as to permit development of a specified area by one developing unit and to develop any unspecified area by the other developing unit.

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Shinshiro, Japan

Akihiro Nishida