Citizen Watch Company, Ltd.

Citizen Holdings Company, Ltd.

Akira Shiota

Sadao Masubuchi

Masafumi Yokoyama

Masaaki Matsunaga

Shinichi Nonaka

Chikara Aizawa

Toshiaki Fukushima

Makoto Yasunaga

Maki Wakita

Toshinari Maeda

Shigeru Futakami

Akinobu Iwako

Sigeru Futakami

Makoto Watanabe

Nobuaki Suzuki

Takashi Ihara

Yoichi Nagata

Akira Izumi

Hideyuki Kawashima

Yu Takyo

Kazunari Takahashi

An electrostatic induction generator includes a housing, a first board fixed to the housing, and a second board arranged in parallel to the first board to be able move relative to it, in which electrostatic induction generator, counter electrodes are placed at a first facing surface of the first board, electrically charged films are placed at every other constant interval at a second facing surface of the second board so as to face the counter electrodes, the counter electrodes are comprised of pluralities of first electrodes and second electrodes provided separated from each other at the first facing surface, first electrodes and second electrodes are alternately arranged at constant intervals in a single line, a plurality of lines of single lines of the first electrodes and second electrodes are provided at the first facing surface, and the constant intervals of the plurality of lines respectively differ in phase.

Electrostatic induction generator

An oscillating stepping motor can reduce a required rotational angle of a rotor to drive a star wheel, reduce idle driving, cut the loss of energy required for the driving, reduce power consumption even in high-frequency driving, and stably operate. Two star wheels are located so that the tooth tips thereof are not engaged with each other. A rotor shaft includes a rotor pinion having two feed teeth at a certain aperture angle. One of the feed teeth feeds one of the driving wheels by oscillation of the rotor in one direction and the other of the feed teeth feeds the other of the driving wheels by the oscillation of the rotor in the other. The rotor then oscillates within a certain angle range, thereby sequentially rotating output gears in a certain direction by a certain angle.

Wrist watch oscillating step motor with sweep motion

Provided is an electronic watch capable of, even if an indicating hand having a large moment of inertia is used, accurately determining success and failure of rotation. The electronic watch detects rotation by using a first detection mode determination circuit () and a second detection mode determination circuit (). In the electronic watch, a timing counter () for measuring a time after an output of a normal drive pulse is followed by a detection pulse selection circuit () provided as changing means for changing a width or a frequency of a detection pulse in accordance with an output time of the detection pulse. The detection pulse detects the rotation and simultaneously serves as an electromagnetic brake for a rotor (). The electromagnetic brake for the rotor () is controlled by changing the width or the frequency of the detection pulse in a predetermined period, thereby achieving an accurate rotation detection. Alternatively, the setting of the width or the frequency of the detection pulse may be changed in accordance with a determination result in a first detection mode, an output voltage of a power supply, and a driving power of the normal drive pulse, instead of the output timing of the detection pulse.

Electronic watch

The invention is directed to the provision of an exposure apparatus in which is stored an electric current value appropriately determined for supply to a light-emitting device, and a method for producing such an exposure apparatus. The production method according to the invention comprises the steps of supplying a reference electric current to the light-emitting device, and measuring the amount of light from each of the plurality of pixels of the light modulating device, determining whether a minimum value among the amounts of light measured from the plurality of pixels lies within a predetermined range, and determining the value of the electric current to be supplied to the light-emitting device so that the minimum value of the amounts of light falls within the predetermined range when the minimum value of the amounts of light is outside the predetermined range.

Exposure system and production method for exposure system

The invention provides an exposure apparatus that outputs a stable photographic quality image unaffected by variations in ambient temperature, by suppressing the effects of the temperature variations and achieving accurate grayscale reproduction. In the exposure apparatus, input grayscale data Pis converted into corrected grayscale data by using a conversion table for correcting for the nonlinearity of exposure density, and grayscale exposure is performed on a photosensitive material by controlling exposure conditions in an exposure head based on the corrected grayscale data; here, the conversion table actually comprises a plurality of conversion tables one for each designated temperature region, and a temperature detector is provided for detecting the ambient temperature, with provisions made to select an appropriate one of the conversion tables under the control of select data in accordance with the temperature data supplied from the temperature detector. The exposure apparatus can thus achieve accurate grayscale reproduction and output a stable photographic quality image even when the ambient temperature varies.

Exposure device

The invention is directed to the provision of an exposure apparatus that can determine a correction value for each individual light-emitting part by employing a method that detects the amount of light corresponding to one particular light-emitting part from composite light containing light rays from adjacent light-emitting parts, and also to the provision of a method for producing such an exposure apparatus. The production method according to the invention comprises the steps of lighting a plurality of light-emitting parts at the same time, detecting an output light-amount distribution across all of the plurality of light-emitting parts by making measurements using a line-like light-receiving device, detecting a peak position corresponding to each light-emitting part by using the output light-amount distribution; detecting the amount of light of each light-emitting part based on the peak position, and determining, based on the amount of light of each light-emitting part, the correction value for correcting nonuniformity in the amount of light of the light-emitting part.

Method for determining a correction value for light-emitting parts in exposure apparatus

An optical printer device which includes an exposure device which makes relative movements, in a predetermined direction, with respect to a photosensitive body. The optical printer also has a plurality of first, second and third light-emitting elements which emit lights of a first, second and third colors. These light-emitting elements are mounted on a first, second and third mounting substrates, independent of one another, which correspond to the first, second and third colors.

Optical printer device that forms color images

Calibration of the light emitting elements in an optical printer is carried out by mounting the optical printer on an external monitoring apparatus. The external monitoring apparatus comprises: a sensor mounting portion whereon a plurality of photosensors are mounted in a straight line; a signal processing circuit for processing the signals output from the photosensors; a reference voltage generating circuit; and a comparison and control circuit for comparing the output from the signal processing circuit with the reference voltage from the reference voltage generating circuit and outputting a signal based on the results of the comparison. The photosensors receive the light output from the light emitting elements, being subject to calibration, in the optical printer. The signal processing circuit comprises a plurality of integrating circuits which receive the signals output from the plurality of photosensors and integrate those signals over a prescribed period of time; and an arithmetic circuit for calculating the mean value of the output of the integrating circuits and outputting the calibration voltage.

Calibration apparatus for light emitting elements in an optical printer

In an optical printer apparatus designed so that an optical head ( ) having an LED light source ( ) therein is moved relatively to a sensitized sheet ( ) and an image is formed by emitting a plurality of color light beams in regular order from the LED so that the light beams are focused at given spaces on the sensitized sheet, an image pitch P for the color light beams is substantially equal to an integer multiple of the maximum exposure distance D.

Optical printer

A line-scanning optical printer, which forms an image on a sensitized sheet ( ) by projecting a linear light having a given width and length thereto while successively scanning individual lines in the direction of the width, comprises a casing ( ) having light shielding properties and including a window portion for radiating the linear light to the outside, a light emitting element ( ), which substantially functions as a point light source and is stored in the casing, an optical system ( ) for guiding light from the light emitting element ( ) as the linear light to the window portion, and a liquid crystal optical shutter ( ) attached to the window portion.

Line-scanning optical printer

The present invention uses LEDs as the light source in a optical printer employing a line scanning method in which an image is produced by relative motion of the light to a photosensitive medium. LEDs are arranged on a mounting substrate with LED pairs, each pair being of the same color, disposed symmetrically as to the center point of the line. Similarly, the power supply lead wires for the LEDs are also disposed symmetrically. In mounting the components on the mounting substrate, a light-intercepting material is used for intercepting light from the side faces of the LEDs.

Optical printer apparatus

The present invention employs LEDs and a liquid crystal shutter driven in synchronization with the position of the photosensitive paper, thereby eliminating image distortion even where the head of the optical printer apparatus is subjected to unanticipated load during scanning by the head. A rotary encoder (,) is provided on the rotating shaft of the motor (,) that drives the optical head (,), and the drive timing for the LEDs (,) and the liquid crystal shutter (,) is synchronized with the output of the rotary encoder.

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Saitama, Japan

Akira Shiota