Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Eiichiro Kimizuka

Masao Amano

Masayuki Fukuda

Satoru Izawa

Toshihiko Ochiai

Shinji Hashiguchi

Koji Nihonyanagi

Kazushige Sakurai

Daisuke Aoki

Fumiki Inui

Masanobu Kanoto

Akira Oomori

Yutaka Kubochi

Masataka Mochiduki

Takahito Ueno

Shigeo Miyabe

Hiroshi Hashimoto

Toshiyuki Watanabe

Yuichiro Inaba

Eiji Uekawa

Ichiro Yasumaru

Akihito Kanamori

Yasuhiro Fukase

Hiromi Sakurai

Junichi Ochi

Masao Umezawa

Takao Kawadu

A belt unit used for an image forming apparatus is provided. The belt unit includes a rotatable endless belt, a plurality of stretching members configured to stretch the belt, an urging member, and a contact and separation unit configured to be able to switch a position of the stretching member urged by the urging member. In moving the stretching member urged by the urging member from the separation position to the contact position, the contact and separation unit makes one end side of the stretching member urged by the urging member in a longitudinal direction coming into contact with the inner surface of the belt faster than the other end side, and temporarily decreases the movement speeds of the both ends of the stretching member in the longitudinal direction respectively before arriving at the contact position.

Belt unit and image forming apparatus having the belt unit

An electrophotographic image forming apparatus to which a cartridge is detachably mountable to form an image on a recording medium, the electrophotographic image forming apparatus including: a mounting portion to which the cartridge is detachably mountable; a cartridge holding member which holds the cartridge to move the cartridge to the mounting portion; a lock member which releasably locks the cartridge to the cartridge holding member; and a lock releasing member which releases the lock of the cartridge to the cartridge holding member by the lock member after the cartridge holding member moves the cartridge to the mounting portion.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus, cartridge, and cartridge holding member with lock and lock releasing members for releasably locking cartridge to the cartridge holding member

An electrophotographic image forming apparatus which allows a locking operation to be easily performed even when a lock mechanism for a developing cartridge is provided at a position hard of access for a user. The electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes a cartridge door opening and closing an opening portion for allowing mounting and detachment of the developing cartridge, a lock member which locks the developing cartridge mounted to a mounting portion so that the developing cartridge may not be detached from the mounting portion and which is rotatable to release the lock, and a link member which abuts the lock member and which can rotate to effect switching between the lock and lock releasing of the lock member, with an end portion of the link member being situated in the vicinity of the opening portion.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus with developer cartridge lock member

An over-stack protective portion is provided on a stopper member. When a sheet feeding device is in a standby position, the over-stack protective portion is held in a position in which the over-stack protective portion is in pressure contact with sheets having the maximum stacking height capable of being fed and supported by a sheet supporting portion. Also, when the sheets are to be fed, the pressure contact of the over-stack protective portion with the sheets having the maximum stacking height is released.

Sheet feeding apparatus and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a substantially horizontally arranged image bearing member; a developing unit, including a plurality of developing devices and supporting the developing devices rotatably relative to the image bearing member; a movable intermediate transfer belt supported by first and second rotation members and facing the developing unit; a primary transfer member forming, together with the image bearing member, a primary transfer portion located near the first rotation member in a moving direction of the intermediate transfer belt, through the intermediate transfer belt; and a secondary transfer member forming, together with the second rotation member, a secondary transfer portion through the intermediate transfer belt. A toner image formed on the image bearing member by the developing unit is transferred on the intermediate transfer belt at the primary transfer portion, and is transferred on a recording material at the secondary transfer portion.

Image forming apparatus for realizing downsizing of a main body of the apparatus

A cartridge that can be accurately positioned and stably held with respect to a main body of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus without causing a deterioration in operability for mounting and detaching the cartridge from the apparatus main body even if a reduction in cost and a reduction in size of the apparatus main body are realized and an electrophotographic image forming apparatus including such cartridge. The cartridge is a drum cartridge that has an electrophotographic photosensitive drum and is detachably mountable to the apparatus main body. The drum cartridge has lock portions that lock on both side plates of the apparatus main body at both ends in a longitudinal direction of the drum cartridge such that the apparatus main body follows the drum cartridge mounted on the apparatus main body.

Cartridge and electrophotographic image forming apparatus

An image-forming apparatus includes a movable lever which functions as a recording medium detector for detecting the passage of a recording medium and a temperature detecting portion provided on the movable lever. The temperature of the recording medium is detected without providing an additional space for a sensor for detecting the temperature of the recording medium.

Image-forming apparatus and recording-medium-temperature detector unit used in the same

According to the present invention, a temperature sensing part of temperature sensing means is arranged to come into contact with the surface opposite to the image surface of a recording material at the time of one-sided printing without providing such an opposed member that comes into contact with the image surface of the recording material at least in a position corresponding to the position of the temperature sensing part that is in contact with the recording material.

Image forming apparatus having temperature sensing element for sensing temperature of recording material

A sheet which is again conveyed to an image forming section passes through a re-feeding passage. A reference member is provided on one end of the re-feeding passage which is perpendicular to a sheet-conveying direction, and is provided with a plurality of reference surfaces in a stepwise manner. Side ends of sheets having different sizes and passing through the re-feeding passage abut against the reference surfaces to adjust positions of the sheets in widthwise direction. The re-feeding passage is provided with obliquely conveying means which obliquely conveys the sheets having different sizes while pushing the sheets against the reference surfaces. A support member which is provided upstream of the obliquely conveying means supports the sheet such that one end of the sheet supported by the support surface extending from lower ends of the reference surfaces substantially horizontally and the other end of the sheet have substantially the same heights.

Sheet conveying apparatus and image forming apparatus

A sheet transport apparatus that re-transports a sheet having an image formed by an image forming portion on a first surface of the sheet, to the image forming portion in order to form an image on a second surface of the sheet on a side opposite to the first surface, the sheet transport apparatus including: a re-transport path through which the sheet is re-transported to the image forming portion again; a cooling unit for blowing air into the re-transport path in order to cool the sheet passing through the re-transport path; and an electrical substrate, in which the air having been blown to the sheet from the cooling unit to cool the sheet is prevented from striking the electrical substrate.

Sheet transport apparatus and image forming apparatus

A process cartridge detachable mountable to a main assembly of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes an electrophotographic photosensitive drum; a developing roller for developing an electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive drum with developer; a transferring roller for causing transfer of the developer image from the photosensitive drum to a recording material; a cleaner, contacted to the photosensitive drum, for removing a developer remaining on the photosensitive drum; a developer accommodating portion for accommodating developer removed from the photosensitive drum by the cleaner; and a memory including a storing portion for storing predetermined information and a communicator for effecting wireless communication of the predetermined information stored in the storing portion with a main assembly side communicator provided in the main assembly of the electrophotographic image forming apparatus. The storing portion is disposed inside the developer accommodating portion and the storing portion is disposed on the same side of the process cartridge as the photosensitive drum with respect to tangent lines passing a contact point between the photosensitive drum and the developing roller or transfer roller.

Process cartridge having storage device which communicates with image forming apparatus

There is provided an image forming apparatus that is capable of detecting an outside air temperature with high precision, which is capable of controlling the setting of an image forming condition to improve an image quality. A suction fan and a thermistor in the vicinity of an outside air (outside air intake) are disposed, and an enforced convection due to the fan is utilized to detect the outside air temperature with high precision (high accuracy and high response), thereby being capable of obtaining that information.

Image forming apparatus with temperature based control

In an image forming apparatus having a suction type fan, a thermistor is disposed in a vicinity of the suction type fan and the outside air (outside air intake port), and the forced convection by the fan is utilized, whereby it is made possible to detect the outside air temperature with good accuracy (accurately and with good response) and obtain the information thereof. Also, in an image forming apparatus for effecting image recording on a recording sheet by the electrophotographic process, including a cooling fan, an outside air thermistor (temperature sensor) disposed in a vicinity of the cooling fan, and outside air temperature calculating device for calculating the outside air temperature on the basis of temperature information from the outside air thermistor, wherein the parameter of the electrophotographic process is changed on the basis of outside air temperature information from the outside air temperature calculating device, the outside air temperature calculating device finds an average value obtained by averaging temperatures detected by the outside air thermistor during the non-recording operation for a predetermined time, and judges a value obtained by subtracting a predetermined value from the average value as the outside air temperature.

Image forming apparatus

A process cartridge detachably mountable to a main assembly of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, includes an electrophotographic photosensitive drum; a charger, contacted to the electrophotographic photosensitive drum along a length of the electrophotographic photosensitive drum, for electrically charging the electrophotographic photosensitive drum by application of a bias voltage to the charging means; a cleaner, contacted to the electrophotographic photosensitive drum, for removing a developer remaining on the electrophotographic photosensitive drum; a holder for holding the cleaning means along the length of the electrophotographic photosensitive drum; and a memory including a storing portion for storing predetermined information and a communicator for effecting wireless communication of the predetermined information stored in the storing portion with a main assembly side communicator provided in a main assembly of the electrophotographic image forming apparatus; wherein the memory is disposed in a region blinded by the holder as seen in a direction crossing with a longitudinal direction of the electrophotographic photosensitive drum from a given contact point between the electrophotographic photosensitive drum and the charger.

Growing community of inventors

Mishima, Japan

Eiichiro Kimizuka