Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Eiji Sawamura

Hiroshi Hosaka

Takayuki Yoshii

Yoshimasa Honda

Soukichi Araki

Takakazu Nomura

Yasuhiro Tabata

Koji Hikawa

Naoko Kudo

Yuichi Deguchi

Naohiro Watanabe

Shigeru Emoto

Ryota Inoue

Masahide Yamada

Tsunemi Sugiyama

Akinori Saitoh

Masahiro Ohki

Shinichi Wakamatsu

Masahiko Sato

Kenichi Hasegawa

Masumi Sato

Motokazu Yasui

Kazuki Suzuki

Tsuneaki Kondoh

Yasuhisa Kato

Shinji Imoto

Yuusuke Noguchi

Toshiaki Higaya

Motokazu Hasegawa

Norihiko Aze

Kohji Kamiya

Osamu Takashima

Keizo Yasuda

Kazuyuki Saitoh

Masahiro Tomita

Michitaka Higaki

Ryuzo Nitta

Shizuo Kawamura

Masano Ehara

A toner is provided including a binder resin and a wax having primarily C&#x2014;H and C&#x2014;C bonds, and having a melting point of 50 to 90&#xb0; C., wherein the wax is present in a surface portion of the toner in an amount of from 0.1 to 4.0% by weight, wherein the amount of the wax is determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR); and the use of the toner in an image forming method, image forming apparatus, developer and toner cartridge containing the toner.

Toner, developer, image forming method, image forming apparatus, process cartridge, and toner container

A fixing apparatus including at least one transfer and fixing member which is placed in contact with an image carrier and a recording medium and configured to transfer and fix an image on the image carrier to the recording medium, at least detection mechanism configured to detect a jam generated on the recording medium, a separation mechanism configured to contact the transfer and fixing member with and separate from the transfer and fixing member from the image carrier or recording medium, the separation mechanism being configured to separate the transfer and fixing member from the image carrier or recording medium when the jam on the recording medium is detected by the detection mechanism.

Fixing apparatus, fixing member used in the fixing apparatus, and image forming apparatus having the fixing apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a fixing unit for fixing a toner image on a recording sheet. The fixing unit includes a fixing belt, a support roller, and a coil. The fixing belt rotates and applies heat on the recording sheet to fix the toner image on the recording sheet. The support roller rotates and supports the fixing belt. The coil has a loop-like or U-like shape and generates a magnetic flux to induce heat in the fixing belt and the support roller. The coil sandwiches the support roller and the fixing belt in a manner that the coil faces an outer circumferential surface of the support roller via the fixing belt and an inner circumferential surface of the support roller. The above configuration of the coil controls a surface temperature of the fixing belt.

Method and apparatus for image forming capable of effectively fixing a toner image on a recording sheet by using induction heating

A fixing device for thermally fixing a toner image formed on a recording medium by an image forming apparatus is disclosed. A heat roller included in the fixing device is prevented from moving in its axial direction or thrust direction without causing any leak to occur. While a heating layer and a temperature sensor are electrically isolated from each other, the temperature sensor can accurately sense the surface temperature of the heat roller without damaging the surface of the heat roller.

Fixing device for an image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus including a paper cassette loaded with a stack of papers and a paper stacking device for stacking papers carrying images thereon is disclosed. The apparatus has an upper casing part rotatable away from a lower casing part. When the upper casing part is rotated away from the lower casing part, the apparatus successfully prevents the upper casing part from interfering with a tray or similar paper stacking means and prevents papers stacked on the tray from dropping without having its overall length increased. The tray is arranged in the rear portion of the apparatus opposite to the front portion where a control panel is located, thereby reducing the widthwise dimension of the apparatus. Even in such a position, the tray allows papers stacked thereon to be easily picked up.

Image forming apparatus

The present invention provides an image recording apparatus comprising a document size detection sensor 103 for recognizing a size of an image to be recorded, an image input section 101 for reading and storing therein the image to be recorded, a paper feeder (not shown herein) for storing therein and feeding recording paper having a specified size, an image forming section 108 for forming an image on recording paper fed from the paper feeder, an image processing section 106 for dividing a read image to two portions based on a result of detection by the document size detection sensor 103 when a size of the image to be recorded is larger than recording paper having a specified size and executing image processing for displacing a central position of each image so that an edge section of each image will be aligned to an edge of a binding space of each discrete sheet of recording paper, and an image output section 107 for outputting an image processed by the image processing section 108.

Image recording apparatus

The image recording apparatus optically reads image data on a document with an image area or a plurality of image areas specified therein and synthesizes image data of another document read subsequently into the specified image area or image areas changing the size thereof as needed accordingly an image on the other document can be allocated with a desired size at an arbitrary position on the first document and printed on a sheet of recording paper, thus improving the work efficiency and convenience of the apparatus.

Image synthesizing method and image recording apparatus which

An image recording apparatus including a document size detection sensor for recognizing a size of an image to be recorded, an image input section for reading and storing therein the image to be recorded, a paper feeder for feeding recording paper having a specified size, an image forming section for forming an image on recording paper fed from the paper feeder, a control means for calculating a number of sheets of recording paper to be recorded from said total number of pages, an image processing section for executing image processing for displacing a central position of each image so that an edge section of each image will be aligned to an edge of a binding space of each discrete sheet of recording paper, and an image output section for outputting an image processed by the image processing section 108.

In an image forming apparatus, an image fixing device has a hollow cylindrical fixing roller implemented as a heat pipe, and a pressing roller held in pressing contact with the fixing roller. The fixing roller is made up of a fixing portion, and a paper nipping portion against which the pressing roller is constantly urged. The paper nipping portion has a greater wall thickness than the heating section. This kind of configuration promotes rapid heat conduction from a halogen heater to a working fluid filled in the heat pipe, while preventing the paper nipping portion of the fixing roller from being deformed by the pressing roller.

Image fixing device having heating portion at one end thereof

An image forming apparatus has an erasing device therein which automatically erases an image formed on a sheet by a recording agent implemented by a decolorizable coloring agent, e.g., toner. The erasing device emits light having a wavelength range of 820 nm or so while generating heat and may be constituted by a halogen lamp. As a result, the sheet is regenerated and can be repetitively used.

Image forming apparatus capable of erasing an image recorded in a sheet

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Eiji Sawamura