Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Hidetoshi Kanai

Shinji Kobayashi

Kan Tomita

Yoshiki Yoshida

Yuji Yasuda

Takashi Mama

Fumihiro Miyagawa

Takanobu Fujioka

Shinya Tanaka

Katsuhiko Maeda

Yoshio Kanzaki

An image forming apparatus capable of properly performing an initialization of a control circuit including a laser diode driver circuit, includes a light source, a photoreceptor, a deflector, and a controller. The photoreceptor is built in the light source to detect incident light. The deflector deflects the laser light into a scanning laser beam. The controller controls the light source to light on and off, and obtains a laser light emission amount of the light source relative to a current flowing through the light source based on a detection of incident light by the photoreceptor. The controller determines the laser light emission amount of the light source during a time period when a path of the laser light from the light source is headed to a reflection surface of the deflector at an incident angle of approximately ninety degrees.

Image forming apparatus capable of effectively initializing a laser drive circuit

An image forming apparatus having deflection scanning type and line type exposing devices and first and second developing devices arranged around a photoconductive element, so that parts around the photoconductive element are arranged with ease to promote the miniaturization of the apparatus. The exposing devices are selected based on the principle that the image quality is enhanced for an image of particular color and is lowered for an image of another color expected to be printed less frequently. Specifically, the deflection scanning type exposing device forms the image of the particular color, and the line type exposing device which has an inherently long optical path and simple structure forms the image of another color. Fans are provided to produce cooling air flow to the line type exposing device and to draw out toner dirt and ozone produced by the charger associated therewith. The line type exposing device and the associated charger are electrically insulated from each other and mounted in a common casing. Cleaning elements are provided to clean the charger and the line type exposing device during withdrawal of these elements from the photoconductive element.

Compact BI-color electrophotographic image forming apparatus

A bicolor image forming apparatus having first and second exposing means and first and second developing means arranged around a photoconductive element. The first and second developing means are implemented as a deflection scanning type and a line type, respectively. Parts around a photoconductive element are arranged with ease to promote the miniaturization of the apparatus. This stems from the principle that the image quality may be enhanced for an image of particular color and lowered for an image of another color expected to be printed less frequently. Specifically, the apparatus has deflection scanning type exposing means for forming the image of particular color, and line type exposing means which has an inherently long optical path and simple structure for forming the image of another color.

Bicolor image forming apparatus for forming a bicolor image on a

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Yokohama, Japan

Hidetoshi Kanai