Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Hiroshi Mizusawa

Ken Amemiya

Haruji Mizuishi

Masaru Tanaka

Mayumi Ohori

Kenzo Tatsumi

Hideki Zenba

Hiroyuki Ohkaji

Takeshi Shintani

Hideki Zemba

Toshitaka Yamaguchi

Fumio Kishi

Noriyuki Usui

Yuji Arai

Hiroshi Ono

Hiroshi Nakai

Toshio Koike

Satoshi Hatori

Daisuke Tomita

Masanori Kawasumi

Yasuhiro Maehata

Yuta Azeyanagi

Kohsuke Yamamoto

Yasuhito Kuboshima

Kenzou Tatsumi

Masami Tomita

Kazuhiko Watanabe

Shin Hasegawa

Masayuki Yamane

Naohiro Kumagai

Satoshi Takano

Shinji Tamaki

Mitsuo Aoki

Kaoru Yoshino

Hirobumi Ooyoshi

Takaaki Tawada

Takeo Suda

Shinichi Kawahara

Akira Fujimori

Michiya Okamoto

Takuma Iwasaki

Yosuke Eguchi

Hiromichi Ninomiya

Kuniyori Takano

Mikio Ishibashi

Bing Shu

Takuzi Yoneda

Yusuke Ishizuka

Takuya Sekine

Tokuya Ojimi

Kouji Ishigaki

Hiroki Matsuura

Takeshi Tabuchi

Yoshinori Ozawa

Hiroyuki Okaji

Kenji Komito

Yasuhide Nakazawa

Sho Akiyama

Kazune Nakamura

Hideyo Watanabe

Tomoyuki Kirigane

A feeding device to feed a sheet in a feeding direction includes a mount on which a substantially rectangular parallelepiped sheet pack is mountable; a first cutter to cut, in the feeding direction, a first side surface on one end side in a width direction orthogonal to the feeding direction out of four side surfaces of the sheet pack; a second cutter to cut, in the width direction, a second side surface on a downstream side in the feeding direction out of the four side surfaces; and a third cutter to cut, in the feeding direction, a third side surface on another end side in the width direction out of the four side surfaces. Height positions cut by the first cutter, the second cutter, and the third cutter coincide with each other. Cut portions by the first cutter, the second cutter, and the third cutter are coupled to each other.

Feeding device and image forming apparatus

A cleaning blade includes an edge portion made of an elastic material having a rebound resilience value R35 at 35&#xb0; C. and a 100% modulus value M35 at 35&#xb0; C. that satisfy the relation R35&#x2264;&#x2212;4.8 M35+42.

Cleaning blade, cleaning device, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge

A cleaning device includes a cleaning blade disposed in contact with a rotator, a toner collecting section disposed along the rotator and the cleaning blade and includes a groove extending in an axial direction of the rotator, a conveyor disposed in the groove, and an agitator disposed on a side of a rim of the groove. The conveyor rotates to convey the toner in a longitudinal direction of the groove. The agitator vibrates through contact with the conveyor and includes comb-tooth portions lined in a comb shape in the longitudinal direction of the groove, and bent portions, each of which is bent from an end of one of the comb-tooth portions. The comb-tooth portions contact a circumference of the conveyor to vibrate. The bent portions are lined at intervals smaller than intervals on a base side of the comb-tooth portions.

Cleaning device, and image forming apparatus and process unit incorporating same

A toner conveyance device includes a downward passage, a reciprocating member disposed in the downward passage, to move in a vertical direction in which the downward passage extends, a conveyance passage communicating with a lower end of the downward passage and extending in a direction crossing the vertical direction, a conveyor to rotate in the conveyance passage around an axis extending along the conveyance passage to transport the toner, and a flexible member projecting from a bottom of the reciprocating member toward the conveyance passage. The flexible member extends in the axial direction of the conveyor and moves together with the reciprocating member. When the reciprocating member is at a lowest position, a lower end of the flexible member opposes a portion of the conveyor downstream from an upper end thereof in a rotation direction thereof.

Toner conveyance device and image forming apparatus

An image bearer protective agent is provided. The image bearer protective agent includes a fatty acid metal salt and an inorganic lubricant. The inorganic lubricant includes a first inorganic lubricant having a tap density of from 0.30 to 0.8 g/cm.

Image bearer protective agent, protective layer forming device, image forming method, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge

A powder conveying device, including: a powder conveying path including a curved portion; and a conveying screw, wherein the conveying screw is disposed in the powder conveying path, and includes: a rotation axis portion having flexibility; and a blade portion, where the blade portion is helically formed on an outer periphery of the rotation axis portion, and is configured to convey a powder, wherein the conveying screw includes a conveying screw curved portion located in the curved portion of the powder conveying path, and wherein at least a surface of the blade portion of the conveying screw curved portion includes a slipping layer containing a silicon-containing compound.

Powder conveying device, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

Powder container

Disclosed is an image forming apparatus that is to be detachably attached by a detachable unit, wherein the detachable unit includes a unit side connector that fits a main body side connector disposed in a main body of the image forming apparatus by an attaching operation for attaching the detachable unit to the main body of the image forming apparatus, wherein one of the detachable unit and the main body of the image forming apparatus includes a concave portion extended in an attaching direction in which the detachable unit is attached to the main body of the image forming apparatus, and wherein the other one of the detachable unit and the main body of the image forming apparatus includes a convex portion disposed at a position corresponding to the concave portion.

Image forming apparatus, detachable unit, and plural detachable units

A lubricant applicator includes a solid lubricant, a lubricant applying member to apply the solid lubricant to a target object, a biasing member to bias the solid lubricant toward the lubricant applying member, and a regulating member to regulate the solid lubricant, which is biased toward the lubricant applying member by the biasing member, to prevent the lubricant from separating from the lubricant applying member by more than a predetermined distance. The regulating member is switchable between a regulating state for regulating the solid lubricant not to separate from the lubricant applying member by more than the predetermined distance and a non-regulating state.

Lubricant applicator, process cartridge, transfer unit, and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes multiple image bearing members provided in tandem, multiple developing devices configured to develop the respective electrostatic latent images, an intermediate transfer member onto which the multiple toner images are transferred to form a composite toner image, multiple first lubricant applicators configured to apply a lubricant to the respective image bearing members, and a second lubricant applicator configured to apply a lubricant to the intermediate transfer member. The second lubricant applicator is provided upstream from the extreme upstream image bearing member. The amount of the first lubricant applied from the extreme upstream first lubricant applicator to the extreme upstream image bearing member is based on at least one of an amount of the second lubricant applied from the second lubricant applicator to the intermediate transfer member and an amount of first lubricant applied from each of the other lubricant applicators to the respective image bearing members.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and process cartridge for adjusting applications of lubricants

An image forming apparatus includes a plurality of image forming units that are arranged in parallel so as to be opposed to an intermediate transfer belt or a transfer carriage belt. A black image forming unit that forms a black toner image is arranged at a downstream end or upstream end in the running direction of the intermediate transfer belt or the transfer carriage belt with respect to the other image forming units. The black image forming unit is configured so that its lubricant supplying unit contains a larger amount of lubricant.

Image forming apparatus

A cleaning device, a process cartridge, an image forming apparatus, and toner to maintain improved cleaning performance for a long time. The cleaning device includes a cleaning blade, a lubricant applying part, and a toner removing part. The cleaning blade is disposed in contact with a surface of an image bearing member. The lubricant applying part coats a solid lubricant on the surface of the image bearing member, and is disposed in an upstream side from the cleaning blade with respect to a rotational direction of the image bearing member. The toner removing part removes toner particles, and is disposed in an upstream side from the lubricant applying part with respect to the rotational direction of the image bearing member.

Cleaning device, process cartridge, image forming apparatus and toner

The image forming apparatus comprises a photoconductor, a latent electrostatic image forming unit for forming a latent electrostatic image on the photoconductor, a developing unit for developing the latent electrostatic image using a developer comprising a toner to form a visible image, a transfer unit for transferring the visible image to a recording medium, a cleaning unit for removing the developer remained on the photoconductor surface and a developer amount detection unit for detecting developer amount adhering to the photoconductor surface by a reflecting photosensor, wherein the developer stirring time per copy when one copy is made from an original, is 2 to 6 times the developer stirring time per copy when two or more copies are made from the original, wherein the toner comprises at least a binder resin and a wax, and the dynamic frictional coefficient of the toner is 0.15 to 0.45.

Image forming process and image forming apparatus

A cleaning apparatus includes a brush member to be brought into contact with a member to be cleaned to remove toner particles attached to the member. The brush member includes a conductive material.

Cleaning apparatus with conductive member

A cleaning device includes a brush roller that removes deposit from a surface of a member to be cleaned by rotating due to a movement of the surface of the member. The brush roller includes a rotary shaft element and a brush provided on the rotary shaft element. The brush abuts the surface of the member due to a weight of the brush roller. The brush includes filaments, and the brush roller satisfies the inequation Y/X&#x2266;2.8, where Y is a diameter (denier) of each of the filaments, and X is a length (mm) of each of the filaments. The filaments slant with respect to a normal direction of the rotary shaft element.

Cleaning device including brush roller with high cleaning performance, image forming apparatus and process unit including the cleaning device, method of removing deposit, and method of forming an image

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Tokyo, Japan

Hiroshi Mizusawa