Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Sony Corporation

Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.

Kabushiki Kaisha Hoky

Hiroshi Saitoh

Toshihiro Sugiyama

Eisaku Murakami

Hiroshi Hosokawa

Kazuhiro Yuasa

Tetsuo Yamanaka

Yoshiaki Tanaka

Eiji Takenaka

Iwao Matsumae

Satoru Komatsubara

Shuichi Endoh

Mugijiroh Uno

Yozo Matsuura

Hiroshi Ishii

Hirokazu Ishii

Satoshi Takano

Masahiko Kamijo

Yuji Arai

Yuji Suzuki

Shinichi Kawahara

Hideki Takahashi

Hirotaka Hatta

Shiroh Kondoh

Shigemi Kanda

Shigeru Yoshiki

Itaru Matsuda

Ryoh Tanoue

Eiji Shimojo

Noboru Onodera

Masanori Yoshimura

Hidenori Nihei

Satoshi Muramatsu

Nobuo Kasahara

Koji Suzuki

Kaoru Yoshino

Takatsugu Fujishiro

Takaaki Tawada

Akira Fujimori

Takashi Hodoshima

Kensuke Sasaki

Shinji Katsuki

Nobuyoshi Tomita

Yoshiya Itoh

Hiromichi Ema

Hiroyuki Kiyoi

Masahiro Kawabe

Mugijiro Uno

Shiro Kondo

Takahiro Kusuyama

Atsuko Miyashita

Ichirou Komuro

Eizi Takenaka

Mugiziroh Uno

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a cleaning device having a cleaning member that comes into contact with a surface of the image carrier, and a lubricant applying device provided on the downstream side of the cleaning member. The lubricant applying device includes a solid lubricant, a lubricant supply roller, and a trailing type lubricant smoothing blade that is provided on the downstream side of the lubricant supply roller, and comes into belly contact with the surface of the image carrier. After image carrier is stopped, constantly or under a predetermined condition, the surface of the image carrier is moved in a direction opposite to an image forming direction. The opposite movement distance is equal to or more than the shortest distance between a contact point between the lubricant supply roller and the image carrier and a contact point between the lubricant smoothing blade and the image carrier.

Image forming apparatus including a lubricant applying device configured to apply lubricant to an image carrier

A cleaning member includes a core bar, an elastic coating layer, and high-friction coefficient parts provided on both ends of the cleaning member. The high-friction coefficient parts include an elastic material. Outer peripheries of the high-friction coefficient parts are inclined with respect to an axial direction of the core bar. The cleaning member is roller-shaped and is configured to clean a surface of a roller member to be cleaned in contact therewith. A charging device and a process cartridge also include the cleaning member.

Cleaning member, charging device, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus in which a visible image is transferred to a transfer material includes a pre-transfer exposing unit that makes only a portion of a latent image carrier that corresponds to a leading edge of the transfer material expose, and a transfer-bias applying unit that applies a bias for transferring the visible image. The transfer-bias applying unit starts applying the bias to the transfer material, at least step-by-step, when a predetermined time is passed from a point of time at which the leading edge of the transfer material comes into a contact with the latent image carrier by controlling the pre-transfer exposing unit and a bias applying timing of the transfer-bias applying unit.

Image forming apparatus with improved separability of transfer material

The present invention aims to be capable of properly measuring the cycle of an external signal even where a timer clock and a CPU clock are operated asynchronously. A timer circuit comprises a timer counter which counts a generation interval of an external signal in sync with the timer clock, a first timer register which fetches therein a counted value of the timer counter in sync with the timer clock, a second timer register which fetches therein the value of the first timer register in sync with the CPU clock, an edge detection circuit which detects a change in the level of the external signal to thereby generate an edge detection signal, and a reload control circuit which outputs a first reload control signal for reloading the count value of the timer counter into the first timer register in sync with the timer clock in accordance with the edge detection signal, and outputs a second reload control signal for reloading the value of the first timer register fetched therein by the first reload control signal into the second timer register in sync with the CPU clock, and which holds the output of the second reload control signal where the next edge detection signal is generated during the interval from after the generation of a first edge detection, the CPU reads the contents of the second timer register, and outputs the second reload control signal after the CPU has read the contents of the second timer register.

Measuring the interval of a signal using a counter and providing the value to a processor

Image forming apparatus with improved separatability of transfer material

An image forming apparatus including a cleaning device for removing toner, paper dust and other impurities left on an image carrier after image transfer with a cleaning member is disclosed. The cleaning member contacts the surface of the image carrier with variable pressure and remains, about the time when the image carrier stops moving after image formation, in contact with the surface with pressure lower than pressure capable of scrapping off the impurities. Before movement for image formation, the image carrier is driven in a reverse direction opposite to a forward direction assigned to image formation, stopped, and again moved in the forward direction and then in the reverse direction at least one time.

Image forming apparatus

A data transmission system includes a first bus; a first bus master coupled to the first bus; a second bus master coupled to the first bus; a bus arbiter coupled to the first and second bus masters to provide an authorization of bus master operation to the first and second bus masters selectively; and a bus request holding circuit, which is coupled between the second bus master and the bus arbiter. The bus request holding circuit holds a bus request signal supplied from the second bus master for an appropriate period of time in response to a signal from the first bus master.

Data transmission system

A cleaning device for cleaning an image carrier by removing toner and other residues left thereon of the present invention includes a brush having tips, which contact the surface of the image carrier, provided with a loop configuration and a contact pressure of 50 g/cm. A toner collecting space is located at a position adjacent to the brush and at which the tips of the brush contacted the surface of the image carrier arrive in accordance with the movement of the brush.

Cleaning device and image forming apparatus using the same

A recording and/or reproducing apparatus for an optical disc having a pit area where data has been recorded and also having a grooved area where data is to be recorded includes an optical pickup, an error signal generating unit, a shift signal generating unit and a servo controller. The optical pickup includes an objective lens for converging a light beam on a signal surface of the optical disc, a photodetector for receiving the light beam reflected from the signal surface and an actuator for moving the objective lens in a direction perpendicular to its optical axis. The shift signal generating unit is responsive to the output signal of the photodetector to generate a lens shift signal corresponding to the amount of shift of the objective lens from its neutral position. The servo controller drives the actuator based on the lens shift signal or the error signal to move the objective lens along the radial direction of the optical disc.

Optical disk recording and/or reproducing apparatus and access method

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a latent image writing device that emits a plurality of laser beams, two adjacent laser beams of the plurality of laser beams partially overlapping in a sub-scanning direction, respectively, and forming a reference latent image on a surface of the image bearing member by performing repeated scanning of each laser beam on the surface of the image bearing member, a developing device that develops the reference latent image with toner into a reference toner image, and a detecting device that detects the density of the reference toner image. The quantity of light of each laser beam forming a subsequent latent image is adjusted according to the density of the reference toner image detected by the detecting device.

Image forming apparatus with accurate image formation

A toner recycling device of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus conveys collected used toner to a developing device of the image forming apparatus. The toner recycling device includes a powder conveying pump that is driven to convey the collected used toner to the developing device of the image forming apparatus when an integrated value of predetermined numerical values, each based on a number of picture elements of an image to be formed, is equal to or greater than a constant value, and an adding device that adds a predetermined constant value to the integrated value when driving of an image bearing member of the image forming apparatus is detected.

Toner recycling device and method, and image forming apparatus and method using the toner recycling device

A select circuit selectively outputs one of a transition indication signal that is the output of an edge sense circuit of an input timer, a transition indication signal that is an output of an edge sense circuit of an output timer, and a control signal for controlling output using software. The state of activation of a switch circuit for controlling transmission of a clock signal to a counter of the output timer is then controlled by the signal selected by the select circuit.

Timer circuits for a microcomputer

An image transferring device for transferring a toner image from an image carrier to a recording medium includes a belt passed over a plurality of rotary bodies for supporting and conveying the recording medium and a cleaning member for cleaning the surface of the belt in contact therewith. A dielectric layer forms the surface of the cleaning member. An image forming apparatus including the above image transferring device is also disclosed.

Image transferring device and image forming apparatus including the same

A transfer device for transferring a toner image formed on an image carrier onto a transfer material conveyed on a transfer belt. The transfer device includes a cleaning member having a dielectric surface layer for cleaning a surface of the transfer belt, and a bias application unit for applying to the cleaning member a cleaning bias having an opposite polarity to an electric charge polarity of a toner forming the toner image. Further, specific characteristic values of the dielectric surface layer are set to achieve a higher than predetermined cleaning level, such as setting a volume resistivity of the dielectric surface layer is set to 1E4 ohms/square or more.

Transfer device and image formation apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Ayase, Japan

Hiroshi Saitoh