Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Hiroyuki Gotoh

Hiroshi Yoshinaga

Motokazu Yasui

Masanao Ehara

Hirofumi Ogawa

Hideo Furukawa

Junji Nakai

Sakae Ishikawa

Shoji Hayashi

Takuya Ejiri

Yuichi Maruyama

A sheet feed unit for use in an image forming apparatus includes a sheet feed unit body and a sheet cassette. The sheet feed unit body includes a first frame and a first contact face provided on the first frame. The sheet cassette, which is withdrawable from the sheet feed unit body, includes a second frame, a second contact face provided on the second frame, and a separator. The second contact face is attached to the first contact face when to set the sheet cassette at a position in the sheet feed unit body. The separator is inserted between the first contact face and the second contact face to separate the sheet cassette and the sheet feed unit body, and is disengaged from the first contact face and the second contact face to set the sheet cassette at the position in the sheet feed unit body.

Sheet feed unit operable with smaller force and image forming apparatus

A fixing device includes an abutting member arranged at a position between an upstream side of a fixing roller and a downstream side of a heating roller in a moving direction of a fixing belt so as to abut against the fixing belt and expand a fixing region. The fixing device may also include a first supporting member and a second supporting member, which supports the fixing belt, etc., with respect to the first supporting member. An angle, formed between an approaching direction of a sheet-like recording medium and a line tangential to an upstream end of the fixing region in the moving direction of the fixing belt, is set equal to 20&deg; or larger.

Fixing device preventing rubbing of toner image

A fixing device for fixing a toner image on a recording medium includes a heating roller, a fixing roller, an endless fixing belt extended around at least the heating roller and the fixing roller and configured to be heated by the heating roller, a pressing roller disposed opposite to the fixing roller via the fixing belt, a temperature detecting member configured to detect a surface temperature of the heating roller, and a control device configured to control a surface temperature of the fixing belt at a predetermined temperature based on a surface temperature of the heating roller detected by the temperature detecting member. The temperature detecting member contacts a circumferential surface of the heating roller where the fixing belt is not extended around, such that the temperature detecting member is held in a low frictional relation to the circumferential surface of the heating roller.

Fixing device having temperature detecting member and image forming apparatus using said fixing device

An image generating device is provided with a control mechanism which controls an exit paper delivery speed after an image has been fixed to a form. The exit paper delivery speed is changed depending on information detected about the process of generating the image to prevent the form from being delivered with wrinkles. The information detected includes size of paper intervals between forms, length of forms, and whether the image generating process is a repeat copying or continuous form feeding process.

Image generating device

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Kawasaki, Japan

Hiroyuki Gotoh