Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Fuji Photo Film Company, Limited

Fujifilm Corporation

Tokyo Electron Sagami Limited

Hisashi Kikuchi

Atsushi Nakafuji

Shigeo Kurotaka

Toshihiko Baba

Katsuhiro Echigo

Takashi Fujita

Yukimichi Someya

Hiroyuki Kunii

Yoshiki Hozumi

Yuu Sakakibara

Kenji Sugiura

Jun Yura

Hirokazu Ikenoue

Kazuhiko Watanabe

Naomi Sugimoto

Takaaki Tawada

Osamu Naruse

Kohji Ue

Eisuke Shimizu

Hiroaki Tanaka

Hideki Kosugi

Makoto Shimizu

Takayuki Kambara

Kiyoshi Ohshima

Toru Shimizu

Takaya Muraishi

Akira Asaoka

Yuji Oshikoshi

Masashi Katoh

Takatsugu Fujishiro

Hideaki Kataoka

Sumio Kamoi

Tatsuo Shiino

Nobuo Iwata

Tomoyuki Takahashi

Tsukuru Kai

Yasuo Miyoshi

Norio Kudo

Takumi Suzuki

Yumi Matsuki

Teruyoshi Makino

Echigo Katsuhiro

Katsuya Kozai

Hiroaki Shinohara

Tatsuo Shiina

Tomomi Suetake

Satosi Komori

Reiko Kameyama

Masashi Kato

Masami Tomita

Yoshihiro Fujita

Kazuhito Kishi

Hiromitsu Takagaki

Takanobu Asano

Noboru Sato

Tadayoshi Shibata

Susumu Tanaka

Minoru Ono

Hirohmi Tamura

Isao Miyamoto

Eriko Konno

Hirokazu Ichii

Hiroshi Nakai

A belt control device includes a holder to movably support a rotation shaft of at least one of the plurality of rotators around which a belt is looped, a contact part to contact an end of the belt as the belt moves in a belt width direction, a stationary frame part disposed facing the holder, a shaft moving device to move the rotation shaft as the belt moves, and at least one projection disposed on one of the stationary frame part and the holder. The projection is to contact the other of the stationary frame part and the holder. The projection includes a long projection having a contact portion extending in a shaft moving direction in which the rotation shaft moves, and the contact portion is contactable with the other of the stationary frame part and the holder.

Belt device, belt control device, and image forming apparatus including same

A cleaning blade includes: a blade having plural layers formed with elastic materials having different degrees of hardness from each other, an edge line portion of the blade being brought into contact with a surface of a cleaning target performing surface movement to remove adhering matter from the surface of the cleaning target. A cleaning layer of the plural layers including the edge line portion is impregnated with a resin or is made of an elastic material having a high degree of hardness. A permanent elongation rate of the entire blade is set at 3.0% or lower.

Cleaning blade, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge

An elastic blade may include an edge layer and at least one backup layer laminated on the edge layer. The edge layer may include a contact edge to contact a contact object and an opposing face to oppose the contact object, and the backup layer may be greater in elastic power than the edge layer.

Blade and image forming apparatus incorporating same

An elastic blade includes an edge layer and at least one backup layer laminated on the edge layer. The edge layer includes a contact edge to contact a contact object and an opposing face to oppose the contact object, and the backup layer is greater in elastic power than the edge layer.

An image forming apparatus, includes an image carrier; a power supply; a charging member, to which the power supply applies a direct current (DC) charging voltage, to charge a surface of the image carrier; and a controller. The controller causes the power supply to apply, to the charging member, the DC charging voltage of a sum of a reference voltage VC and a correction amount &#x3b1;, so that a charged potential VD of the surface of the image carrier assumes a target value that is substantially equal to the reference voltage VC; and to increase an absolute value of the correction amount &#x3b1; to be added to the reference voltage VC in inverse proportion to an absolute value of the reference voltage VC, when the absolute value of the reference voltage VC is smaller compared to a case in which the absolute value of the reference voltage VC is greater.

Image forming apparatus configured to modify a reference voltage correction amount

A charging roller to apply voltage to a target to charge the target has a surface having a color set in one of a range according to CIE L*a*b* color space and a range according to CIE XYZ color space, and the range according to CIE L*a*b* color space is defined as 32.6&#x2266;L*&#x2266;50.9, 0.51&#x2266;a*&#x2266;1.12, and 6.0&#x2266;b*&#x2266;8.4; and the range according to CIE XYZ color space is defined as 8.8&#x2266;X&#x2266;21.0, 9.1&#x2266;Y&#x2266;21.3, and 5.7&#x2266;Z&#x2266;11.8.

Charging roller, charging device and image forming apparatus incorporating same, and method of calculating resistance of charging roller

A blade includes an elastic member including a tip ridgeline to contact the surface of a member to contact. The tip ridgeline includes an impregnation layer impregnated with a cured compound comprising an acrylate or methacrylate compound having an alicyclic structure including 6 or more carbon atoms in its molecule, and has an elastic power in the range of 50% to 80%.

Blade member, image forming apparatus and process cartridge

An image forming apparatus includes a rotatable image bearer, a charging member to contact a surface of the image bearer and charge the image bearer, an exposure device to expose the image bearer and form a latent image, a developing device to develop the latent image on the image bearer into a toner image, a transfer device to transfer the toner image from the image bearer onto a transfer medium, and a cleaning blade to contact the surface of the image bearer and remove toner from the image bearer after image transfer. The charging member has surface unevenness created by projections and recesses extending in a direction of rotation of the image bearer. The cleaning blade is configured to abrade projections formed on the surface of the image bearer.

Image forming apparatus and process cartridge therefor

A cleaning blade includes a blade member formed of a strip-shaped rubber material and having a leading-edge ridge line portion to contact a moving surface of a cleaning target member and remove adhering matter from the surface of the cleaning target member. The blade member has a Martens hardness of 1.0 N/mmor more in a vicinity of the leading-edge ridge line portion measured from an opposing surface of the blade member, the opposing surface including the leading-edge ridge line portion and opposing the cleaning target member, or measured from a leading-edge surface of the blade member, the leading-edge surface including the leading-edge ridge line portion and disposed adjacent to the opposing surface of the blade member.

A cleaner is provided. The cleaner includes a cleaning blade having an edge to be contacted with a surface of a member to be cleaned while moving relative to the member to clean the surface of the member. The cleaning blade includes the edge, and first and second side surfaces, wherein the edge is disposed between the first and second side surfaces. When the cleaning blade is not contacted with the surface of the member to be cleaned, the first side surface is opposed to the surface of the member, and when the cleaning blade is contacted with the surface of the member, the edge, and the first and second side surfaces of the cleaning blade are contacted with the surface of the member.

Cleaner, and process cartridge and image forming apparatus using the cleaner

A belt device incorporatable in an image forming apparatus includes an endless belt, multiple belt tension rollers disposed in contact with an inner surface of the endless belt, a rotary cleaning member to contact a belt wound area of the endless belt facing an opposing roller to form a cleaning nip between the rotary cleaning member and the endless belt and rotate the rotary cleaning member in a direction opposite the belt moving direction within the cleaning nip, and a voltage applier. The cleaning nip is formed by offsetting a center of the cleaning nip upstream from a center of the belt wound area of the endless belt in the belt moving direction and by at least contacting the rotary cleaning member in a range from the belt wound area to a tensioned belt area located upstream from the belt wound area in the belt moving direction.

Belt device and image forming apparatus incorporating same having a cleaning device which cleans utilizing different polarities

An image forming apparatus including a setting memory storing multiple voltage settings; two or more voltage applying members each contacting a voltage applied member at respective contact positions close to each other, which are simultaneously being applied with respective voltages selected from the voltage settings; two or more current detectors each detecting a current flowing in the respective contact positions; and a setting changer performing a setting changing processing in which the voltage applied to one of the voltage applying members is changed based on the current detected by the corresponding current detector while a predetermined voltage is applied to the other voltage applying members, so that an optimum current flows in the corresponding contact position.

Apparatus and method for changing a voltage setting for an image forming apparatus

A cleaning device including a rotatable cleaning member contacting a rotatable image carrier bearing a toner image to electrostatically remove toner from the image carrier while rotating, and a control unit to control rotation of the cleaning member to satisfy a relation of (60/R)&#x3e;(L/V) during removal of a toner pattern formed on the image carrier at a predetermined timing and remaining attached to the image carrier without being transferred from the image carrier onto a transfer member using the cleaning member, where R (rpm) is a number of rotations of the cleaning member, L (mm) is a length of the toner pattern in a direction of rotation of the image carrier, and V (mm/s) is a speed of the image carrier.

Cleaning device and image forming apparatus including same

A cleaning device including: multiple cleaning members arranged consecutively in a direction of movement of a cleaning target to remove adhered substances from the cleaning target; multiple casings to individually hold and at least partially enclose the multiple cleaning members, respectively, the casings and the cleaning members together constituting multiple sub-units; and a sub-unit holder to hold the multiple sub-units, from which the sub-units are individually removable.

Cleaning device, image forming apparatus including same, and method for mounting same

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Hisashi Kikuchi