Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Kazuhiko Yuuki

Yoshinori Ozawa

Masumi Sato

Kouta Fujimori

Junichi Matsumoto

Satoshi Muramatsu

Akio Kosuge

Tomotoshi Nakahara

Takaaki Yanagisawa

Yoshi Hattori

Manabu Mochizuki

Hiroshi Yoshinaga

Atsushi Takehara

Noriyuki Usui

Kenji Karashima

Kentaro Matsumoto

Masakuni Konja

Kohichi Yamazaki

Asami Mae

Shinji Tamaki

Takeshi Saitoh

Jun Hosokawa

Motonori Hanada

A toner replenishing device includes a toner conveyance path for connecting a toner storing device with a developing device, a toner conveying device for conveying the toner from the toner storing device to the developing device along the toner conveyance path, and an air supplying device connected to the toner conveyance path vie an air supply path for supplying the toner storing device with air from a bottom of the toner storing device so as to agitate the toner pooling in the toner storing device.

Apparatus and method for replenishing a developing device with toner while suppressing toner remaining

The present invention provides an electro photographic image forming apparatus comprising a replacement assembly having a toner container attachable to the image forming apparatus, a feeding unit to feed toner from the toner container to a development unit, and a read/write non-volatile memory, wherein, the image forming apparatus comprising an estimation unit which generates information in such way that first, the estimation unit obtains an amount of a toner feed period for the feeding unit during forming images, next, accumulates the amount of a toner feed period into an accumulated sum of the amount of a toner feed periods, then, generates the information on the amount of toner in the replacement assembly and stores the information in the read/write non-volatile memory.

Image forming apparatus, replacement assembly for image forming apparatus and integrated circuit chip therefor

In a developing apparatus, the interior of a case is divided into a first space positioned on a developer supply side for the supply of a developer to an image bearing member and a second space which is supplied with a replenishing toner, first and second agitating members are included and are adapted to be rotated to agitate and convey the developer are disposed within the first and second spaces, respectively, and a screw member is provided having n threads (n&gE;2) is used as the first agitating member disposed in the first space, and a screw member having (n&minus;x) threads (x&gE;0) is used as the second agitating member disposed in the second space.

Developing apparatus including first and second agitating members in which the first agitating member includes non-screw portion

A color image forming apparatus includes a plurality of image forming sections independent of each other. The image forming sections store respective toner of different colors that are chargeable to the same polarity. All the toner are implemented by the same binder resin and provided with the same particle size distribution. Further, developing units each storing toner of particular color are identical in specification. When two-ingredient type developers are used, the developers contain an identical carrier. The apparatus recycles the toner of different colors to the respective developing units. The alien color toner collected in each developing unit is prevented from remaining by being chargeable to the same polarity.

Color image forming apparatus with toner recycling

An image forming apparatus includes a belt member to convey a sheet-formed medium, a belt supporting device to support the belt member, and a plurality of recording units including rotating image bearing members arranged in a conveying direction of the sheet-formed medium by the belt. The image forming apparatus performs processes of (1) forming a latent image on a surface of each image bearing member, (2) developing each latent image into a toner image with toner, and (3) then transferring each toner image onto the sheet-formed medium carried on the belt. A detection device detects arbitrary toner image patterns formed at the plurality of recording units and then directly transferred onto the belt, for obtaining information about density and placements of images without the toner patterns being deteriorated by contacting following downstream recording units.

Method and apparatus for image forming apparatus capable of accurately detecting toner image patterns

The invention relates to an image forming device and method therefor solving the subject matter that, if the linear speed of the developing solution carrier for that of the latent image carrier is lowered in order to secure the development capacity, the line image is deteriorated and there occurs a troublesome matter such as the blanking at the halftone rear edge. Such image forming device of the present invention is provided with a two-component magnetic brush type developing apparatus in which the developing bias composed of the DC bias and the AC bias superposed thereon is applied to the developing apparatus, and the latent image formed on the latent image carrier is developed with the two-component developing solution including the magnetic toner and the magnetic carrier. In the image forming device, the magnetic substance including percentage of the magnetic toner is set to 5 wt %.about.35 wt %.

Image forming device and method therefor

An image forming apparatus and method in which a transfer device is provided in a position separated from an image carrier. A transfer sheet is conveyed along and contacting a part of a circumferential surface of the image carrier facing the transfer device when transferring a toner image from the image carrier to the transfer sheet. A conveying guide is included to guide and covey the transfer sheet separated from the image carrier to a fixing unit. The conveying guide includes a guiding member to direct the conveying direction of the transfer sheet upward when the leading edge of the transfer sheet contacts the guiding member and to convey the transfer sheet at a part of the conveying guide or the guiding member in a position higher than the position of the leading edge of the transfer sheet contacting the conveying guide or the guiding member, so that the contact area between the transfer sheet and the image carrier increases, and so that the transfer sheet separates from the image carrier without a discharging of a charge on the transfer sheet.

Image forming apparatus with a device and a method to increase contact

An image forming apparatus in which a transfer device is provided in a position separated from an image carrier. A transfer sheet is conveyed along and contacting a part of a circumferential surface of the image carrier facing the transfer device when transferring a toner image from the image carrier to the transfer sheet. A conveying guide is included to guide and covey the transfer sheet separated from the image carrier to a fixing unit. The conveying guide includes a guiding member to direct the conveying direction of the transfer sheet upward when the leading edge of the transfer sheet contacts the guiding member and to convey the transfer sheet at a part of the conveying guide or the guiding member in a position higher than the position of the leading edge of the transfer sheet contacting the conveying guide or the guiding member, so that the contact area between the transfer sheet and the image carrier increases.

Image forming apparatus with a device to increase contact area between a

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Tokyo, Japan

Kazuhiko Yuuki