Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Kentaroh Matsumoto

Tokuya Ohjimi

Hiroyuki Nagashima

Masami Tomita

Takeshi Uchitani

Shin Hasegawa

Yutaka Takahashi

Toshio Koike

Naohiro Kumagai

Takeshi Shintani

Masanori Kawasumi

Eisaku Murakami

Atsushi Sampe

Masato Yanagida

Mugijiroh Uno

Kazunori Karasawa

Hiroya Hirose

Masahiko Yamada

A cleaning unit includes a first blade and a second blade. The first blade is in contact with an image carrier or a paper carrier and removes adhered substances remained on surface of these. The second blade has an abrasive layer that is formed by including abrasive particles in an elastic material and is disposed in the downstream side of the first blade. The second blade is allowed to be in contact with the image carrieror the paper carrier. Volume occupancy of abrasive particles in an area of contact of the second blade with either the image carrier or the paper carrier is not less than 50 percent and not more than 90 percent.

Cleaning unit and image forming apparatus having multiple cleaning blades

Cleaning unit, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A developing apparatus, an image formation apparatus and a process cartridge is provided. Even though the sealing materials of the initial developer container are stripped off in such a way that the process cartridge having the developing apparatus is tilted, the initial developer can be uniformly supplied along the central axis line of the developer carrier. The developing apparatus performs a self toner control and has an initial developer case for containing the non-used initial developer that is input into the developer containing space S. The initial developer case is divided internally into a plurality of partition spaces along the direction of the central axial line D of the developing sleeve so that a plurality of partitions is formed inside the initial developer case Based on the opening for inputting the initial developer, the partition surface F facing to the partition space of each partition is tilted from an imaginary plane G perpendicular to the central axial line D of the developing sleeve toward one end H along the direction of the central axial line D of the developing sleeve

Developing apparatus, image formation apparatus, and process cartridge

In an image forming apparatus having a reverse development system and using a two-component developer, respective potentials applied when charging an image bearing member and when applying a development bias to a developer bearing member are attenuated when the image bearing member is driven for an operation other than an image forming operation, compared to respective level of potentials applied when the image bearing member is driven for the image forming operation. Thus, an occurrence of an adhesion of a carrier to an image bearing member is reduced to produce a high quality image, when a power switch of the apparatus is turned off or when a door of the apparatus is opened while the image bearing member is driven for an operation other than the image forming operation, or when the apparatus is activated again after the power switch is turned off.

Method and apparatus for reducing adhesion of carrier to image bearing member

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Tokyo, Japan

Kentaroh Matsumoto