Brother Kogyo Kabushiki-Kaisha

Kiyoshi Ueda

Hiroaki Yazawa

Yukio Shiohara

Kenji Samoto

Masahiko Sasa

Masatoshi Yamada

Shunji Murai

Yuji Koga

Shohei Koide

Wataru Sugiyama

Daisuke Kozaki

Masatoshi Izuchi

Ryohei Suzuki

At a predetermined position during the lateral movement of a carriage, a gap switching mechanismfor switching a gap between a recording headand a recording medium is provided. The recording headis mounted facing downward on the carriage. A part close to one side on a lower end of the carriage is slidably and pivotably supported by a guide shaftof a round shaft shape. A switching block memberprovided with several abutment portionsandwith different heights, which are positioned so as to be opposed to a slide portionat an upper end of a frameextending in a vertical direction along a back of the carriage. The A switching block memberis pivotably supported by the carriage. A first pushing portionis located at a left end of the frame so as to abut against the switching block member. A pivotal posture of the first pushing portion is changed due to the abutment to bring the abutment portioninto a slide contact relationship with the frame, so that a small gap is provided. A second pushing portionis located at a right end of the frame so as to abut against the switching block member, a pivotal posture of the first pushing portion is changed according to the abutment to bring the abutment portioninto a slide contact relationship with the frame, so that a large gap is provided.

Image forming apparatus

A supporting apparatus for supporting a movable member such that the movable member is movable along a predetermined path. The apparatus includes a main frame which defines a reference plane parallel to the predetermined path; at least one base member which is supported by the main frame and which supports the movable member such that the movable member is movable on the at least one base member along the predetermined path; at least one positioning device which positions the at least one base member relative to the main frame in at least one first direction parallel to the reference plane and a second direction perpendicular to the reference plane, such that the at least one base member is permitted to be displaced relative to the main frame in a third direction opposite to the second direction; and at least one biasing device which biases the at least one base member toward the main frame in at least the second direction.

Image recording apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a recording head that forms an image onto a recording medium; a guide shaft disposed to extend in a direction orthogonal to a conveyance direction of the recording medium; a carriage on which the recording head is mounted and includes a support portion formed integrally with the carriage; and a bearing unit attached to an inner surface of the support portion and allows the carriage to be moved along the guide shaft, and includes plate-shaped bearing portions that are disposed to have a contained angle that allows the bearing portions to contact with a circumferential surface of the guide shaft at two points.

Image forming apparatus and image scanner

There is disclosed an image recording apparatus having a lower body portion, an upper body portion, a guide, a first engager disposed in the upper body portion, and a second engager disposed in the guide. The lower body portion includes a curved feed pathway, an image recording device, and a recording medium feeder which feeds one by one a plurality of recording media as stacked, into the feed pathway and toward the image recording device. The upper body portion includes an image reading device which portion is disposed above the lower body portion and openable with respect to the lower body portion by being displaced upward. The guide which defines at least a part of the feed pathway, and is removably placed on the lower body portion. The first engager is engageable with the second engager so as to prevent the guide from coming off of the apparatus at least in a direction to an external side of the apparatus, while the upper body portion is closed with respect to the lower body portion.

There is disclosed an image recording apparatus including: a housing; a medium supply cassette open upward which accommodates a stack of recording media each in the form of a sheet, and is inserted into and removed from the housing substantially horizontally in a cassette movement direction, the cassette including: a substantially horizontal bottom plate; and a slant separator plate extending obliquely upward from an edge of the bottom plate; a medium pickup device including a medium pickup roller which gives a feeding force in a first direction to a topmost one of the stack, and cooperates with the separator plate to separate the topmost recording medium from the rest of the recording media to feed in the separated recording medium; a U-shaped guide changing a feeding direction of the recording medium as fed in by the pickup device, from the first direction to a second direction opposite to the first direction; an image recording portion recording an image on the recording medium having been passed through the guide; and a restricting member contacting at least a part of the stack which ascends upward along the separator plate by continuing to move, by inertia, in a cassette insertion direction in which the cassette is inserted, in order to restrict the continuing movement of the at least a part of the stack.

A plurality of nip rollers are provided under a driving roller approximately in a direction of a drive shaft of the driving roller. Respective shafts of the nip rollers are arranged so that the rotary shafts are inclined toward a downstream side in a transport direction of a recording medium with respect to the drive shaft of the driving roller. Nip positions for the recording medium, formed by the nip rollers and the driving roller, are positioned on an upstream side in the transport direction above the lowermost end portion of the outer circumference of the driving roller. Therefore, the recording medium is transported at a satisfactory accuracy in an image-recording section, thereby avoiding the deterioration of the recording quality which would be otherwise caused by the positional deviation of the recording on the recording medium.

Image-recording apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a recording head unit having a first retained portion and one or more nozzle arrays in a nozzle surface thereof, each of the nozzle arrays being formed of a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink onto a recording medium; and a retaining member that retains the recording head unit. The retaining member includes: a first retention portion that retains the first retained portion of the recording head unit to allow the nozzle surface rotate within a plane thereof by using the first retained portion; an inclination adjusting mechanism that moves the recording head unit with respect to the retaining member with the first retained portion being used as the center of rotation; and an urging member that presses and urges the recording head unit against the inclination adjusting mechanism and moves in cooperation with the inclination adjusting mechanism.

An ink supply port sealing cap is to be used in an inkjet recording apparatus including a recording head unit having nozzles for ejecting ink, and first and second ink supply ports for supplying ink from first and second ink cartridges to the nozzles respectively. The ink supply port sealing cap includes: a first cap portion that seals the fist ink supply port; a second cap portion that seals the second ink supply port; and a coupling portion that separably couples the first and second cap portions.

Ink supply port sealing cap and inkjet recording apparatus

A device comprising a pair of lower and upper bodies respectively accommodating an image scanner and a printer. The upper body is hinged at one end thereof to the lower body so that the other end thereof is allowed to move between open and close positions. A biasing mechanism is provided for biasing the upper body not to fall down toward the second body due to the weight thereof and keep it at an arbitrary position between the open and close positions. The biasing mechanism includes a spring member and applies a first biasing force to the upper body by linearly stretching the spring member. When the upper body is in the vicinity of the lower body, the biasing mechanism further generates a second biasing force to be applied to the upper body by bending the linearly stretched spring member.

Growing community of inventors

Anjo, Japan

Kiyoshi Ueda