Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Kunihiro Uotani

Fumitaka Hyodou

Takashi Fujii

Akira Hirose

Yoshihide Sugiyama

Shiro Saeki

Toshiroh Tokuno

Masumi Ikesue

Yukitaka Nakazato

Goro Mori

Toshitaka Osanai

Hiroyuki Ishizaki

Fumitaka Hyoudou

Mitsuhiko Ito

Toshio Kato

A maintenance and recovery device of a liquid droplet discharge apparatus improves a performance of discharging droplets of a liquid having a high-viscosity. A liquid droplet discharge head () discharges droplets of a recording liquid from a nozzle. A suction cap member () caps a nozzle plane of the liquid droplet discharge head (). An inclined surface () provides a slope toward an evacuation port () on a bottom of the suction cap member (). The inclined surface () forms an inclination angle with respect to a horizontal plane. The inclined surface is formed of a material having a contact angle with respect to the recording liquid. A sum of the inclination angle and the contact angle is equal to or larger than 70 degrees.

Maintenance and recovery device of a liquid discharge apparatus and an image forming apparatus

A sheet sorting and storing apparatus has a stack of bin trays which are brought open at a sheet reception position, but held close at the other position. The apparatus minimizes noises upon sheet reception with a simple mechanism, improving the efficiency of sheet sorting. The bin trays are inclined down or up depending on a position of a sheet discharge device. A desired bin tray is deviated by a deviation mechanism in an approximately horizontal direction so that a spacing in the direction of the tray inclination is enlarged between two adjacent bin trays located at the sheet reception position, while keeping constant a vertical spacing thereof. A flexible film of elastic material may be provided at the sheet entrance side of the bin trays to prevent the discharged sheet from leaping out thereof.

Sheet sorting and storing apparatus

A finisher for an image forming apparatus and capable of changing the binding angle of a staple relative to a sheet stack to be bound, as desired. A stapler is rotatable substantially about the binding position thereof to change the angle thereof relative to a sheet stack. This maintains the binding position substantially constant in both of parallel binding and inclined binding.

Finisher for an image forming apparatus which rotates about a stapling

A recycling automatic document feeder (RADF) for use with a copier or similar equipment for feeding a stack of documents to an illuminating position one by one, then returning each document, and repeating the cycle to illuminate the documents a plurality of times. A gate pawl is located movable into and out of contact with a document table. A feeding section has feeding means for feeding, a stack of documents on the table one by one. A transporting section transports the document fed from the feeding section to a predetermined illuminating position and, then, discharges the document. A returning section turns over the document transported by transporting means. The returning section returns the document discharged to the top of the stack of documents. Sensors sense a condition in which the documents are fed or transported. A controller performs control in response to output signals of the sensors such that when the stack of documents is to be illuminated a plurality of times, the gate pawl is moved away from the table after the illumination of the last document of the first cycle to start the feed of the second cycle, then the gate pawl is brought into contact with the top of the stack, and then the gate pawl is moved away from the top of the stack to transport the remaining documents to a feed position one by one, dividing the first and second cycles of documents.

Recycling automatic document feeder

A recycling automatic document feeder for a copier which feeds a stack of documents loaded on a document table one by one to a predetermined exposing position, returning the document to the top of the stack after imagewise exposure, and refeeding such documents one by one to the exposing position. A discharge section is movable on and along the table in an intended direction of document feed. The document feeder is capable of returning documents of various sides easily to the top of the document stack which is located at a document feed position on the table.

Recycling automatic document feeder for feeding documents of various

A cassette holding a sheet of paper is arranged in such a manner that a feed roller feeds the sheet of paper into the main body of a printer, copying machine, etc. in a predetermined direction. The cassette is adapted so that it is inserted into and removed from the main body in a direction which is perpendicular to the predetermined direction within a plane of the fed sheet of paper. A member is fixed at a turn cover at one end so that one sheet of paper present on the feed roller is positioned between the turn cover and the other end of the member in order to draw out a sheet of paper when the turn cover is opened. Also, a special feed roller control operation is provided when the last sheet of paper is fed out.

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Seto, Japan

Kunihiro Uotani