Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Nissan Motor Company Limited

Hirose Electric Company, Ltd.

Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Orc Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Aichi Machine Industry Co., Ltd.

Nec Corporation

Nec Electronics Corporation

Atsugi Unisia Corp.

Tokai Carbon Company, Ltd.

Nihon Radiator Co., Ltd.

Makoto Yasuda

Tadashi Kasai

Emiko Shiraishi

Hideaki Takahashi

Hiroshi Nakai

Toshio Koike

Hitoshi Yamamoto

Kunio Hasegawa

Takamasa Ozeki

Kazumi Kobayashi

Naohiro Toda

Akio Kosuge

Yoshiki Yanagawa

Masato Iio

Takeshi Shintani

Hiroaki Suzuki

Nozomu Tamoto

Daisuke Tomita

Hideki Kosugi

Takeshi Ito

Nobuo Kuwabara

Shinichi Kawahara

Masahiko Shakuto

Seiji Suga

Akira Fujimori

Hiroyuki Kunii

Kazuaki Kamihara

Takaaki Ikegami

Teppei Kikuchi

Masayoshi Nakayama

Shinji Nohsho

Tsutomu Kikuchi

Kenichi Naganuma

Norio Kudo

Kohei Matsumoto

Keiko Matsumoto

Masaki Sukesako

Tetsuya Muto

Keinosuke Kondoh

Mutsuki Morinaga

Jun Hitosugi

Wakana Itoh

Takatsugu Komori

Yuichi Aizawa

Shuichi Nishimura

Syouzabu Ura

Satoru Miyamoto

Masami Kato

Masakazu Terao

Takeshi Orito

Isaya Matsuo

Tadashi Narabayashi

Hiroki Yamamura

Nobuhiko Tanaka

Munehiro Sagata

Hiroshi Miyano

Katsumi Yamada

Syousabu Ura

Mitsuaki Hirose

Yoichi Sakurai

Tomoya Ohsugi

Takuma Higa

Akio Akasaka

Kentaro Mikuniya

Kenji Komito

Kazuhiro Aso

Junya Iga

Masahiro Katoh

Keiko Kajimura

Yu Takahashi

Go Kobayashi

Hiroshi Shimamura

Takuya Kinomura

Yoshitaka Ooki

Masanori Kurosawa

An image forming apparatus including: an image bearer; an image formation unit forming toner image on the image bearer according to image formation conditions; a transfer unit including a transfer member, transferring the toner image on the image bearer to recording medium at a transfer nip between the image bearer and the transfer member; a toner adhesion amount detection unit detecting a toner adhesion amount of a toner pattern transferred from the image bearer to the transfer member; an image formation condition adjustment unit adjusting the image formation condition, based on a detection result of the toner adhesion amount detection unit; a transfer pressure setting change unit changing a transfer pressure setting of the transfer nip; and a correction unit correcting an adjustment value of the image formation condition adjustment unit, based on a correction value corresponding to a changed transfer pressure setting by the transfer pressure setting change unit.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming device to form an image on an image bearer based on a prescribed image-forming condition, and circuitry to change the prescribed image-forming condition and correct image-density unevenness in an image-width direction orthogonal to an image conveyance direction of the image bearer. In the image forming apparatus, the circuitry calculates a corrective value of the prescribed image-forming condition for each one of positions in the image-width direction, based on unevenness-in-density corrective values for the multiple positions in the image-width direction and relational values indicating a relation between the multiple unevenness-in-density corrective values and the corrective value of the prescribed image-forming condition, and the circuitry corrects the image-density unevenness in the image-width direction based on the corrective value of the prescribed image-forming condition. In the image forming apparatus, the multiple relational values correspond to portions in the image-width direction.

Provided is a cable holding member which includes: an insulated main body; a through-hole; a bend portion; and a cover portion, in which the through-hole is configured to allow a cable to be inserted therethrough from one end side toward the other side of the main body, the cover portion is configured in such a manner as to be bendable relative to the main body along the bend portion, and at least a part of the cover portion is configured to, upon the cover portion being bent relative to the main body, be capable of covering a plane intersecting with a direction where the cable is inserted, at an opening end face of an opening portion of the through-hole, the opening end face being located on the other end side, or a vicinity thereof.

Cable holding member and cable connector device including cable holding member

The present invention provides a sintered metal friction material that has excellent wear resistance, heat resistance even at high load and has a higher friction coefficient while maintaining a friction coefficient and wear resistance that are hard to decrease, and has a reduced content of copper of less than 5 mass %. There is provided a sintered metal friction material characterized in that the sintered metal friction material comprises a sintered material of a friction material composition, the friction material composition comprises matrix metals and a friction modifier, the matrix metals comprise following 20 to 40 mass % of iron powder, 20 to 40 mass % of nickel powder, 0.5 to 10 mass % of zinc powder, 0.5 to 5 mass, of tin powder, 0.5 to 4 mass % of copper powder and 0.5 to 5 mass % of sintering assist powder.

Sintered metal friction material

A cover member includes a first cover part and a second cover part. The first cover part includes: a mount surface on which a main body of a cable connector is mounted; a periphery wall which is provided to lie substantially along an outer edge of the main body of the cable connector mounted on the mount surface and which is raised from the mount surface toward a side on which the first cover part is combined with the second cover part; a cable outlet and a connection port; an engaging portion that engages with a predetermined portion of the second cover part; and a pair of raised portions raised from the mount surface toward the side on which the first cover part is combined with the second cover part, the pair of raised portions being provided at positions which sandwich a cable extending out from the main body of the cable connector mounted on the mount surface and which are at or near the cable outlet.

Cover member for cable connector, cable connector device using the same, and cable connector device assembling method

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming device to form a correction image, an image density detector to detect image densities of a plurality of areas in the correction image, and circuitry to correct an image formation condition of the image forming device based on detected image densities of the plurality of areas. The circuitry replaces a detected image density of an area of interest selected from the plurality of areas with an average value of detected image densities of two or more areas including adjacent areas adjacent to the area of interest and corrects the image formation condition of the image forming device based on the detected image densities of the plurality of areas after replacement when a difference between the detected image density of the area of interest and at least one of the detected image densities of the adjacent areas exceeds a predetermined threshold.

Electrical connector

An image forming apparatus includes a toner pattern bearer to bear a first toner pattern having a first image area and a second toner pattern having a second image area different from the first image area. A toner adhesion amount detector detects a toner adhesion amount of toner of each of the first toner pattern and the second toner pattern. A toner degradation rate calculator calculates a first deviation in the toner adhesion amount of the first toner pattern and a second deviation in the toner adhesion amount of the second toner pattern based on the toner adhesion amount detected by the toner adhesion amount detector. The toner degradation rate calculator compares the first deviation with the second deviation and calculates a toner degradation rate based on a comparison result.

Image forming apparatus and method for calculating a toner degradation rate

An image forming apparatus includes an image formation processor to perform image formation to a recording medium with a primary color toner and a secondary color toner that is different from the primary color toner, a database to store multiple setting values, each of which corresponding a combination of a mode type depending on the primary color toner and the secondary color toner and a media type of the recording medium and being applied to a process of the image formation performed by the image forming processor, a database retriever to retrieve an optimum setting value from the multiple setting values stored in the database according to a specified combination of the mode type and the media type, and an operation setting arranger to perform the image formation based on the optimum setting value acquired from the database retriever.

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image bearer, a developing device, a supplier, and a controller. The controller controls the supplier according to a detection result of a toner density by the toner density sensor and a toner density target value to adjust the toner density of developer in the developing device. The controller is configured to correct the toner density target value and an imaging condition affecting a toner adhesion amount of an output image separately from the toner density, according to a component adhesion deterioration degree being a deterioration degree of carrier due to adhesion of a toner component, obtained based on at least an average image area ratio of the output image, and a coating abrasion deterioration degree being a progression degree of deterioration due to coating abrasion of the carrier, obtained based on at least the average image area ratio of the output image.

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image bearer, a developing device, a toner container, a toner feed connector, a processor, and a notifier. The developing device develops, with toner, a latent image on the latent image bearer. The toner container contains the toner. The toner container is detachably attachable to the image forming apparatus. The toner feed connector guides the toner of the toner container to the developing device. The information detector detects identification information including toner type information and maintenance contract information stored in the toner container. The processor determines whether the toner type information of the toner container coincides before and after replacement and whether the maintenance contract information of the toner container is matched with maintenance contract information of the image forming apparatus. The notifier indicates a determination made by the processor.

A protective layer forming device, including: a powdery image bearer protecting agent formed of a granulated product containing a fatty acid metal salt and an inorganic lubricant; and a roller-shaped protecting agent supplying member configured to supply the powdery image bearer protecting agent to a surface of an image bearer.

Protective layer forming device and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image bearer; a developing device containing two-component developer and including a developer bearer, a development voltage source, and a toner concentration detector; a toner supply device to supply toner to the developing device; a transfer device; and a controller to keep a toner concentration in the developer in the developing device at a target toner concentration during image formation. The controller executes forced toner consumption in which the developing device supplies the toner to the latent image bearer the toner at a predetermined forced toner consumption timing, while inhibiting the toner supply device from supplying toner. When the toner concentration falls to a prescribed toner density lower than the target toner concentration, the controller completes the forced toner consumption and executes a post-consumption toner supply operation.

An image forming apparatus includes a photoconductor to form an electrostatic latent image, a special color developing device to develop the latent image with a special color toner other than standard color toners to form a special color toner image, an adhesion amount adjuster to adjust a special color toner adhesion amount by changing an application bias between the photoconductor and a developing sleeve of the special color developing device, a setting unit to set brightness of the special color toner, and a developing-performance adjuster to adjust a developing performance of the special color developing device according to a setting value of the brightness set by the setting unit. The developing-performance adjuster adjusts the developing performance of the special color developing device to a developing performance different from a developing performance set to each of standard color developing devices in adjustment of densities of the standard color toners.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

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Kanagawa, Japan

Makoto Yasuda