Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Masaki Narita

Tomohiro Nakajima

Shuichi Yamazaki

Akira Shimura

Takeo Suda

Shinji Nagatsuna

Takeshi Saitou

Kenichi Shishido

Toshikane Nishii

Mizuna Tanaka

Tatsuya Ito

Hirofumi Horita

Yoshitake Shimizu

Ikuo Fujii

Masaru Kaneko

Shigeru Yamazaki

Katsumi Yamaguchi

Tomoya Tanaka

Akihiko Motegi

Takashi Fujimoto

Yutaka Aso

Hiroshi Komai

Satoru Ito

A sheet feeder includes a feeding member to contact a sheet and feed the sheet downstream in a sheet conveyance direction, a friction pad disposed facing the feeding member to contact the feeding member, and a receiving table including a pad mount to hold a side of the friction pad opposite a nip between the friction pad and the feeding member. The friction pad includes a fixed range secured to the pad mount upstream from the nip and a movable range extending downstream the nip in the sheet conveyance direction. A first friction force of the pad mount to act on the movable range of the friction pad is smaller than a second friction force of the sheet to act on the movable range of the friction pad.

Sheet feeder and image forming apparatus

A photoreceptor regenerating apparatus for regenerating a photoreceptor for use in an image forming apparatus including a grinding member that grinds a surface of a used photoreceptor, a photoreceptor measuring device that measures a surface condition of the used photoreceptor, and a grinding condition setting device that sets grinding conditions of the grinding member according to a measurement value of the photoreceptor measuring device.

Photoreceptor regenerating apparatus and image forming apparatus using regenerated photoreceptor and method of regenerating photoreceptor

In a photoreceptor for an image forming apparatus including a charging device, a relationship between a thickness &ldquo;A&rdquo; of a surface portion of a photosensitive layer abraded by image forming operations, a thickness &ldquo;B&rdquo; of a portion of the photosensitive layer ground by an operation of grinding the abraded surface of the photosensitive layer, a number of times &ldquo;n&rdquo; the operation of grinding the abraded surface of the photosensitive layer has been executed, and an original photosensitive layer thickness &ldquo;C&rdquo; of the photoreceptor is set such that a thickness &ldquo;D&rdquo; of a remaining portion of the photosensitive layer after having been ground which is obtained by equation: D&equals;C&minus;&lsqb;(A&plus;B)&times;n&plus;A&rsqb;, is equal to or greater than a thickness of the photosensitive layer in which leakage from the charging device to the photoreceptor does not occur, so that the photoreceptor may be reused.

Reusable photoreceptor and image forming apparatus using the reusable photoreceptor and method of reusing photoreceptor

A method and apparatus that prevent degradation of an image quality due to a change of a beam pitch in a subscanning direction of each optical beam on a record medium. At a given time, for example, when power is first turned on, a CPU detects a beam pitch on a record medium, e.g., a photosensitive drum, by using a CCD line image sensor. If the detected value differs from a value set according to a currently-selected scanning density, an LD arrangement change motor is rotated via a motor driver so that the beam pitch matches the set value so as to change an arrangement of laser diodes in a laser diode array. Control over the beam pitch occurs for a variety of conditions including control at regular intervals, power-on events, or when a scanning density specification signal indicates a different beam pitch than the detected beam pitch. Similarly, adjustment over the beam pitch is not typically made during a copying operation.

Image recording method and apparatus using multiple laser beams

The current disclosure discloses methods of and systems for automatically adjusting or selecting a pitch between beams in a multi-beam scanning system. An array of light sources is mounted on a rotatable housing and emits light in a direction perpendicular to the rotational plane. The system or method measures a pitch on or near an intermediate image-forming surface. In response to the measured pitch, the scanning as well as sub-scanning pitch is automatically adjusted or selected by rotating a housing unit to maintain a desired pitch.

Multi-beam pitch adjustment system and method

A multiple beam scanning apparatus in which a plurality of light beams are repeatedly scanned at the same time, including a light source unit defining an optical axis and including plural laser diodes, collimator lenses for respectively converting light beams emitted by the laser diodes to respective parallel light fluxes, and a beam composing unit for superposing the light beams and emitting the superposed light beams therefrom. The light source unit is rotatively adjustable around the optical axis and is constructed such that respective light fluxes emitted from the beam composing unit are emitted with predetermined respective different angles at least in a main scanning direction.

Multiple beam scanning apparatus

In an image forming system, an image forming apparatus with an optional main box having a plurality of bins prevents the cover of each bin from being locked in its closed position unless papers output to all the bins are taken out. Hence, all the bins are empty when they are used later, and can be used by any users. This implements a mail box which can be efficiently used by many users.

Image forming system

An image forming apparatus forms an image described by an input image information on a recording sheet by electrophotography. An optical unit of the image forming apparatus is replaceable while maintaining an accurate positional relationship with a photosensitive unit when the optical unit is set in the image forming apparatus. The optical unit is automatically and accurately positioned three-dimensionally with respect to the photosensitive unit when the optical unit is set in the image forming apparatus.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus having replaceable optical

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Tokyo, Japan

Masaki Narita