Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Masatsugu Hatanaka

Motokazu Nakao

Yoshiaki Hiramoto

Kayo Kamei

Hisashi Yamanaka

Kiwamu Morita

Shigeru Yoshida

Seiichi Kizu

Yasunobu Tagusa

Toru Tanigawa

Hideshi Izumi

Junichi Tanaka

Yuhi Akagawa

Yoshinori Shiraishi

Hidetoshi Kaneko

Yasushi Matsutomo

Nobuya Kishi

Toyokazu Mori

Nobuyoshi Miyao

Takeshi Arai

Seiji Takeda

Yoshiaki Tomaru

Toshihiro Asaka

Tetsuya Toyama

Disclosed is an air blowing system including: an air blowing device; a duct that guides air blown by the air blowing device; and a ventilation section disposed downstream of the duct in terms of an air blowing direction in which air is blown by the air blowing device so that the air blown by the air blowing device strikes and passes through the ventilation section, wherein the duct has a distorted portion where a part of an inner wall face of the duct located between the air blowing device and the ventilation section is distorted perpendicular or substantially perpendicular to the air blowing direction so that the air blown by the air blowing device flows perpendicularly or substantially perpendicularly to the air blowing direction. Also disclosed is an air blowing system including: an air blowing device; and a duct that guides air blown by the air blowing device, wherein the duct has an outer surface on at least a part of which there is provided a surface area reducing portion for reducing a surface area of a continuous face.

Air blowing system and image forming apparatus including same

When forming an image, if there are not enough sheets remaining in a paper feed cassette to satisfy the image forming request, the image forming operation is not executed, and along with prompting the user to refill the paper, the paper feed cassette is pushed out towards an uninstalled state. The apparatus waits for a paper refill, and begins the image forming operation after that paper refill.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a paper conveying portion for conveying a paper; an image forming portion for forming a visible toner image on the paper being conveyed, with a toner in accordance with input image information; and a fixing unit for fusing and fixing an unfixed toner image formed on the paper to the paper by using a heat roller and a pressing roller, and is constructed such that the pressing roller is composed of a metal core that forms a core shaft of the pressing roller and an elastic part that covers an outer periphery of the metal core, and a heat capacity at a center portion of the pressing roller with respect to a direction perpendicular to a paper's direction of conveyance is smaller than heat capacities at both ends of the pressing roller.

Image forming apparatus with pressing roller

A sheet stacking device includes: an evacuation section for transporting and ejecting sheets; a sheet exit tray for stacking the ejected sheets; an arm supporting member; and a sheet presser arm including a supported end at one end, a free end at the other end which is capable of pressing the sheets stacked on the sheet exit tray directly or via a contact member attached to the free end, and a flexure portion having flexibility between the supported end and the free end. The supported end is attached to the arm supporting member. The arm can apply, by the flexibility of the flexure portion, a pressing force to the sheets stacked on the sheet exit tray and a repulsive force to each of the ejected sheets when a front end of the ejected sheet strikes against the arm.

Sheet stacking device and image forming apparatus including the same

A shifter is equipped with a rack and a stopper. A transmission gear transmits power from an electric motor to the rack. A retention pin extends vertically downward from the transmission gear. When the shifter slides to an origin, the retention pin locks the stopper, which causes the electric motor to step out. On detecting the step-out of the electric motor, the position control device recognizes that the shifter has reached the origin (the reference position) and has been fixed at the position, thus setting the shifter position.

Position control device for moving member

A thin film thickness measurement apparatus that can measure immediately after film growth thickness of a thin film of a substrate that is grown includes a light receiving/projecting unit directing light substantially perpendicular to the substrate and receiving light reflected from the substrate, and an analyze unit analyzing thickness of a thin film of the substrate according to intensity of reflected light received by the light receiving/projecting unit.

Apparatus and method for measuring the thickness of a thin film via the intensity of reflected light

A front access type image forming apparatus includes an image scanning section located at an upper part of a housing of the apparatus for obtaining image information from an original, a sheet feeding section located at a lower part of the housing, and an image forming section disposed between the image scanning section and the sheet feeding section at one side of the housing. The image scanning section, the image forming section and the sheet feeding section together form a generally U shape in frontal cross section, a sheet delivery portion being formed between the image scanning section and the sheet feeding section. The length of a sheet delivery tray as measured along a sheet transport direction is made smaller than the length of a maximum printable sheet size so that large-sized printed sheets discharged onto the sheet delivery tray stick out from one side of the apparatus.

A compact ink jet printer having a small amplitude width in the horizontal direction of an ink carriage includes: a shaft provided rotatably about a predetermined axis; a strut fixed to the shaft so as to move along an arc about the axis with rotation of the shaft; an ink carriage having a plurality of ink heads provided at a predetermined direction from the shaft of the strut; and a control device controlling forwarding of a recording sheet, rotational motion of the shaft, and ink jetting from the plurality of ink heads.

Ink jet printer that carries out printing with strut moving along arc

Growing community of inventors

Kashiwara, Japan

Masatsugu Hatanaka