Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Keihin Corporation

Yamada Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Naoki Oikawa

Takashi Saito

Shuuya Nagasako

Hitoshi Hattori

Yuusuke Shibasaki

Naohiro Kikkawa

Naoyuki Ishikawa

Hidetoshi Kojima

Go Aiba

Akihiro Musha

Shigeto Ryuen

Kazuki Seto

Ryuhei Waragai

Yukihiko Natsui

Takashi Nakano

Junya Suzuki

Kei Sasaki

Joji Akiyama

Munehisa Fuda

Toshihiro Okutsu

Kenichi Fujiki

Atsushi Shinoda

Atsunori Yoshida

Toru Kobayashi

Masanobu Yoshida

Yuji Senbongi

Hiroyuki Kato

Takashi Yokoyama

Ken Kaneko

Takahiro Satou

Masaru Ohba

Syu Murayama

Tsuyoshi Sawamoto

Yusaku Matsumoto

Yoshiharu Segawa

Haruyo Kobayashi

Kentarou Yamanaka

Kazuhiko Okuyama

Takuya Tomobe

Takashi Hirayama

Kentaro Yamanaka

Yuhki Jyo

A sheet feeding device includes a sheet feed tray, a conveying roller pair, and a contact-and-separation mechanism. The sheet feed tray is detachably attached to a body of an image forming apparatus. The conveying roller pair is disposed in the body of the image forming apparatus, conveys a sheet fed from the sheet feed tray attached to the body of the image forming apparatus, and includes a driving roller and a driven roller. The driving roller is rotated by a drive mechanism. The driven roller is rotated by the driving roller. The contact-and-separation mechanism separates the driven roller from the driving roller in conjunction with detachment of the sheet feed tray from the body of the image forming apparatus and brings the driven roller into contact with the driving roller by the drive mechanism when the sheet feed tray is detached from the body of the image forming apparatus.

Sheet feeding device and image forming apparatus incorporating the same

A medium processing apparatus includes a conveyor, a liquid applier, and a crimper. The conveyor conveys a medium. The liquid applier performs liquid application of applying liquid to a part of the medium conveyed by the conveyor, the medium being at least one medium. The crimper presses and deforms a bundle of media including the medium to which the liquid is applied by the liquid applier, to bind the bundle of media. The liquid applier adjusts an application amount of the liquid in the liquid application according to an environmental condition that is a factor that affects a binding strength with which the bundle of media is bound by pressing and deforming of the crimper.

Medium processing apparatus and image forming system incorporating same

A sheet stacking tray includes a first conveyor, a second conveyor, a sheet stopper, a first full-load detector, a second full-load detector, and a plurality of motors. The plurality of motors maintain the sheet stopper at a protruding position to block a sheet conveyed by the first conveyor until the first full-load detector outputs a signal indicating that a sheet bundle is fully loaded, shift the sheet stopper to a lowered position to allow the sheet bundle to pass when the first full-load detector outputs the signal indicating that the sheet bundle is fully loaded, drive the first conveyor and the second conveyor together to convey the sheet bundle when the sheet stopper shifts to the lowered position, and stop the second conveyor and drive only the first conveyor, when the second full-load detector detects a leading edge of the sheet bundle.

Sheet stacking tray, sheet stacking apparatus, and image forming system

A sheet separating device includes a receptacle, a pickup rotator, an air supplier, and a sheet floating restraint. The receptacle is configured to hold a plurality of sheets. The pickup rotator is configured to feed the plurality of sheets one by one from the receptacle. The air supplier includes an air outlet disposed ahead of the receptacle in a sheet feeding direction in which the plurality of sheets is fed. The air supplier is configured to blow air out from the air outlet toward a leading end of the plurality of sheets, held on the receptacle, in the sheet feeding direction. The sheet floating restraint is configured to restrain floating of a part of the plurality of sheets separated from each other by the air blown out from the air outlet.

Sheet separation device and image forming apparatus incorporating same

A hydraulic control apparatus is provided including: an electromagnetic valve that has an input port communicating with a supply destination unit of oil and a control port that is switched between communication and disconnection by resultant force of a hydraulic pressure of the supply destination unit and electromagnetic force; a variable displacement pump which has a suction port communicating with a supply source of the oil, an ejection port communicating with the supply destination unit, and a control chamber communicating with the control port and rotates in accordance with drive of the supply destination unit, in which an amount of the oil ejected to the supply destination unit through the ejection port changes in accordance with a pressure in the control chamber; and a control unit that controls a value of a necessary current that is caused to flow through the electromagnetic valve.

Hydraulic control apparatus and hydraulic control method

A paper feeding device that includes, in a drive transmission mechanism to a paper feeding roller that delivers paper, a drive member provided on an apparatus body side as a member to transmit torque in a given direction for delivery of paper from a conveying motor to the paper feeding roller and a driven member provided on the paper feeding roller side. By relatively rotating the drive member and the driven member to form a coupling state of the members before an instruction to start the delivery of paper is output, the rotation of the paper feeding roller is started without a time lag when the instruction to start the delivery of paper is output.

Paper feeding device and image forming apparatus

A solenoid section of a solenoid three-way valve includes a yoke attached to a valve housing and formed from a bottomed cylindrical main yoke and an auxiliary yoke closing an open end of the main yoke, a coil assembly inside the yoke, a fixed core slidably fitted into a hollow portion of a bobbin and abutted against a ceiling wall of the main yoke, a movable core facing the fixed core and passing through the auxiliary yoke, and a coil spring compressed between the cores. The fixed core is abutted against the wall by a predetermined spring load and by electromagnetic attraction force between the core and wall based on coil energization. A valve rod is slidably supported in a housing hole, having one end separably abutted against an outer end of the movable core and an opposite end abutted against a valve body.

Fluid pressure control device

An image forming apparatus includes a sheet bundle housing unit that houses recording sheets piled as a sheet bundle; a swing member having a sheet contact portion on one end side, and swinging between a projection position at which the sheet contact portion projects above a sheet placement surface of the housing unit and a non-projection position at which the sheet contact portion does not project above the sheet placement surface, the swing member moving from the projection position to the non-projection position by the sheet bundle; a sheet detection unit that detects the sheet bundle in the housing unit using the swing member; and an interlocking mechanism that moves the swing member to the non-projection position, regardless of presence or absence of the sheet bundle in the housing unit, by interlocking with the housing unit being pulled out from an apparatus body.

Image forming apparatus

A linear solenoid comprising: linear solenoid portion, comprising: a coil; a cylindrical movable core which is attracted toward a fixed core when the coil is energized; and a cylindrical yoke which surrounds an outer circumference surface of the movable core, wherein the movable core has a shaft-less structure, a first plain bearing and a second plain bearing for slidably supporting both ends of the movable core are provided respectively at both ends of a cylindrical yoke along its axis, and the first plain bearing and the second plain bearing are provided to be projected from the inner circumference surface of the cylindrical yoke by a predetermined length T toward the movable core.

Linear solenoid and valve device using the same

The present invention provides a linear solenoid portion, comprising: a cylindrical movable core which is attracted toward a fixed core when a coil is energized: and a cylindrical yoke which surrounds an outer circumference surface of the movable core, in which the movable core is not provided with a shaft, a first stopper which limits a displacement of the movable core to a side of a fixed core is pushed into a through hole of the fixed core at one end of the movable core along an axial direction, and a second stopper which limits a displacement in a direction to be spaced apart from the fixed core is held to a bottom surface of a housing by swaging at other end of the movable core along the axial direction.

A creasing device includes: a first member including a creasing blade; a first receiving member including an attachment surface where the first member is to be attached; a second member arranged to face the first member and including a first creasing channel and a second creasing channel opposite to the first creasing channel, the first creasing channel configured to allow the creasing blade to be fitted thereinto with the sheet between the first creasing channel and the creasing blade, the second creasing channel configured to allow the creasing blade to be fitted thereinto with the sheet between the second creasing channel and the creasing blade; a second receiving member including an attachment surface where the second member is to be attached; and a driving section that brings the first and second members into contact with each other and separates the first member and the second member from one another.

Creasing device and image forming system

A creasing apparatus that performs a creasing process on a sheet, the creasing apparatus including a first conveying path on which a creasing unit is located, the creasing unit performing a creasing process on a sheet conveyed therein; a second conveying path that conveys a sheet conveyed therein to a downstream side without any process being performed on the sheet; and a control unit that, while the first conveying path conveys a sheet so that the creasing unit performs the creasing process on the sheet, causes a subsequent sheet to be conveyed to the downstream side from the second conveying path.

Creasing apparatus and image forming system

A sheet processing apparatus includes: a correcting unit that corrects alignment of a sheet; a post-processing unit that performs post-processing on the sheet after the correcting unit corrects the alignment of the sheet; and a creasing unit that forms a crease on the sheet after the correcting unit corrects the alignment of the sheet.

Sheet processing apparatus and image forming system

A creasing device that creases sheets on a per-sheet basis and includes: a first member extending perpendicularly to a sheet conveying direction and including a convex blade; a second member extending perpendicularly to the sheet conveying direction and including a concave blade, into which the convex blade is to be fitted; a drive unit that brings the first and the second members into and out of contact with each other, thereby producing a crease in a sheet interposed between the first and the second members; a sheet retainer driven by the drive unit and brought into contact with the second member with the sheet therebetween to retain the sheet across its full width; and a holding unit that holds the sheet retainer in a retaining state during creasing where the contact between the first and the second members starts at one point and develops in one direction.

A creasing apparatus forming a crease on sheets one by one includes: a first member having a linear convex blade formed in a direction perpendicular to a sheet conveying direction; a second member having a concave blade being paired with the convex blade; and a drive unit that moves the first and second members so as to cause the convex blade and the concave blade to form a crease on a sheet stopped at a predetermined position. The first member forms the convex blade with first comb and second comb and the second member forms the concave blade with third comb and fourth comb that advance and retract relative to each other. The drive unit selects advanced and retracted positions of the first comb and second comb and advanced and retracted positions of the third comb and fourth comb so as to perform a creasing process or a perforating process.

Growing community of inventors

Miyagi, Japan

Naoki Oikawa