Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Ricoh Comapany, Ltd.

Noboru Sawayama

Takayuki Maruta

Hitoshi Ishibashi

Naoto Watanabe

Shinji Kato

Shin Hasegawa

Mamoru Yorimoto

Tetsuro Hirota

Tetsu Morino

Kenichi Kawabata

Takumi Hagiwara

Shinji Kobayashi

Kohta Fujimori

Kazumi Kobayashi

Takashi Enami

Fukutoshi Uchida

Kayoko Tanaka

Katsuhiro Aoki

Takashi Bisaiji

Yushi Hirayama

Masayuki Takashima

Kayoko Ikegami

Kazunori Bannai

Kouta Fujimori

Takeyoshi Sekine

Takashi Mama

Nobuhiro Nakayama

Kouji Hayashi

Shinichi Kamiyama

Kazunari Yamada

Tetsuro Miura

Tadayuki Sekiya

Hideo Yuh

Takashi Ikeda

Nobuo Takami

Akio Kosuge

Noriyuki Kimura

Shunji Katoh

Katsuhiko Maeda

Koji Sakamoto

Kazuyuki Sugihara

Shigekazu Enoki

Atsushi Takehara

Nobuyuki Koinuma

Mitsuo Hasebe

Masumi Ikesue

Kazuo Nojima

Hiroshi Yoshimura

Masaichi Sawada

Yoshihiro Mitekura

Masatoshi Sakakitani

Yuushi Hirayama

Takuji Yoneda

Hideki Kamaji

Hideo Yoo

Hiroyuki Akamatsu

Katsuji Watabe

Katsuo Hatase

Ryohichi Ishikawa

Norimitu Kikuchi

Norimitsu Kikuchi

Koji Okabayashi

Kaoru Yoshimatsu

An image forming apparatus is provided with a carriage in which recording heads having nozzles for ejecting liquid droplets are mounted and is configured to form an image on a recording medium being transported. The image forming apparatus includes a pattern forming unit that forms an impact position displacement adjustment pattern formed of plural independent liquid droplets on a water repellent member; a reading unit that includes a light emitting unit for emitting light onto the adjustment pattern and a light receiving unit for receiving specular reflection light from the adjustment pattern; and an impact position correcting unit that corrects an impact position of a liquid droplet to be ejected from the recording head based on a read result by the reading unit. The reading unit is disposed on the carriage and is arranged close to the side of a guide member that guides movement of the carriage.

Image forming apparatus and impact position displacement correction method

A disclosed liquid-jet device includes a liquid-jet head configured to jet liquid droplets; a pattern formation control unit configured to control the liquid-jet head and thereby to form a test pattern composed of separate liquid droplets on a water-repellent part; a detecting unit including a light-emitting element configured to illuminate the test pattern on the water-repellent part and a light-receiving element configured to receive specularly reflected light from the illuminated test pattern and to output a detection signal proportional to the received specularly reflected light; and a landing position adjusting unit configured to adjust landing positions of the liquid droplets based on the detection signal from the light-receiving element.

Liquid-jet device, image forming apparatus, and method for adjusting landing positions of liquid droplets

An image forming apparatus includes a recording head, a water-repellent transfer belt, a pattern formation controller, a read unit, and a detection unit. The recording head has a plurality of nozzles aligned in a given direction, and ejects droplets of a liquid therefrom. The pattern formation controller directs each of the plurality of nozzles to eject the liquid to form a detection pattern on the transfer belt. The detection pattern has multiple droplets ejected from each of the plurality of nozzles sequentially arranged and spaced apart from each other both in the given direction and in a direction orthogonal to the given direction. The read unit includes a light emitting element and a light receiving element, and reads the detection pattern to output a read result. The detection unit detects a defective nozzle according to the read result.

Image forming apparatus and defective nozzle detection method

An adjustment pattern, which is composed of a reference pattern made of plural independent liquid droplets and a pattern to be measured made of plural independent liquid droplets ejected under an ejection condition different from the reference pattern, is formed on a water-repellent conveying belt. Then, light is applied to the adjustment pattern to receive the regular reflection light from the adjustment pattern, so that the adjustment pattern is scanned. The distance between the respective patterns is measured based on the measured result. Finally, liquid droplet ejection timing of the recording head is corrected based on the result thus measured.

Image forming apparatus and method of correcting deviation of shooting position

A disclosed image forming apparatus includes a recording head configured to jet liquid droplets; a pattern forming unit configured to form, on a water-repellent surface of a water-repellent sheet member, an adjustment pattern used for correcting shifts in landing positions of the liquid droplets, wherein the adjustment pattern includes plural liquid droplets that are separated from each other, and the water-repellent surface having a water-repellent property is formed on at least a part of a surface of the water-repellent sheet member; a reading unit including a light emitting unit configured to irradiate light onto the adjustment pattern and a light receiving unit configured to receive specular reflection light from the adjustment pattern; and a landing position correction unit configured to correct, based on a reading result obtained by the reading unit, the shifts in the landing positions of the liquid droplets that are jetted from the recording head.

Image forming apparatus, landing position shift correction method, and landing position shift correction sheet member

An optical sensor includes at least one light emitting unit that emits a light, a first light receiving unit that receives specular reflection light from an illumination object when the light is incident on the illumination object with an incidence angle and specularly reflected with a reflection angle, and a second light receiving unit that receives diffuse reflection light from the illumination object when the incident light is diffusely reflected at the illumination object. The sum of the incident angle and the reflection angle is 25 degrees or less.

Optical sensor and image forming apparatus that processes specular reflection light

An image forming method and apparatus capable of implementing accurately and constantly an improved conversion of the amount of toner adhesion over the entire range of the amount of adhesion. The method includes the steps of computing a normalization value as a relative output ratio of the regular reflection output to a background regular reflection component from the surface extracted from the regular reflection light, in which the regular reflection output is obtained by detecting a plurality of gradation toner patterns with a sensor configured to simultaneously detect regular reflection light and diffuse reflection light; obtaining a diffuse reflection output conversion factor by either (1) subtracting the normalization value multiplied by the diffuse reflection output voltage generated by the surface from the diffuse reflection output voltage, or (2) subtracting the normalization value multiplied by a diffuse reflection output voltage increment, which is computed as the difference between the diffuse reflection output voltage and another diffuse reflection output voltage obtained when a light emitting device is turned off, from the diffuse reflection output voltage increment; and subjecting the relation between the diffuse reflection output conversion factor and the amount of adhesion to a polynomial approximation.

Image forming method and apparatus with improved conversion capability of amount of toner adhesion

An image forming apparatus includes an alignment pattern and an alignment pattern detector that detects the alignment pattern. The alignment pattern is formed in such a manner that a line image of a reference color and a line image of a color other than the reference color are superposed on each other with a predetermined shift amount. An acceptance width of the alignment pattern detector is determined so that the acceptance width satisfies a relation with a writing density of the image forming apparatus and a line width of the alignment pattern, as follows:[acceptance width]&#x3e;[line width]/(5.0627&#xd7;[writing density(dpi)]).

Alignment pattern detecting sensor, method of determining acceptance width of the alignment pattern detecting sensor, method of forming alignment pattern, and image forming apparatus

A device for detecting image information includes an intermediate transfer member configured to hold a pattern image; a detecting unit configured to optically detect the pattern image; a secondary transfer unit configured to contact with and separate from the intermediate transfer member; and a control unit that controls the secondary transfer unit in such a manner that the secondary transfer unit does not contact the intermediate transfer member while the detecting unit is detecting the pattern image, and that controls the secondary transfer unit in such a manner that the secondary transfer unit contacts the intermediate transfer member after the detecting unit finishes detection of the pattern image.

Image-information detecting device and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming mechanism and a control device. The image forming mechanism performs an image forming operation under predetermined image forming conditions, and includes an image carrying member for forming an electrostatic latent image thereon, a development device for developing the electrostatic latent image into a toner image, and a transfer device for transferring the toner image to a recording medium. The control device controls an amount of toner replenished to the development device, sets a developer mixing time for evenly mixing developer in the development device, causes the development device to mix the developer for the set developer mixing time, causes the image forming mechanism to form toner image patterns, detects the toner image patterns, and determines the predetermined image forming conditions based on the detection of the toner image patterns. An image forming method is also described.

Method and apparatus for image forming capable of effectively detecting toner density

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming mechanism and a process controller. The process controller is configured to instruct the image forming mechanism to perform an image forming operation and a control operation of image forming process conditions. The control operation includes at least two phases each executable at an individual time. The process controller instructs the image forming mechanism to perform the control operation by executing the at least two phases in order of execution frequency from the highest execution frequency to the lowest execution frequency, and discontinue sequential execution of the at least two phases in accordance with an image output command to preferentially perform the image output operation in accordance with the image output command. An image forming method is also described.

Method and apparatus for image forming capable of controlling image-forming process conditions

An image forming apparatus includes an alignment pattern and an alignment pattern detector that detects the alignment pattern. The alignment pattern is formed in such a manner that a line image of a reference color and a line image of a color other than the reference color are superposed on each other with a predetermined shift amount. An acceptance width of the alignment pattern detector is determined so that the acceptance width satisfies a relation with a writing density of the image forming apparatus and a line width of the alignment pattern, as follows:[acceptance width]&#x3e;[line width]/(5.0627&#xd7;[writing density (dpi)]).

An image forming apparatus includes an operation management part managing the operation of the image forming apparatus. A first operation information storing part accumulates in chronological order operation information relating to the operation managed by the operation management part. An external output part refers to cumulative results accumulated in the first operation information storing part and outputs, to the outside, the operation information according to the cumulative results.

Image forming apparatus

An electrophotographic image formation apparatus, in which there is used a function-separated type layered photoconductor including an electroconductive support on which an undercoat layer, a charge generation layer, and a charge transport layer are successively overlaid, with the thickness of the undercoat layer, Tul, and the thickness of the charge transport layer, Tctl, satisfying a particular relationship of Tul>Tctl/3 or Tul>Tctl/2.

Electrophotographic image formation apparatus

A permeability detection apparatus configured to stably execute a permeability detection operation for toner concentration and characterized by improved sensitivity. The permeability detection apparatus includes: a detection circuit ; an oscillation circuit that oscillates a natural frequency to drive the detection circuit; and a phase comparison circuit that extracts signals at an input side of the detection circuit and an end side of the circuit element to perform phase comparison. The detection circuit includes a coil L , a capacitor C connected to the coil in series or in parallel, and a resistance R connected to the coil in series or in parallel, and a resistance R connected to the coil and the capacitor. The resistance R allows the oscillation circuit to eliminate influence from the detection circuit and to oscillate the natural frequency continuously. The coil and the capacitor form a resonant circuit, and a resonant frequency circuit is set approximately equal to the natural frequency.

Permeability detection apparatus, image forming apparatus or digital copier using the same, toner concentration detection apparatus, and electric conductivity detection apparatus

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Tokyo, Japan

Noboru Sawayama