Citizen Watch Company, Ltd.

Citizen Holdings Company, Ltd.

Sadao Masubuchi

Akira Shiota

Masafumi Yokoyama

Masaaki Matsunaga

Shinichi Nonaka

Shigeru Futakami

Chikara Aizawa

Makoto Yasunaga

Maki Wakita

Akinobu Iwako

Sigeru Futakami

Kanetaka Sekiguchi

Hideyuki Kawashima

Toshiaki Uchida

Kazunari Takahashi

The invention is directed to the provision of an exposure apparatus in which is stored an electric current value appropriately determined for supply to a light-emitting device, and a method for producing such an exposure apparatus. The production method according to the invention comprises the steps of supplying a reference electric current to the light-emitting device, and measuring the amount of light from each of the plurality of pixels of the light modulating device, determining whether a minimum value among the amounts of light measured from the plurality of pixels lies within a predetermined range, and determining the value of the electric current to be supplied to the light-emitting device so that the minimum value of the amounts of light falls within the predetermined range when the minimum value of the amounts of light is outside the predetermined range.

Exposure system and production method for exposure system

The invention is directed to the provision of an exposure apparatus that can determine a correction value for each individual light-emitting part by employing a method that detects the amount of light corresponding to one particular light-emitting part from composite light containing light rays from adjacent light-emitting parts, and also to the provision of a method for producing such an exposure apparatus. The production method according to the invention comprises the steps of lighting a plurality of light-emitting parts at the same time, detecting an output light-amount distribution across all of the plurality of light-emitting parts by making measurements using a line-like light-receiving device, detecting a peak position corresponding to each light-emitting part by using the output light-amount distribution; detecting the amount of light of each light-emitting part based on the peak position, and determining, based on the amount of light of each light-emitting part, the correction value for correcting nonuniformity in the amount of light of the light-emitting part.

Method for determining a correction value for light-emitting parts in exposure apparatus

A color liquid crystal exposure apparatus includes a color light source for emitting a plurality of colored light beams, a liquid crystal shutter having a plurality of liquid crystal pixels arrayed in a direction orthogonal to the direction of the relative movement, and a driving circuit for switching the color light source from one color to another, and for driving the plurality of liquid crystal pixels. The plurality of liquid crystal pixels are divided into a plurality of pixel groups. The liquid crystal pixels in each pixel group are arrayed, one displaced from another by a prescribed distance, in the direction orthogonal to the direction of the relative movement. The driving circuit drives the plurality of liquid crystal pixels in time-division fashion so that the liquid crystal pixels having the same displaced position in the plurality of pixel groups are driven at one time.

Liquid crystal exposure device

A liquid crystal shutter device is provided with a liquid crystal cell including a first substrate (), a second substrate (), and liquid crystal sandwiched therebetween, pixel electrodes () which are signal electrodes and lead-out electrodes () provided on the first substrate (), counter electrodes which are common electrodes facing the pixel electrodes, provided on the second substrate (), and a plurality of pixel rows () which are composed of pixels (etc.) formed by overlapped portions of the pixel electrodes and the counter electrodes, and the liquid crystal shutter device controls light applied to a photosensitive member continuously and relatively moving in a direction orthogonal to the pixel rows, in which the counter electrodes are provided separately for the respective pixel rows. Further, an RGB coupling electrode () for electrically connecting the counter electrodes of the respective pixel rows is preferably provided.

Liquid crystal shutter device for color imaging on photosensitive medium

A leaf spring () and adjusting screws () are arranged in opposite positions on the inner wall surface of a liquid crystal shutter housing recess () that is formed in a frame body () of an optical printer head (). The position and posture of the liquid crystal shutter () in the liquid crystal shutter housing recess () is adjusted with respect to an opening () of the frame body () by turning the adjusting screws ().

Optical printer head having liquid crystal shutter

An optical printer device which includes an exposure device which makes relative movements, in a predetermined direction, with respect to a photosensitive body. The optical printer also has a plurality of first, second and third light-emitting elements which emit lights of a first, second and third colors. These light-emitting elements are mounted on a first, second and third mounting substrates, independent of one another, which correspond to the first, second and third colors.

Optical printer device that forms color images

Calibration of the light emitting elements in an optical printer is carried out by mounting the optical printer on an external monitoring apparatus. The external monitoring apparatus comprises: a sensor mounting portion whereon a plurality of photosensors are mounted in a straight line; a signal processing circuit for processing the signals output from the photosensors; a reference voltage generating circuit; and a comparison and control circuit for comparing the output from the signal processing circuit with the reference voltage from the reference voltage generating circuit and outputting a signal based on the results of the comparison. The photosensors receive the light output from the light emitting elements, being subject to calibration, in the optical printer. The signal processing circuit comprises a plurality of integrating circuits which receive the signals output from the plurality of photosensors and integrate those signals over a prescribed period of time; and an arithmetic circuit for calculating the mean value of the output of the integrating circuits and outputting the calibration voltage.

Calibration apparatus for light emitting elements in an optical printer

In an optical printer apparatus designed so that an optical head ( ) having an LED light source ( ) therein is moved relatively to a sensitized sheet ( ) and an image is formed by emitting a plurality of color light beams in regular order from the LED so that the light beams are focused at given spaces on the sensitized sheet, an image pitch P for the color light beams is substantially equal to an integer multiple of the maximum exposure distance D.

Optical printer

A photosensitive element ( ) is provided on its photosensitive face side with a non-photosensitive portion with a width D extending from a front end to a rear end side in a conveying direction and a non-photosensitive portion with a width D extending from the rear end to the front end side. A position of light irradiation of an optical head onto the photosensitive element is set within a range extending a first point at a distance of D from the center of the conveying roller ( ) on the upstream side in the conveying direction to a second point at a distance of D from the center of the conveying roller ( ) on the downstream side in the conveying direction.

A line-scanning optical printer, which forms an image on a sensitized sheet ( ) by projecting a linear light having a given width and length thereto while successively scanning individual lines in the direction of the width, comprises a casing ( ) having light shielding properties and including a window portion for radiating the linear light to the outside, a light emitting element ( ), which substantially functions as a point light source and is stored in the casing, an optical system ( ) for guiding light from the light emitting element ( ) as the linear light to the window portion, and a liquid crystal optical shutter ( ) attached to the window portion.

Line-scanning optical printer

The present invention uses LEDs as the light source in a optical printer employing a line scanning method in which an image is produced by relative motion of the light to a photosensitive medium. LEDs are arranged on a mounting substrate with LED pairs, each pair being of the same color, disposed symmetrically as to the center point of the line. Similarly, the power supply lead wires for the LEDs are also disposed symmetrically. In mounting the components on the mounting substrate, a light-intercepting material is used for intercepting light from the side faces of the LEDs.

Optical printer apparatus

The present invention employs LEDs and a liquid crystal shutter driven in synchronization with the position of the photosensitive paper, thereby eliminating image distortion even where the head of the optical printer apparatus is subjected to unanticipated load during scanning by the head. A rotary encoder (,) is provided on the rotating shaft of the motor (,) that drives the optical head (,), and the drive timing for the LEDs (,) and the liquid crystal shutter (,) is synchronized with the output of the rotary encoder.

An optical printer apparatus exposes a sensitized sheet (,) to light from a light source (,), which is movable relatively to the sensitized sheet (,), with given timing in accordance with image data composed of pixels having a plurality of gradations that are linearly changeable from a minimum gradation of low color density to a maximum gradation of high color density. The distance for the exposure is adjusted for area gradation, whereby a gradated image is formed on the sensitized sheet (,). Further, change of the exposure distance, compared to change of the gradation, is not uniform throughout the range, and a non-linear relation is established between the changes.

A one-shot color scheme for forming a color image by one exposure cycle is characterized in that color toners consist of three kinds of color toners for transmitting cyan, magenta, and yellow color components and emitting the same colors as the transmitted color components, red, green, and blue light components whose exposure energy amounts are variable are caused to be incident on the color toners on the photoconductive layer, and the color toners are selectively separated from the photoconductive layer by changing a combination of the color light components and the exposure energy amounts.

Method of forming color images

A method of driving a diode type display unit in which a charge regulating period is added to driving signal waveform in order to regulate amount of charge in a display picture element capacitor in the display unit wherein a two-terminal element having nonlinear current-voltage characteristics is provided two-dimensionally on a substrate, an electrooptical element capable of controlling the optical quality by means of applied voltage is disposed in response to the two-terminal element, charge is injected into the electrooptical element by utilizing the current-voltage nonlinearity in the two-terminal element for writing period, and the charge injected is held by utilizing the current-voltage nonlinearity in the two-terminalelement for holding period thereby effectig display.

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Chofu, Japan

Sadao Masubuchi