Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Seiji Terazawa

Kaori Mitsuishi

Masashi Hasegawa

Toshihide Tomotaka

Hiroshi Hosokawa

Kenji Kikuchi

Shinji Tamaki

Masayuki Yamane

Nobuyuki Taguchi

Atsushi Inoue

Masato Suzuki

Junji Yamabe

Hiroshi Ikeguchi

Tsunehiro Watanabe

Shunji Kato

Takeroh Kurenuma

Goro Katsuyama

Hideo Yoshizawa

Hideo Ichikawa

Keiichi Yano

Tomoji Ishikawa

Satoshi Muramatsu

Nobuo Kasahara

Kiyonori Tsuda

Kazuhisa Sudo

Kenzo Tatsumi

Emi Kita

Hideki Kimura

Tadashi Hayakawa

Tatsuya Kubo

Hiroshi Sano

Masayoshi Suzuki

Fumio Ogata

Tetsuya Kusano

Takayuki Tamaki

Takashi Hisazumi

Fumie Satoh

Teruo Hitosugi

Yuuta Tanaka

Satoshi Narumi

Takeshi Tamaru

Michiharu Suzuki

Ryoichi Teranishi

Teruo Shibata

Hideki Zemba

Sunao Ikeda

Makoto Kawaguchi

Nobuhiro Makita

Takashi Ono

Shunji Katoh

Kazuhiko Umemura

Shuntaroh Tamaki

Masaaki Kabumoto

Yuki Oshikawa

Shogo Nakamura

Shuntaro Tamaki

Tomokazu Saito

Yoshihide Kawamura

Hiroyuki Iwasa

Kotaro Koide

Gen Kitamura

Keisuke Katoh

Takahiro Ikuma

Michitaka Sasaki

Yusuke Uchida

Masakazu Nakada

Kanae Nomura

Michiharu Narushima

Kaori Ozeki

Mizuho Imaruoka

Tatsushi Umayahara

Eiichi Masushio

Masaki Serizawa

Tomokazu Saitoh

Yosio Sano

Hideki Arimatsu

Sho Matsuyama

Takashi Uesugi

Chiharu Matsui

Tomoe Sasaki

Masato Nomura

A packing member, a toner container, and a packing method. The packing member contains the toner container, and the packing member includes a box containing the toner container with a gap between one side of the box and a container body and between the one side of the box and a large-dimension portion of the toner container, a first pressing portion that presses the container body, and a second pressing portion that presses the large-dimension portion. In the packing member, the large-dimension portion of the toner container is disposed at one end of the container body, and the large-dimension portion has a wider dimension than the container body in a direction orthogonal to a longitudinal direction of the toner container. In the packing member, the container body contacts, with first contact force, a first bearer inside the box to maintain the gap.

Packing member, toner container, and packing method

A powder container including a nozzle receiving opening at one side of the powder container in a longitudinal direction of the powder container, a scoop, at the one side, to scoop up the powder, when the scoop is rotated about a rotational axis, and a holder, at the one side, which is rotatable around the rotational axis relative to the scoop. The holder includes an electrical terminal, facing the longitudinal direction, and the holder and the electrical terminal not intersecting the rotational axis. The electrical terminal is oblique to the rotational axis relative to a vertical direction when the powder container is in a mounted orientation.

Powder container with a nozzle receiver

Toner container

A shutter mechanism includes a shutter, a shutter support, and an elastic member. The shutter moves in one direction to close an opening. The shutter support supports the shutter. The elastic member biases the shutter and the shutter support in opposite directions. The shutter includes an abutting portion to hook on the shutter support with the abutting portion being biased by the elastic member. At least one of the abutting portion and the shutter support has a hook strengthening structure to strengthen hooking of the shutter on the shutter support.

Shutter mechanism, toner container, toner cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A toner container includes a shutter and a seal. The shutter is pushed by a nozzle of the image forming apparatus in conjunction with a movement of the toner container in an installation direction to the image forming apparatus. The shutter causes the nozzle to insert into the toner container and communicates the nozzle with the toner container via an opening on a circumferential surface of the nozzle. The seal covers a circumferential surface of the shutter in a close state in which the shutter is not pushed by the nozzle and slidingly contacts the circumferential surface of the shutter and the circumferential surface of the nozzle during an opening operation in which the shutter is pushed by the nozzle. A length of the seal in the installation direction is longer than a length of the opening of the nozzle in the installation direction.

Toner container, image forming apparatus, and shutter unit

A powder container includes a nozzle receiving opening, a container body, a nozzle receiver including the nozzle receiving opening; a gear, and two scoops. Further, there is a shutter to open and close the nozzle receiving opening, a spring to bias the shutter, two protrusions which protrude away from the nozzle receiving opening. The scoops extend in the longitudinal direction along a first length, the protrusions extend in the longitudinal direction along a second length, and a position of the first length and a position of the second length at least partly overlap along the longitudinal direction. The powder dropped from the higher position enters the region by passing between the protrusions when the scoops are rotated about the rotational axis, and the protrusions are rotated, due to the rotation of the gear, around the region when the scoops are rotated about the rotational axis.

A powder conveying device includes: a conveying nozzle, provided with a powder receiving opening; an open/close member to open/close the powder receiving opening; a flange provided to the open/close member; a biasing member to bias the open/close member; and a container setting section to which a part of a powder container is to be fit. The powder container includes: a conveyor to convey the powder from a second end of the powder container to a first end; a container opening protruding from the first end; a nozzle receiving opening into which the conveying nozzle is to be inserted; and a butting portion provided in the container opening, to butt against the flange. When the powder container is attached to the powder conveying device, the container opening is fitted to the container setting section, and the flange and the biasing member are housed in an inner space of the container opening.

Nozzle receiver for use with a toner container

A powder container includes a container body, a spiral projection, and a convex portion. The container body stores powder and is rotatable around an axis of the container body. The spiral projection is inside the container body. The convex portion includes a flat surface portion and protrudes inward from an inner wall surface of the container body. A virtual plane including the flat surface portion passes through the axis.

Powder container and image forming apparatus

Powder container including a container body, nozzle receiver, and seal

Powder container including a nozzle receiving opening and scoop

A powder container includes a powder container body having a cylindrical form to store powder. The powder container body includes a conveyer, a large diameter portion, a small diameter portion, and a boundary portion. The conveyer conveys the powder stored in the powder container body in a longitudinal direction of the powder container body. The large outer diameter portion has an outer diameter on a cross section orthogonal to the longitudinal direction. The small outer diameter portion has an outer diameter smaller than the outer diameter of the large outer diameter portion on the cross section. The boundary portion connects the large outer diameter portion and the small outer diameter portion.

Powder container, powder supply device, and image forming apparatus having large diameter and small diameter portions

A toner container includes a shutter to open and close an opening into which the nozzle is inserted, a guide rod provided together with the shutter, and a compression spring that urges the shutter in the closing direction. Further, the toner container includes a holder including a holding portion including at least two portions to support the guide rod movably in an opening and closing direction, a fitting portion having the opening, to fit into a container body, and a bridge portion to connect the holding portion and the fitting portion. A circumferential area around the guide rod and the compression spring that faces the bridge portion is smaller than a circumferential area around the guide rod and the compression spring that does not face the bridge portion. the shutter and the guide rod (or the nozzle) moves smoothly in the opening and closing direction.

Developer container and image forming apparatus incorporating same

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Shizuoka, Japan

Seiji Terazawa