Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Shin-etsu Chemical Co., Ltd.

Richo Company, Ltd.

Setsuo Soga

Yasuhiro Kohira

Tadashi Kasai

Mitsuo Aoki

Jun Okamoto

Koji Suzuki

Yasushi Koichi

Bing Shu

Yutaka Takahashi

Yasuo Asahina

Ichiro Fukushima

Masami Tomita

Naoki Iwaya

Akira Shinshi

Masahiko Satoh

Takahiro Yoshikawa

Toshiharu Hachisuka

Ryoichi Namiki

Hideo Yu

Ken Omura

Toshiyuki Kikuchi

Yuichiro Higashi

Toshiya Yabei

Hiroshi Yamada

Kenichi Hasegawa

Tsuneo Kurotori

Katsuhiro Echigo

Manabu Mochizuki

Mitsuo Hasebe

Masumi Ikesue

Akio Katsumata

Hideo Yamazaki

Junji Kurokawa

Kenichirou Asada

Ichiro Tsuruoka

Yasumori Nagahara

Kiyoshi Imai

Tetsuo Sakurai

Yoshiaki Kanmoto

Yukio Noguchi

Nachio Seko

Kiyoto Nagasawa

Takanobu Fujioka

Tadao Uehara

Hiroshi Hirose

Nobuyuki Hasebe

Hiroaki Takenouchi

Katsuji Watabe

Shohji Hayashi

Shozo Shimomura

Hiroshi Mano

Minolu Fukuda

Hiroki Takeda

Tomiaki Asami

An image forming apparatus comprising: a latent image support for supporting a latent image and a developing device configured to us toner to develop the latent image on said latent image support, the estimated average halftone granularity of the toner imager after developing being 0.25 or less.

Image forming method and image forming apparatus for same

A belt fixing unit, an image forming apparatus, and a toner material are disclosed capable of obviating undesirable fixing belt deformation and low image quality. The belt fixing unit includes a fixing roller, a heating roller, a fixing belt, and a pressing roller in contact with the fixing roller to form a fixing nip having the fixing belt intervening there between, the fixing belt including at least a base member formed of a heat-resisting resin having a thickness of 90 &#x3bc;m or smaller and acted upon by a tensile force of 0.49 N/mm or less. The toner is a low-melting point toner formed by subjecting a toner preparatory solution containing at least a prepolymer having a functional group containing a nitrogen atom, a polyester, a colorant and a releasing agent dispersed in an organic solvent to extension and/or crosslinking reactions in an aqueous medium.

Fixing unit with heat-resisting resin base member and image forming toner for use in the fixing unit

An electrophotographic image forming apparatus capable of reliably forming an image with density gradation, one which does not have a low-quality appearance. The estimated average halftone granularity of the toner image after developing but before electrostatic transfer was set at 0.25 or less. The average halftone granularity was found by measuring the granularity of a toner image at locations of different average brightness by means of newly proposed formula, and averaging the measured values for which the average brightness is 40 to 80. The estimated average halftone granularity was obtained by estimating the average halftone granularity of the toner image on a photoreceptor by means of a newly proposed method.

In an image forming apparatus, a toner image is formed on a photosensitive element and a transfer roller, which carries a transfer medium, is pressed against a photosensitive element at a pressure of from 20.4 N/cmto 200 N/cm.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

Belt fixing unit with heat-resisting resin base member and image forming toner for use in the fixing unit

A fixing device having an endless fixing belt configured to convey a sheet-like medium on which a toner image is to be fixed, heating and fixing rollers having the fixing belt wound thereon, and a pressing roller disposed opposite to the fixing roller having fixing belt wound thereon to form a nip portion between the fixing belt and pressing roller. The fixing device also including first to third heaters provided in the heating, pressure and fixing rollers respectively, and first to third voltage applying devices configured to apply voltages to the first to third heaters respectively. The nip portion is configured to perform the fixing only by pressure contact between said fixing and pressing rollers via said fixing belt.

Image forming apparatus and method having an improved heating mechanism in fixing device

An image forming apparatus of the type transferring a toner image from a photoconductive element to a recording medium by way of an intermediate transfer belt is disclosed. Toner images of different colors are sequentially transferred from the photoconductive element to the intermediate transfer belt one above the other, forming a full-color image. When the full-color image is to be transferred from the intermediate transfer belt to a paper or similar recording medium, a secondary transfer belt is brought into contact with the portion of the intermediate transfer belt contacting a secondary transfer roller. As a result, the secondary transfer belt deforms complementarily to the shape of the secondary transfer roller, forming a nip between it and the intermediate transfer belt. In this condition, the secondary transfer belt contacts the intermediate transfer belt evenly and prevents an excessive pressure from acting locally on the toner image existing on the intermediate transfer belt.

Image forming apparatus

A fixing apparatus for fixing image on a recording sheet or film comprises a fixing roller having a surface comprising a fluororesin and contacting with a toner, a heating means for heating said fixing roller, a rotating pressing roller urged against said fixing roller, and means for applying a releasing agent to the surface of said fixing roller, characterized in that said releasing agent comprises a fluorosilicone represented by the following formula (I): ##STR1## wherein a, b, c, d, e and f independently denote an integer of 0 to 3, l and m are an integer of 0 to 3 with a proviso that 1.ltoreq.1+m.ltoreq.6, and n is an integer of 1 or more.

Fixing apparatus

A fixing apparatus includes a fixing roller for fixing a toner on a transferring material and a pressing roller for coming into contact with and pressing against a fixing roller. The apparatus further includes a cleaning roller which comes into contact with and cleans the fixing roller as well as a blade which scratches off toner and foreign particles transferred to the cleaning roller from the fixing roller. In the apparatus of the present invention, a coated layer including polyimide and polytetrafluorethylene is disposed on the surface of the cleaning roller.

Fixing apparatus comprising a cleaning roller having a coated layer of

A device disposed in an exhaust section of image forming equipment for removing ozone generated in the equipment. An ozone filter and an agent container containing an ozone decomposing agent therein are constructed into a single unit. The agent contained in the body of the container is prevented from blocking small openings which allow the volatile matter of the agent to pass therethrough. A seal member and flanges surrounding the open end of the container body are adhered to each other by a layer of adhesive and a two-sided adhesive tape, whereby the open end is closed before the device is used.

Ozone removing device for image forming equipment

A fixing method for a wet process copier which develops an electrostatic latent image by using a heat-bridging type toner, transfers the resulting toner image to a paper sheet, and fixes the toner image transferred on the paper sheet by transporting the paper sheet through a nipping section defined by a heating roller and a pressing roller such that the side of the paper sheet carrying the toner image directly contacts the heating roller. At least a surface portion of the heating roller is made of either one of monomeric, additive-free RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanized) and LTV (Low Temperature Vulcanized) silicone rubbers. The heating roller has average surface roughness of less than 3 microns.

Fixing method for a wet process copier

A heat roller type fixing device having a fixing roller and a pressing roller and applicable to an electrophotographic copier or like image forming apparatus, and a method of producing the same. The pressing roller is produced such that the content of 3- to 15-mer, preferably 3- to 10-mer, low-molecular weight siloxanes (oligomers) which are contained in the roller is less than 300 parts per million. While the fixing device is in operation, chargers built in the image forming apparatus are prevented from being whitened by pologomers which are evaporated from the pressing roller.

Heat roller type fixing device and method of producing the same

An image forming apparatus includes a fixing speed setting unit for selectively setting the fixing speed in accordance with a desired mode of operation, a fixing unit for fixing a reproduced image of an original formed on a image forming medium at a variable fixing speed in accordance with the fixing speed setting unit, and a scanning unit provided with opto-electrical elements arranged in one line extended laterally to a predetermined scanning direction for optically receving an image of the original through the opto-electrical elements. The opto-electrical elements are carrying out a scanning operation in the predetermined scanning direction with varied scanning speed by changing a sweep spacing of an image data with averaging every N line of the image data in accordance with the operation mode with using every N-1 lines of the image data to reproduce the image of the original on the image forming medium.

Image reproducing apparatus

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Tokyo, Japan

Setsuo Soga