Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Shingo Nishizaki

Tetsuro Hirota

Tomohide Kondoh

Yuji Ikeda

Makoto Higashiyama

Naohiro Funada

Hiroshi Hosokawa

Masayuki Yamane

Masashi Suzuki

Masahiro Watanabe

Yoshiaki Kawai

Ryo Takenaka

Hiroshi Adachi

Kenji Kikuchi

Shunji Katoh

Yusuke Ozaki

Masashi Satoh

Kazuho Satoh

Yuu Wakabayashi

Takuya Murata

Kazuyuki Sato

Kengo Tanaka

Keita Maejima

Kazumasa Koike

Masashi Hommi

Norio Muraishi

Sumihiro Inokuchi

Ko Tokumaru

Masaki Tsugawa

Mitsufumi Yamamoto

Toyokazu Aoki

Masaki Karakawa

A powder detector includes a driver to drive a motor, a stirrer to stir powder in a vessel, a vibration plate disposed in the vessel and vibrated by a flip of the stirrer rotated by the motor, and circuitry. The circuitry detects a vibration of the vibration plate, estimates an amount of powder based on a detection result of the vibration, and causes the driver to drive the motor from a starting point, so as to move the stirrer to a preset halt position. The starting point is a rotation angle of the motor on detection of the vibration.

Powder detector, control method of same, and image forming apparatus incorporating same

A powder detection device includes a detection mechanism including an oscillation unit and a vibrated member, a vibrating member, and a detection unit. The oscillation unit outputs a signal having a frequency according to a state of a magnetic flux passing a space facing the oscillation unit. The vibrated member affecting the magnetic flux and disposed inside a container to face the oscillation unit via the container is vibrated by the vibrating member in a direction of facing the oscillation unit. The detection unit acquires frequency information of the signal at predetermined periods, determines presence/absence of an error of the detection mechanism based on error information associating a type of the error with a state of the signal, detects vibration of the vibrated member based on a change in the frequency information, and detects a remaining amount of powder in the container based on the detected vibration.

Powder detection device, image forming apparatus, powder detection method, and non-transitory recording medium

A sheet material thickness detection device includes a guide member, a non-rotating pressing member, a sensor, and a calculator. The guide member guides one side of a sheet material being conveyed. The pressing member presses the sheet material against the guide member in a manner displaceable in accordance with the thickness of the sheet material. The sensor is configured to magnetically or electrically detect a displaced amount of the pressing member that is displaced in accordance with the thickness of the sheet material. The calculator is configured to calculate the thickness of the sheet material based on an output signal of the sensor.

Sheet material thickness detection device, sheet material anomaly detection device, sheet material feeding device, and image forming device

An image forming apparatus is provided that forms an image on a sheet material based on a sheet material setting relating to the sheet material. The image forming apparatus includes an accepting unit configured to accept a selection of a sheet material type, a thickness measurement unit configured to measure a thickness of the sheet material, and a setting determination unit configured to determine the sheet material setting that relates to the thickness of the sheet material based on the sheet material type accepted by the accepting unit and the thickness of the sheet material measured by the thickness measurement unit.

Image forming apparatus and setting method

A magnetic permeability detector includes an LC oscillator circuit including a coil and a capacitor; and a resistor connected in series with the coil.

Magnetic permeability detector, developing device, image forming apparatus, and oscillation signal frequency calculation method therefor

A sheet thickness detector incorporated in an image forming apparatus includes a sheet conveying member to rotate and convey a sheet in a sheet conveyance direction, a driven sheet conveying member to contact the sheet conveying member and form at least one first transfer nip therebetween in a lateral direction and to displace by an amount equivalent to a thickness of the sheet passing through the first transfer nip and rotated with the sheet conveying member in the sheet conveyance direction, a displacement member to contact the sheet conveying member and form a second transfer nip smaller than the first transfer nip in the lateral direction and to displace by an amount equivalent to the thickness of the sheet passing through the second transfer nip and supported at a support member, and a displacement amount detector to detect an amount of displacement of the displacement member.

Sheet thickness detector and image forming apparatus including same

A sheet thickness detecting device for detecting a thickness of a sheet includes a fixed roller rotatably supported by a shaft so that the fixed roller faces the sheet; a movable roller rotatably provided so that the movable roller and the fixed roller sandwich and feed the sheet, and configured to be displaced in accordance with the thickness of the sandwiched sheet; a swing member rotatably supporting the movable roller and including a shaft so that the swing member is swung around the shaft, wherein the swing member further includes a detection target part formed in a manner that a distance between the detection target part and the shaft is greater than that between a position where the movable roller is supported by the swing member and the shaft; and a detecting unit detecting the displacement amount of the detection target part of the swing member.

Sheet thickness detecting device, feeding device, and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a skew correcting unit that performs skew correction by dividing an input image that has undergone a halftone process into image data in a predetermined skew correction area in a main scanning direction and by shifting the image data in the skew correction area in a sub-scanning direction; an edge detecting unit that detects whether a pixel at a division position is an edge pixel based on concentrations of a set of pixels including the pixel at the division position; a correction area determining unit that, if detected that the pixel at the division position is the edge pixel, determines a correction area that is an area of pixels including the edge pixel to be subjected to concentration correction within the skew correction area; and an edge correcting unit that corrects concentrations of the pixels within the correction area.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and computer program product that performs skew correction

An image forming apparatus capable of minimizing degradation in density correction as a part of skew correction includes a noise-occurrence determining unit, a correction-target-pixel selecting unit, a density correcting unit, and a phase correcting unit. When the noise-occurrence determining unit determines that noise would appear, the density correcting unit performs density correction on a correction target pixel that is determined by the correction-target-pixel selecting unit. The phase correcting unit corrects an output point in time of image data of the density-corrected correction target pixel in a pixel period during which the image data can be output so as to output the image data at a position displaced away from a shift position or toward a shift position.

Method and apparatus for image forming and computer program product

An image forming apparatus, includes a transferring belt where a color image is formed; a conveyance belt transferring a recording medium where a monochrome image is transferred; a velocity difference detecting part detecting a velocity difference between the transferring belt and the conveyance belt; a determining part determining whether the velocity difference detected by the velocity difference detecting part is equal to or greater than a designated value; a velocity adjusting part adjusting the velocity difference so that the velocity difference becomes lower than the designated value in a case where the velocity difference is determined to be the designated value or more by the determining part; and a color correcting part correcting a shift of colors between the color image and the monochrome image by using the transferring belt and the conveyance belt whose velocities are adjusted by the velocity adjusting part.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and image forming program product

A pattern generating unit generates correction patterns on a transfer belt. Detection sensors detect the correction patterns, and amounts of magnification correction, amounts of misregistration in the main- and the sub-scanning direction are calculated. The amount of skew between each of colors is then calculated, and a position where an image is divided and a direction for shifting a divided image are determined. Possible dividing-positions are also determined, and a calculated dividing position and each of the possible dividing positions are compared with one another. Then, a possible dividing position closest to the calculated dividing position is set as an actual dividing position.

Image correcting device, image forming apparatus, and image correcting method

An image forming apparatus includes a rotating member that is rotatable, a communication medium, and a receiving unit. The communication medium that is attached to an outer circumference of the rotating member stores therein information on the rotating member and relays the information on the rotating member via wireless communication. The receiving unit receives the information on the rotating member from the communication medium.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Shingo Nishizaki