Kentek Information Systems, Inc.

Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha

Kentex Information Systems, Inc.

Shozo Kaieda

Kensuke Fukae

Atsuyuki Tanaka

Kuniaki Kamimura

Yukio Tadauchi

Hiroaki Kojima

Hidekazu Nakagami

Nobuaki Nishioka

Masaaki Nishiyama

Masayuki Mutoh

Tokuzi Kakiuchi

Masayuk Mutoh

Norio Tashima

Ikuo Kurashima

Yoshiaki Matsunaga

Tokuji Kakiuchi

Hideo Okazima

Jun Mai

Hideo Okajima

Masayuki Muto

A magnetic brush developing device for use in a copying machine or a printing device includes a developing roller forming a magnetic brush, a developer housing, a developer tank outside the developer housing, a scraper for removing developer from the developing roller after it passes through the developing area on the developing roller, a first carrying device in the developer housing arranged opposite to the developing roller along its entire length for carrying the developer from one end to the other end of the developing roller, for supplying developer to the developing roller during the carrying operation, and for discharging the excess developer into a developer tank, a second carrying device in the developer housing arranged parallel to the first carrying device and communicating at one end of the first carrying device for carrying the developer received from the developer tank in a direction opposite to the carrying direction of the first carrying device, for recovering the developer scraped from the developing roller by the scraper, and for supplying developer to the first developer, a third carrying device for supplying the developer accommodated in the developer tank to the second carrying device, and an adjustable height regulating plate provided in a side wall of the developer housing for regulating the height of developer in the developer housing.

Magnetic brush developing device

A transferring device for transferring on a record paper a toner image formed onto an image forming member is disclosed. The transferring device comprises a transfer belt with a dielectric layer formed on a conduction belt member; a driving device for running the transfer belt; a transfer roller for contacting the transfer belt to an image forming member with pressure; a corona charges arranged at a position opposite to the transfer belt for charging the transfer belt with a charge having a polarity opposite to the charging polarity of the toner; a grid electrode arranged between the corona charger and the transfer belt; a plurality of bias sources connected to the grid electrode for biassing the grid electrode at respective potentials; and a change-over circuit for changing over the connection between the grid electrode and the bias source, whereby the grid potentials are selectively changed over in accordance with the characteristics of a record paper to be used.

Transferring device and an image forming apparatus

A control circuit for heat fixing device for use in an image forming apparatus is disclosed. The control circuit comprises device for detecting a power source voltage, device for detecting zero-crossing points of the power source voltage, device for determining frequency of the source voltage from the detected zero-crossing points, device for determining a power supplying time based on the detected power supply voltage and the power source frequency, device for controlling the power supply to a load based on the determined power supply line, in such a manner that a given power is automatically applied to the load against the change or fluctuation of the power supply source.

Control circuit for heat fixing device for use in an image forming

A belt transferring device for transferring on a record paper a toner image formed onto an image forming member is disclosed. The belt transferring device comprises a transferring belt with a dielectric layer formed on a conductive belt member; a driving device for running the transferring belt; a charging unit for charging the surface of the transfer belt to a polarity opposite to the charging polarity of toner; a brush roller having electroconductive fibers studed onto the outer periphery thereof and for cleaning the surface of the transfer belt; a bias supply source connected to the brush roller for biassing the brush roller to a grounded voltage or to a polarity opposite to the charging polarity of toner; a driving device for rotating and driving the brush roller; and a pair of rollers arranged between the charging and the transferring position and for carrying the transfer belt and a recording paper by clamping them, so that a backup roller positioned at a side facing or opposite to the dielectric layer of the transfer belt is connected to a grounded voltage point or a bias voltage point having the same polarity as the toner charging polarity.

Belt transferring device

An electrographic printing apparatus includes a housing, a source of paper, an output receptacle for receiving the paper after it is imprinted, a photoconductive member for storing a latent electrostatic image, a developer unit for developing the latent electrostatic image, and a charged transfer belt disposed opposite the photoconductive member. The charged transfer belt serves to transfer the developed image from the photoconductive member to the paper, and to transport the paper after it is imprinted to a fusing station. The paper path is located near the top of the housing for easy access in case of a paper jam. The paper path includes a sharp separation angle from the photoconductive member in order to decrease the dwell time of the paper against the photoconductive member. Desirably, the photoconductive member comprises a photosensitive drum of relatively small diameter, for example, on the order of 30-80 mm in diameter.

Electrographic printer with small diameter drum and charged transfer belt

A cleaning device for removing residual developer particles from a photoconductive element, such as a photoconductive belt, comprises a cleaning sleeve having a length substantially equal to the width of the photoconductive element. The cleaning sleeve includes a thin screen portion having apertures therein. The screen portion is maintained in contact with the photoconductive element. A biasing voltage is applied to the cleaning sleeve. Developer particles pass through the apertures in the screen portion. An auger is located in the interior of the cleaning sleeve. The auger transports the collected developer particles out of the cleaning sleeve where the particles may be either recycled or discarded.

Cleaning device for a photoconductive printer or copier

An electrographic printing apparatus capable of duplex printing comprises a housing, a source of copy material and an output tray for receiving such copy material after it is imprinted, and a photoconductive member for storing a latent electrostatic image of the information to be imprinted. The printer/copier has first and second paper paths located near the top of the housing so that access to the paper may be achieved from the top of the housing. A photoconductive member is located below the first paper path and comes into contact with a first side of the paper from below in a transfer zone located in the first paper path to imprint the first side of the paper. The second paper path is operative to receive paper after it has passed through the transfer zone and information has been transferred to the first side of the paper. As the paper travels along the second paper path, it is turned over and then returned to the first paper path prior to the transfer zone so that the second side of the paper is imprinted from below by the photoconductive member. The invention also encompasses a duplexing unit which is attachable as a module to the body of an electrographic printer to convert it from a simplex printer to a duplex printer.

Duplex printing module for an electrographic printer

An electrographic printing apparatus is capable of functioning as a copier, printer, and telefax machine, and is also capable of duplex printing. The electrographic printing apparatus includes a photoconductive member in the form of a disposable cassette which is mounted at an angle in the housing. The apparatus include an optical print head which can receive information from a local or remote source to form an electrostatic latent image on the photoconductive member and thus act as a printer. The apparatus also includes a device for scanning and digitizing an original document. When the digitized image is transmitted to the optical print head, a copy of the original document is produced. When the digitized image is transmitted over the telephone lines to a remote receiver, the apparatus functions as a telefax machine. The electrographic printing apparatus also includes a first paper path along which a sheet of paper travels and is imprinted on one side by the photoconductive member, and a second paper path which receives the sheet of paper from the first paper path, turns the paper over, and returns it to the first paper path for imprinting on a second side. A paper tray with sidewalls is also provided. The paper tray acts as an alignment correction system before a sheet of paper being duplex printed is imprinted on its second side. Alternatively, the paper tray can serve as a second source of paper for introducing paper into the apparatus.

Combined electrographic printer, copier, and telefax machine with duplex

A cleaning apparatus for removing residual toner from a rotatable charge image retentive member, such as a photoconductive belt or drum, consists of an elastic cleaning blade on an elastic support. The elastic cleaning blade includes a resilient leg and an elastically deformable cleaning edge which projects outward from the leg and toward the image retentive member. The elastic cleaning blade is supported at a downstream position relative to the rotational direction of the image retentive member. The resilient leg is caused to curve away from the image retentive member while maintaining the cleaning edge in contact with the image retentive member as it rotates.

Cleaning apparatus for electrophotography

A cleaner unit is disclosed with a rubbery elastic cleaning blade. The blade extends horizontally from an upright base member, where the cleaning edge contacts a vertically downward passing photoconductive surface such that toner scraped from the surface travels over the upper face of the blade without causing a toner cloud. The removed toner is guided over this upper surface of the cleaning blade through the use of seals along the cleaning blade edge and outside the image carrying area of the photoconductive surface, as well as through the use of toner guiding grooves between the end seals.

Grooved cleaning blade with end seals

An electrographic printing apparatus capable of duplex printing comprises a housing, a source of copy material and an output tray for receiving such copy material after it is imprinted, and a photoconductive member for storing a latent electrostatic image of the information to be imprinted. The printer/copier has first and second paper paths located near the top of the housing so that access to the paper may be achieved from the top of the housing. A photoconductive member is located below the first paper path and comes into contact with a first side of the paper from below in a transfer zone located in the first paper path to imprint the first side of the paper. The second paper path is operative to receive paper after it has passed through the transfer zone and information has been transferred to the first side of the paper. As the paper travels along the second paper path, it is turned over and then returned to the first paper path prior to the transfer zone so that the second side of the paper is imprinted from below by the photoconductive member.

Electrographic printer/copier with duplex printing

An electrographic printing apparatus comprises a photoconductive member surrounded by a charging unit, an optical print head, a developing unit, a transfer unit, a cleaning unit, and an erasing unit arranged in sequence about the photoconductive member. Paper travels along a planar path across the top of the photoconductive member and the developed image is transferred to the underside of the paper. In a preferred embodiment, the photoconductive member comprises a vertically mounted photoconductive belt. By providing a separate and independent cleaning unit, the electrographic printing apparatus is capable of producing one sheet of copy material per revolution of the belt.

Electrographic printer/copier with photoconductive belt

An electrographic printer/copier includes a paper path which is easily accessed from the top of the machine and permits copies to be collated automatically. The machine includes a paper tray which adjusts to organize successive pages into related reports.

Electrophotographic printer/copier

Disclosed herein is a character generating device of a raster scan system which comprises a region data storage means for storing display region data predetermined with respect to each of the character codes and a region counter which is set by the display region data. The region data storage means and the region counter are correlated with each other, whereby the dot output is counted by the region counter for generating a signal to output the next character when the count value reaches a set region datum value.

Character generating device

A data processing system wherein one of a number of central processing units writes a command for data transfer to it from a second processor over a data bus to a common memory and a digital code to an interrupt table, the code indicating interruption of the second processor. Decoding apparatus responsive to the digital code causes the second central processor to read the command for data transfer from the memory and transfer data to the first central processor.

Growing community of inventors

Nagano, Japan

Shozo Kaieda