Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Sunao Ikeda

Hideo Ichikawa

Nobuhiro Makita

Takeshi Saito

Takaaki Yanagisawa

Shigeru Yoshiki

Seiji Ozawa

Hideo Kikuchi

Kunio Hibi

Yohtaro Kakitani

Tamaki Kaneko

Tugio Okuzawa

Shiro Saeki

Michiharu Narushima

Seiji Terazawa

Nobuyuki Yanagawa

Kazuhiko Umemura

Kenzo Ariyama

Toyoo Okamoto

Tadaaki Kanno

Sakae Ota

Masakazu Nakada

Hirohisa Otsuka

Sirou Saeki

A toner container has a hollow body having a small diameter mouth portion, a ramp surface at one end and a spiral. A removable lid is positioned at the mouth portion so as to close the mouth portion and a lug is provided at the lid.

Toner container having lid including lug

A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, includes a shoulder portion adjoining a first end of a hollow body. The body is formed with a spiral guide for guiding a developer stored in the developer container. The shoulder portion forms a wall and includes an engaging portion engageable with driver that causes the body to rotate. The engaging portion includes a lug protruding from the shoulder portion which allows a characteristic of toner to be identified. The engaging portion has an outside surface of a guide portion that guides a developer stored in the developer container. Two engaging portions may be angularly spaced from each other by 180 degrees. The developer container also includes a discharge mouth, which adjoins the first end of the body, which is smaller in diameter than the shoulder portion, and which includes an annular collar protruding outwardly, and a positioning portion positioned on a holder for the developer container. The positioning portion includes a lug protruding from an outside surface of the body. The holder for the developer container includes a hitting member which hits against the outside surface when the body is caused to rotate. A plurality of lugs are formed on an outside circumferential surface of the collar of the discharge mouth.

Developer replenishing device and developer container for use therewith

A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth portion, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferental wall of the bottle, which is contiguous with the raised portion, is also raised toward the axis of the bottle, about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted on a bottle holder, which is included in the replienishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion. As a result, the toner is discharged to the outside via the mouth portion smoothly.

A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferential wall of the bottle which is contiguous with the raised portion is also raised toward the axis of the bottle about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted to a bottle holder, which is included in the replenishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion. As a result, the toner is discharged to the outside via the mouth portion smoothly.

A toner container densely packed with toner to be replenished into a developing unit included in an image forming apparatus, and a method of producing the same. The toner is packed in the container with a ratio of a packing density to a saturation bulk density greater than 1.0, a mean penetration greater than 5.0 mm inclusive, and a standard deviation of penetration not exceeding one-fifth of the mean penetration. The toner can be smoothly and continuously replenished into the developing unit so as to form a number of images matching the amount thereof.

Densely packed toner container and method of producing the same

A powder feeding method includes the steps of injecting a gaseous medium into a powder material held in a hopper from a porous wall forming a funnel at a bottom part of said hopper, such that the injection of the gaseous medium is carried out intermittently.

Powder feeding method and apparatus for feeding powders with a fluid

A powder filling method and a powder filling device for filling a powder such as toner, chemical, cosmetics or food material in a powder container efficiently at a high density includes the steps of inserting an air aspirating pipe in a powder filled in a powder container, aspirating air in the powder through the air aspirating pipe, and moving one end of the air aspirating pipe from a bottom portion to a top portion of the powder container, corresponding to an amount of the powder filled.

Powder filling method and powder filling device

In a developing device included in an image forming apparatus, a toner cartridge has a body and a replenishing member disposed in the body. The cartridge makes it needless to adhere or otherwise affix an elastic piece to the edge of the base of the replenishing member that slidably contacts the inner periphery of the body. The replenishing member is capable of scooping up toner while being held in sliding contact with the inner periphery of the body under a constant pressure.

Toner cartridge for a developing device included in an image forming

A recycling automatic document feeder usable with an electronic copier and others includes a reversing section for feeding a document to a glass platen of the copier while turning it over. The document feeder adapts itself to a single-face and a double-face copy mode as well as to a document through type and an optical scan type exposing system.

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Numazu, Japan

Sunao Ikeda