Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Takashi Nishizawa

Yasushi Nakazato

Yuichiro Ueda

Masaru Kaneko

Shigeru Yamazaki

Shinichiro Wada

Kazuya Iwasaki

Akihiko Motegi

Hiroaki Kotabe

Masahiko Banno

Noriaki Orikasa

Kouji Yamanobe

Shugo Okamura

A circuit board includes a main part on which a processor is mounted, a cut part to be cut off from the main part at a cut section before the board is reused, and a conductor pattern wired through the cut part via the cut section and to be cut off into a plurality of patterns at the cut section as the cut part is cut off. The processor detects a difference in signal level between a level of a signal output from the conductor pattern before the cut part is cut off, and a level of the signal output from the conductor pattern after the cut part is cut off, to determine a number of times the board is reused.

Circuit board, image forming apparatus, and method of managing reuse information of circuit board

An image forming apparatus includes a laser beam scanning unit for scanning a recording medium in synchronism with a writing clock signal so that a dotted image is formed on the recording medium, a counter for carrying out a count operation in synchronism with the writing clock signal so that one count value or a plurality of count values determining a scanning area is/are obtained, a first controller for activating or inactivating the laser beam scanning unit based on one or the plurality of count values, a dip switch unit for specifying a dotting density, a second controller for controlling the frequency of the writing clock signal and/or a speed of scanning; and a changing unit for changing one or the plurality of count values, which should be obtained by the counter, based on the dotting density specified by the dip switch unit, so that the position of the scanning area with respect to the recording medium is constant even if the frequency of the writing clock signal and/or the scanning speed are changed by the second controller.

Image forming apparatus capable of changing dotting density

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Takashi Nishizawa