Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Takeshi Shintani

Masami Tomita

Toshio Koike

Masanori Kawasumi

Satoshi Hatori

Daisuke Tomita

Naohiro Kumagai

Akio Kosuge

Kaoru Yoshino

Nobuo Kuwabara

Masato Yanagida

Takeshi Uchitani

Hiroyuki Nagashima

Eisaku Murakami

Atsushi Sampe

Takaya Muraishi

Kenji Honjoh

Shinichi Kawahara

Ken Amemiya

Yasushi Akiba

Norio Kudo

Yuji Arai

Hiroshi Ono

Takaaki Tawada

Yasuhito Kuboshima

Yusuke Ishizuka

Tokuya Ojimi

Akira Fujimori

Yasuhiro Maehata

Takuji Yoneda

Mitsuru Takahashi

Yoshiyuki Kimura

Shin Kayahara

Kohsuke Yamamoto

Hiromichi Ninomiya

Hideo Yu

Yutaka Takahashi

Haruji Mizuishi

Shinya Karasawa

Yuta Azeyanagi

Takuzi Yoneda

Tokuya Ohjimi

Hiroyuki Uenishi

Hiroshi Mizusawa

Hideyasu Seki

Takeshi Tabuchi

Yoshinori Ozawa

Ryohta Gotoh

Norio Kudoh

Hiroshi Hosokawa

Shin Hasegawa

Satoshi Takano

Yoshiki Hozumi

Mugijiroh Uno

Kazunori Karasawa

Hiroya Hirose

Hiroomi Harada

Kentaroh Matsumoto

Tsutomu Yamakami

Muraishi Takaya

Atsuhsi Sampe

Shinji Kato

Hideo Yoshizawa

Masahide Yamashita

Eiji Kurimoto

Kunihiro Ohyama

Nobuyuki Taguchi

Takatsugu Fujishiro

Makoto Yasuda

Shinichi Namekata

Hideki Zemba

Takashi Bisaiji

Nobuo Kikuchi

Shigekazu Enoki

Jun Aoto

Fumihito Itoh

Junya Takigawa

Yasuo Hirano

Mitsuru Seto

Makoto Ohsaki

Shigeru Fukuda

Masaharu Yokono

Hideyo Watanabe

Kento Aoki

Nobuo Kuwahara

Tazuki Yoneda

Akinori Kobayashi

Nobuhiro Kuwabara

A cleaning device includes a cleaning blade disposed in contact with a rotator, a toner collecting section disposed along the rotator and the cleaning blade and includes a groove extending in an axial direction of the rotator, a conveyor disposed in the groove, and an agitator disposed on a side of a rim of the groove. The conveyor rotates to convey the toner in a longitudinal direction of the groove. The agitator vibrates through contact with the conveyor and includes comb-tooth portions lined in a comb shape in the longitudinal direction of the groove, and bent portions, each of which is bent from an end of one of the comb-tooth portions. The comb-tooth portions contact a circumference of the conveyor to vibrate. The bent portions are lined at intervals smaller than intervals on a base side of the comb-tooth portions.

Cleaning device, and image forming apparatus and process unit incorporating same

A toner conveyance device includes a downward passage, a reciprocating member disposed in the downward passage, to move in a vertical direction in which the downward passage extends, a conveyance passage communicating with a lower end of the downward passage and extending in a direction crossing the vertical direction, a conveyor to rotate in the conveyance passage around an axis extending along the conveyance passage to transport the toner, and a flexible member projecting from a bottom of the reciprocating member toward the conveyance passage. The flexible member extends in the axial direction of the conveyor and moves together with the reciprocating member. When the reciprocating member is at a lowest position, a lower end of the flexible member opposes a portion of the conveyor downstream from an upper end thereof in a rotation direction thereof.

Toner conveyance device and image forming apparatus

A device disposed opposing an image bearer includes a roller to rotate while contacting a surface of the image bearer, a rolling bearing fitted around a shaft located at an end of the roller in an axial direction of the roller, a frame to house the roller, and a bearing support removably attached to the frame. The rolling bearing includes an outer ring, an inner ring, and a rolling element disposed between the outer ring and the inner ring. The bearing support holds, from an outer-ring side, the rolling bearing interposed between the bearing support and the frame. The bearing support includes a receiving portion to contact the outer ring of the rolling bearing and bias the rolling bearing toward the frame in a direction in which the rolling bearing is interposed between the bearing support and the frame.

Device including roller, and image forming apparatus and process cartridge incorporating same

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer to bear a toner image, a lubricant supply roller to supply lubricant to a surface of the image bearer, a rotation speed changer to change a rotation speed of the lubricant supply roller, and a controller to control the rotation speed changer to change the rotation speed of the lubricant supply roller to a target speed based on a predetermined condition. The controller is configured to control the rotation speed changer to avoid a predetermined speed range.

Image forming apparatus which controls the rotation speed of a lubricant supply roller

An image forming apparatus includes a process cartridge that includes an image bearer including a rotary shaft and rotates about the rotary shaft; a charger to charge a surface of the image bearer; and a developing device to develop an electrostatic latent image formed on the image bearer into a visible toner image. The charger includes a charging roller that rotates about a shaft together with the image bearer during image formation and electrically charges a surface of the image bearer. A surface linear speed of the charging roller is made slower than a surface linear speed of the image bearer. The image forming apparatus includes a charging roller controller that switches the rotational speed of the charging roller to a first rotational speed slower than the linear speed of the image bearer and a second rotational speed identical to the linear speed of the image bearer.

Image forming apparatus

A lubricant applicator includes a lubricant, a supply member contactable against the lubricant to supply the lubricant to a target, and a lubricant gauge to detect whether an amount of lubricant remaining is less than a threshold value. The lubricant gauge includes a rotary member rotatable about a shaft, a pressing member to press and rotate the rotary member as the lubricant is consumed, a contact part of the rotary member pressed by the pressing member, and a detection part of the rotary member opposite to the contact part across the shaft of the rotary member.

Lubricant applicator, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge

A lubricant supplying device used with a solid lubricant, includes a supplying member to supply lubricant taken from the solid lubricant to an object to be supplied with the lubricant, and a remaining amount detecting section to detect a remaining amount of the solid lubricant becoming below a predetermined value. A detection of the remaining amount of the solid lubricant is executed when an operation to supply the lubricant to the object to be supplied with the lubricant stops.

Lubricant supplying device, image forming apparatus and process cartridge

A process cartridge removably installable in an image forming apparatus includes a cartridge body including an image bearer; a cleaning unit removably attached to the cartridge body and including a lubricant supply device to lubricate the image bearer; a first contact terminal disposed in one of the cleaning unit and the cartridge body; and a second contact terminal disposed in the other of the cleaning unit and the cartridge body. The second contact terminal is disposed to contact the first contact terminal to establish electrical continuity between the cartridge body and the cleaning unit, and an end of the first contact terminal includes a sliding contact portion to slidingly contact the second contact terminal in attachment and removal of the cleaning unit to and from the cartridge body.

Process cartridge and image forming apparatus

A lubricant supplying device includes a lubricant supplier contacting an image bearer, a solid lubricant contacting the roller, a detector detecting a lubricant amount, and a controller controlling a supplying of the roller based on a detector detection. The detector outputs to the controller a first signal of a near-end state when the amount reaches a first amount, a second signal of an end state when the amount reaches a second amount smaller than the first amount, and a third signal of an absolute end state when the amount reaches a third amount smaller than the second amount. The controller temporarily stops the supplying when the second signal is output, cancels a roller temporary stopped state even when lubricant replacement is not completed after this state, stops the supplying when the third signal is output, and maintains a roller stopped state until the replacement is completed after this state.

Lubricant supplying device, process cartridge and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a controller and multiple image forming units each of which includes an image bearer, a toner image forming device to form a toner image on the image bearer, a transfer device to transfer the toner image from the image bearer onto a transfer medium, a cleaning device to remove toner from a surface of the image bearer, a waste-toner tube through which toner removed by the cleaning device is transported, and a toner conveying member to transport toner by rotation and disposed inside the waste-toner tube. The controller changes a rotation speed of the toner conveying member for each of the multiple image forming units according to toner type including a first toner and a second toner having poorer flow properties than the first toner, and at least one image forming units uses the second toner and the rest use the first toner.

An image forming apparatus including multiple image forming units; a waste-toner container; and a waste-toner conveyance device including a common conveyance channel member disposed in an arrangement direction of the image forming units and provided with toner inlets to receive the waste toner from toner outlets of the cleaning units, communicating channel members identical in structure and respectively disposed between the toner outlets and the toner inlets of the common conveyance channel member, and a rotatable conveying member to transport the waste toner inside the common conveyance channel member linearly along a rotation axis thereof. The common conveyance channel member is shaped to equalize relative positions of each of the toner outlets and a corresponding one of the toner inlets of the common conveyance channel member among the multiple image forming units among which a distance from the toner outlet to the rotation axis differs.

Waste-toner conveyance device and image forming apparatus

A solid lubricant supply system includes a solid lubricant supplier to receive and supply solid lubricant to a solid lubricant supplying target. A pair of first and second moveable planar electrodes is opposed to each other. The second moveable planar electrode is partially moved toward the first moveable planar electrode as the solid lubricant is consumed. A residual solid lubricant quantity detecting unit is provide to detect a quantity of the residual solid lubricant at a first stage, in which the residual solid lubricant quantity is below a given level, by detecting electric conduction between the pair of first and second moveable planar electrodes when the pair of first and second moveable planar electrodes contacts each other. The first moveable planar electrode is enabled to further move together with the second moveable planar electrode when it is contacted and pressed by the second moveable planar electrode.

Lubricant supply system, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge

In an embodiment, provided is a lubricant supplying device that includes: a solid lubricant; a supplying member that supplies lubricant of the solid lubricant to a lubricant supplying target; and a remaining amount detecting unit that detects an amount of the solid lubricant being at a given amount or less. The remaining amount detecting unit is provided on a downstream side in a rubbing direction of the supplying member with respect to the solid lubricant.

Lubricant supplying device, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Takeshi Shintani