Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Teruyuki Kasuga

Takatsugu Fujishiro

Shinichi Kawahara

Hiroomi Harada

Yutaka Takahashi

Yoshio Hattori

Takeo Suda

Takaaki Tawada

Shuji Tanaka

Masato Yanagida

Tokuya Ojimi

Takeshi Tabuchi

Yuji Arai

Hiroshi Ono

Masami Tomita

Hiroshi Hosokawa

Toshio Koike

Naohiro Kumagai

Ken Amemiya

Masanori Kawasumi

Yoshiyuki Kimura

Haruji Mizuishi

Keiichi Yoshida

Takuzi Yoneda

Chohtaroh Kataoka

Hidemasa Sato

A lubricant supply device includes a solid lubricant, a supply member contacting and rubbing the solid lubricant and thereby scraping a lubricant off the solid lubricant and supplying the lubricant to a lubricant supplying target, and a pressing mechanism pressing the solid lubricant against the supply member. The pressing mechanism includes a biasing device, and a plurality of pressing members receiving a biasing force of the biasing device and thereby pressing places of the solid lubricant at symmetrical positions with respect to a center of a contact part of the solid lubricant contacting the supply member, respectively.

Lubricant supply device, image forming apparatus, and pressing device

In an image forming apparatus, an area applied with a lubricant, i.e., an area of a lubricant layer having a uniform thickness, is obtained by spreading the lubricant by a lubricant smoothing blade. The area applied with a lubricant covers an area cleaned by a cleaning blade, i.e., a contact portion of the cleaning blade with a photoconductor.

Image forming apparatus, lubricant applying device, transfer device, process cartridge, and toner

A process cartridge including an image bearing member; a lubricant applicator, which includes a lubricant application member configured to apply a solid lubricant to the surface of the image bearing member; and a smoothing member configured to smooth the applied solid lubricant, and at least one of a charging device, a developing device and a cleaning device, wherein the amount of the solid lubricant present on a portion of surface of the image bearing member, which is located between the lubricant application member and the smoothing blade, is from 0.11 to 1.2 mg/m. The smoothing member is preferably a blade having a JIS-A hardness of not less than 79&#xb0;. The process cartridge is preferably assembled by a method including setting the lubricant smoothing member, the lubricant and the lubricant application member to a housing of the process cartridge; and then setting the image bearing member to the housing.

Lubricant applicator, and image forming apparatus and process cartridge using the lubricant applicator, and method for assembling the process cartridge

Growing community of inventors

Atsugi, Japan

Teruyuki Kasuga