Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Yasuaki Tomoda

Yasuo Nakamura

Naoki Matsui

Takeshi Hashimoto

Masashi Kawai

Naoki Nonoyama

Shogo Asaoka

Hiroshi Tanimoto

Koji Soda

Masahide Wakayama

Hideaki Hayashi

Kuniya Matsuura

Hiroshi Mizuno

Shinya Naoi

Junji Kanda

Sho Karakama

Shuan Yang

Hideki Narahashi

Isao Kawakami

Masanobu Tomiyasu

Osamu Akiyama

Youichi Itagaki

Masaki Hata

Yoshitaka Kuroda

Kiyomitsu Koyama

Naoichi Asakura

Hideyuki Yoshida

A sheet conveyance apparatus that conveys a sheet along a curved path shorter than the sheet and corrects skew of the sheet, includes: a conveyance roller that sends the sheet into the curved path; a guide that guides the sheet along the curved path; and a gate that is hinders advance of the leading end, generates a moment about a normal of the sheet passing through the leading end, and allows advance of the leading end by being pushed away by the leading end, wherein the guide includes a projection projecting toward a movement space for the sheet on a surface facing the movement space, and the projection abuts a center portion of the sheet in a longitudinal direction and generates a moment about an axis parallel to an advance direction of a portion that has come into contact with the projection.

Sheet conveyance apparatus and image forming apparatus including the same

An optional device is for an electrical machine. The optional device is mountable to the electrical machine without electrical connection to the electrical machine. The optional device includes a duct, an air flow sensor, an air purifier, and a controller. Through the duct, an air flow containing an exhaust gas from the electrical machine is guided. The air flow sensor is configured to detect presence or absence of the exhaust gas from the electrical machine. The air purifier is configured to purify the exhaust gas and discharge the purified exhaust gas into an atmosphere. The controller is configured to control an operation of the air purifier based on an output from the air flow sensor.

Optional device for electrical machine, and electrical machine

A developer supplying device for supplying a developer to a subject to be supplied includes: a housing; and a stirring member rotatable around a rotational axis in the housing, wherein the stirring member includes: a main body that includes a flexible sheet, extends away from the rotational axis, and is in contact with an inner wall surface of the housing; and a cut part formed in the main body, and the cut part projects from the main body when the main body is bent along with rotation of the stirring member.

Developer supplying device and image forming apparatus

An option device for an electrical appliance of the invention is provided with a filter for purifying exhaust air from the electrical appliance, and an electric fan, wherein the air flow resistance in an external air inlet port formed independently of a suction port for sucking exhaust air from the electrical appliance is adjustable. According to this configuration, it is easy to secure balance between the exhaust air flow rate of the electrical appliance and the suction force by the electric fan without variably controlling the rotational speed of the electric fan.

Optional device for electrical appliance

A sheet material feeding device includes: a housing; a cassette configured to internally house a sheet material, and capable of being pulled out of the housing and housed into the housing; a rear-end regulating member provided inside the cassette and configured to regulate a position of an upstream end of the sheet material in a sheet material feeding direction; a rear-end displacing member supported by the rear-end regulating member and configured to swing along the sheet material feeding direction; a sliding member provided for the cassette, having an engagement part to be engaged with the rear-end displacing member, and configured to slide toward a downstream side in the sheet material feeding direction to displace the rear-end displacing member toward the downstream side in the sheet material feeding direction; and a first energizing member configured to energize the sliding member toward an upstream side in the sheet material feeding direction.

Sheet material feeding device and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus including: a housing; a display whose display surface is provided on a front-surface side of the housing; an image forming unit provided in the housing and configured to form an image on a recording sheet; and an ejector configured to eject the recording sheet with the image formed thereon from inside to outside of the housing in a direction approaching the display surface.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus supplies toner to an electrostatic latent image on a circumferential surface of a photosensitive rotating member to develop the electrostatic latent image, and includes: a photosensitive unit including the photosensitive rotating member and a pair of support frames rotatably supporting the photosensitive rotating member at its axial ends; a developing unit including a developing sleeve that is longer in its rotational axis direction than an element tube of the photosensitive rotating member in its rotational axis direction, and a pair of bearings provided outward from axial ends of the element tube and rotatably holding the developing sleeve at its axial ends; and a forcing member relatively forcing the developing unit toward the photosensitive unit to bring the bearings into abutment with the respective support frames, such that a gap between the developing sleeve and the photosensitive rotating member is maintained at a predetermined value.

Image forming apparatus having reduced manufacturing costs, and image forming unit and developing unit included therein

An image forming apparatus orientatable in either a first position or a second position, the second position being different from the first position in inclination with respect to a horizontal plane, including a fixing unit including a fixing roller and a pressurizing roller, pressing the pressurizing roller against a surface of the fixing roller to form a fixing nip, and thermally fixing a toner image on a recording sheet passing through the fixing nip; at least one temperature sensor detecting surface temperature of the fixing roller without contact with the surface; a heater heating the fixing roller; and a controller controlling the heater according to the surface temperature, thereby controlling the surface temperature, wherein a heat sensitive portion of the temperature sensor is located above a horizontal plane passing through a rotational axis of the fixing roller regardless of the orientation of the image forming apparatus.

Image forming apparatus capable of stably detecting temperature of fixing device regardless of orientation of the image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus including: a fixing unit including a heating rotational body, and configured to perform heat-fixing by putting a sheet having an unfixed-image formed thereon in contact with the heating rotational body; and a mechanism including a plate-like water droplet guiding member and a condensation collection container, and configured to receive water droplets at an upper surface of the water droplet guiding member, guide the water droplets towards the condensation collection container, and collect the water droplets at the condensation collection container, the water droplets generated above the fixing unit by condensation of water vapor that rises from the sheet during the heat-fixing and falling therefrom. When viewing the image forming apparatus from above in a vertical direction, the condensation collection container is disposed outside a sheet passing region in a sheet width direction.

Image forming apparatus having mechanism for preventing condensation from contacting a sheet

A toner supply container has a container body and a conveyance member rotatably arranged inside the container body and which conveys toner toward a discharge opening of the container body when driven to rotate by external force. The conveyance member includes a cylindrical rotary body and a screw blade member wound around the cylindrical rotary body so that the screw blade member stands on an outer circumferential surface of the cylindrical rotary body. The inner surface of a bottom wall of the container body includes a cylindrically curved surface identical to a part of a circumferential surface of an imaginary cylinder whose axis is substantially the same as a rotation axis of the conveyance member. A curvature radius of the cylindrically curved surface is set so the conveyance member rotates in a state where an outer circumferential edge of the screw blade member substantially slides on the cylindrically curved surface.

Toner supply container and image forming apparatus

An electrophotographic image forming apparatus has an electrostatic latent image bearing members, developing devices each including developer and capable of developing corresponding electrostatic latent images on the electrostatic latent image bearing members into visualized developer images, a transfer device capable of transferring the developer images to a sheet, first collecting devices each capable of collecting untransferred developer from the electrostatic latent image bearing members, developer supply devices each capable of supplying the developer to the corresponding developing devices, accommodating sections each combined with the corresponding developer supply devices and capable of accommodating the untransferred developer, a collecting and distributing device capable of collecting the untransferred developer collected by the first collecting devices and distributing the collected untransferred developer to the accommodating sections, and a housing capable of retaining the developer supply devices so that each of the developer supply devices is releasable together with the corresponding accommodating section from the housing.

Growing community of inventors

Toyohashi, Japan

Yasuaki Tomoda