Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Yuji Ieiri

Tetsuya Hara

Masashi Hommi

Takumi Miyagawa

Jun Watanabe

Hiroshi Okamura

Tomohide Kondoh

Yuuji Matsuda

Tsuyoshi Yamada

Tomokazu Tsuchiya

Yoshimitsu Ogura

Sumihiro Inokuchi

Shigeru Yoshigai

Kohichi Sadano

Takashi Morishita

Yuki Osato

Yuusuke Tomura

Shunta Yamahori

Kenji Kagami

To inhibit toner bottle in which toner is remaining from being replaceable, image forming apparatus includes: bottle cover that can open/close insertion opening of toner bottle housing; locking mechanism to lock closed bottle cover; actuating mechanism including unlocking member to unlock locked bottle cover and open bottle cover, and actuator to actuate unlocking member; front cover situated in openable/closable manner in front of bottle cover to inhibit bottle cover from becoming open while front cover is closed; fault sensing unit to perform first fault sensing process in which actuator is sensed as having fault when failing to actuate unlocking member in spite of actuator being driven while image forming unit is non-operating; and condition sensing unit to sense presence of possibility that front cover is opened. Fault sensing unit is excluded from performing first fault sensing process while condition sensing unit is sensing the possibility as being present.

Image forming apparatus, fault sensing method, and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing fault sensing program

An image forming apparatus includes a body, a toner container that is removably set in the body and contains toner, a toner supplier to supply the toner from the toner container to the body, a memory that stores container information that is information of the toner container, and circuitry. The circuitry is to determine, after the toner container is set in the body, based on the container information acquired from the memory, whether the toner container set in the body is same as a toner container set in the body in a past and the container information satisfies a predetermined condition, and to drive the toner supplier in a case where the toner container set in the body is determined to be same as the toner container set in the body in the past and the container information satisfies the predetermined condition.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and non-transitory recording medium

A toner amount detector detects an amount of toner in a toner bottle. The toner amount detector includes at least one pair of electrodes disposed opposite each other via the toner bottle, grounding members disposed outboard of the at least one pair of electrodes and electrically grounded, circuitry to switch a first detection processing and a second detection processing, and an indicator to indicate that a positional deviation of the at least one pair of electrodes has occurred. The grounding members face the at least one pair of electrodes. The first detection processing detects the amount of toner based on a first capacitance between the at least one pair of electrodes, and the second detection processing detects a positional deviation based on a second capacitance between each of the grounding members and a corresponding one of the at least one pair of electrodes.

Toner amount detector, toner amount detection method, and non-transitory storage medium storing program

A remaining toner amount detecting apparatus includes two electrodes; a remaining toner amount detector configured to detect a remaining toner amount in a toner container based on a capacitance between the two electrodes; a storage configured to store a first capacitance value between the two electrodes preliminarily detected in a non-disposed state in which the toner container is not disposed between the two electrodes; and an abnormality detector configured to detect an abnormality of the remaining toner amount detecting apparatus based on the first capacitance value stored in the storage and a second capacitance value between the two electrodes that is detected in the non-disposed state.

Remaining toner amount detecting apparatus, image forming apparatus, and remaining toner amount detecting method

An image forming apparatus including an electrode pair including two electrodes facing each other; a powder container interposed between the two electrodes and including a storage medium that is communicably coupled to the image forming apparatus; a capacitance detector configured to detect capacitance between the two electrodes; a powder container mounting determiner configured to determine whether the powder container is mounted to the image forming apparatus based on the capacitance, upon detecting that communication is not possible between the image forming apparatus and the storage medium; and an image forming execution controller configured to cause the image forming apparatus to execute image formation, upon determining, by the powder container mounting determiner, that the powder container is mounted to the image forming apparatus.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and recording medium

A remaining toner amount detecting apparatus detects a remaining toner amount in a toner bottle. The remaining toner amount detecting apparatus includes at least one pair of electrodes that are configured to face each other with the toner bottle interposed between the electrodes; a first estimator configured to estimate the remaining toner amount based on a capacitance between the electrodes of the at least one pair of electrodes; a second estimator configured to estimate the remaining toner amount by counting a number of pixels in a printed image; and an estimation selector configured to use either one of the first estimator or the second estimator to output the remaining toner amount, based on a temperature or a humidity inside an apparatus in which the toner bottle is mounted.

Remaining toner amount detecting apparatus, remaining toner amount detecting method, and recording medium

An ink jet recording device comprises: an ink jet recording head for discharging an ink droplet; and a recording control part for outputting a drive signal to cause the ink jet recording head to discharge an ink droplet, wherein the recording control part includes a current amplifier circuit for amplifying a drive signal by active elements connected in multi-stages, and the current amplifier circuit includes a current interruption element connected to an input side of the active element of the current amplifier circuit on a power source side, the current interruption element being for preventing damage of the active element due to an overcurrent from occurring when a short circuit of the drive signal is generated.

Ink jet recording device and short circuit protection method for ink jet recording device

A power supply control device includes a photoelectric conversion unit to convert light energy to electricity, and a power supply control signal output unit driven by power converted by the photoelectric conversion unit and configured to detect a change in lighting intensity at an installation environment of the power control device based on an output voltage of the photoelectric conversion unit to output a power control signal which causes power of an external device to start up or shut down to the external device.

Power supply control device and image forming apparatus

A defective nozzle detector is included in an inkjet recording apparatus in which a plurality of nozzles to discharge droplets is provided and a recording head including the plurality of nozzles scans while moving in a main scanning direction, thereby forming an image. The defective nozzle detector includes a sensor board on which droplets are impacted from the nozzle of the recording head, a plurality of sensor electrodes and a common electrode alternately disposed on the sensor board and arranged in patterns that intersect the main scanning direction of the recording head, and an electrostatic capacitance sensor to detect changes in the electrostatic capacitance between the sensor electrode and the common electrode.

Defective nozzle detector and image forming apparatus and system

An image forming apparatus includes: a plurality of heads, each of which includes a capacitive load used as an actuator for discharging ink; a drive-voltage generating circuit that outputs a drive voltage to be applied to the actuator and includes a plurality of current amplifying circuits; and a plurality of head drivers that control the actuators of the heads. Each of the current amplifying circuits is configured to include a plurality of bipolar transistors and to operate so as to equalize output current loads of the bipolar transistors included in the current amplifying circuits, and waveforms of the drive voltages output from the current amplifying circuits are combined to form a combined waveform of the drive voltages to be applied to each of the head drivers.

Image forming apparatus and drive-voltage generating circuit

An image forming apparatus includes an image process control unit processing an image data and generating a control signal, and a drive pattern generation unit to generate a drive pattern to drive a recording head, based on the control signal, the drive pattern generation unit generating at least a first drive pattern and a second drive pattern which is different from the first drive pattern. The drive pattern generation unit sets a reference potential of the second drive pattern as a target reference potential and applying a pattern end of the first drive pattern to one of a pull-up pattern and a pull-down pattern operation before the second drive pattern is performed, wherein the drive pattern generation unit generates one of the pull-up pattern and the pull-down pattern based on a slope value obtained by comparing the target reference potential and the end potential.

Image processing apparatus, image processing method and computer-readable recording medium of image processing method

In an image forming apparatus, a control unit determines that dirt is present on the linear scale when a detecting unit detects a change in a moving direction of a moving member while the moving member is moving at a constant speed.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Yuji Ieiri