Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Ihi Corporation

Yutaka Kodama

Masanori Horike

Kyuhachiro Iwasaki

Koichiro Jinnai

Shigeru Suzuki

Satoru Tomita

Masaichi Niro

Takashi Yokota

Shigeru Yamazaki

Kunihiko Ikeda

Akira Shimura

Junichi Hirasawa

Yutaka Ebi

Takefumi Adachi

Yoshihiro Tanabe

Kenya Komada

Koutarou Inose

Kengo Hyoma

Two welding wires whose current values are individually variable are placed along a groove of steel plates, and two operations are repeated, the first operation including: passing substantially the same current through both welding wires; generating a cathode spot in front of a molten pool by one welding wire's arc on a welding-direction forward side; and cleaning the steel plates' surfaces by the arc, and the second operation including: passing a pulse current having a higher value than that of the welding wire through the other welding wire, so that a cathode spot is generated in the molten pool by each welding wire's arc to newly form a molten pool; and advancing both welding wires in the welding direction to move the cathode spot to the newly-formed molten pool, and at the same time performing welding within an area where oxides on the steel plates' surfaces are removed.

MIG welding method and MIG welding device

A compact printer has a sheet feeder positioned at its front wall and electrophotographic components arranged along a sheet moving path for receiving a sheet from the sheet feeder and for exposing, developing, then transferring a toner image onto the sheet. At its rear side, the printer has an image fixing unit and a discharge portion for discharging the sheet to a side output tray or onto the top wall of the printer. The discharge portion is provided with a detachably hinged, sheet turning apparatus when it is desired to discharge sheets onto the top wall, or with a detachably hinged cover with a rear opening to discharge sheets onto a rear side output tray.

Printer with face-down delivery of collated printed sheets at the top, and a manually removable PC/developer cartridge

A sheet feeder for an image forming apparatus implemented as a unit which is removable from a body of the apparatus and can be positioned relative to the apparatus body with accuracy. Side plates which form a part of a housing each has a bent portion through which a hole is formed, and a projection provided with a notch. The holes of the side plates are individually mated with positioning pins which are studded on two posts of the image forming apparatus, while the notches are individually mated with positioning pins which are affixed to a bottom panel of the apparatus.

Removable unit for an image forming apparatus adapted to receive sheet

Printer

An image forming device for electrostatic recording apparatus which has a plurality of replacement units, and a case holding the replacement units and is integrally removable from the device body by sliding toward one direction, and in which each replacement unit is placed in operable position when the replacement unit holding case is set to a given position in the device body. In the replacement unit holding case, provided is a mechanism for automatically removing the position of each replacement unit further away from each other than the given setting position of each replacement unit, by pulling out the case from the device body.

Image forming device for electrostatic recording apparatus having a

An ozone removing device suitable for use in an image forming apparatus using an electrophotographic process, such as a copier, a laser printer or a facsimile machine, includes a container for containing therein a quantity of a volatile ozone removing agent. Thus, the vaporized or volatilized ozone removing agent flows out of the container through its mount and diffuses into the surrounding atmosphere where it decomposes and removes the ozone when encountered. A filter formed with a plurality of through-holes is fixedly attached to the mouth of the container so that the rate of volatilization of the volatile ozone removing agent is properly controlled, to thereby provide a prolonged ozone removing action. Preferably, a seal is adhesively and sealingly attached to the filter to normally keep the through-holes closed. The seal is removed at least partly to set one or more of the through-holes open after placing the present ozone removing device in position.

Ozone removing device

A both side recording apparatus for recording on both sides of a sheet of paper includes printer main body provided with an image forming device and a table provided with a feed-back path. In a one side print mode, a sheet of paper is fed from a cassette and it is temporarily halted by a registration roller, and then the sheet of paper is moved past a photosensitive drum to thereby have a toner image transferred from the drum to one side of the sheet of paper. Then, after having the toner image fixed to the sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is discharged onto a tray. In a both side print mode, after image fixing, the sheet of paper is routed to the feed-back path, so that the sheet of paper is inverted and again fed toward the registration roller. In accordance with the present invention, it is so structured that a sheet of paper is transported at an increased speed while being transported at least a part of the feed-back path.

Both side recording apparatus

A sheet feed device for use with a sheet feed tray of the type having a movable bottom plate and a tray cover holds the bottom plate in a raised, sheet feed position whenever the tray cover is closed, and in a lowered, sheet supply position whenever it is open. A reversible motor is drivably connected by gears or a sprocket and chain device to an arm which is adapted to raise and lower the bottom plate. The motor is controlled responsive to an output of a tray cover position sensor which senses an open position and a closed position of the tray cover.

Sheet feed device for electronic copier, printer, etc.

Sheets selective loading apparatus making groups of a given number of sheets discharged on a sheet stacker from sheet discharge rollers in an image recording apparatus and selectively loading the groups of sheets one on top of another alternatively on positions offset from each other. The sheet discharge rollers are movably held by a given distance in their axial direction. Sensors are provided to detect the trailing edge of sheets leaving respectively sheet-carrying rollers right upstream of the sheet discharge rollers, and the sheet discharge rollers. Control is so programmed in discharging a sheet to be stacked on a position offset from the normal position, that the sheet discharge rollers are moved lengthwise by the given distance after the trailing edge of sheet has been detected leaving the sheet-carrying rollers right upstream of the sheet discharge rollers, and returned to the original position after the trailing edge of sheet has been detected leaving the sheet discharge rollers and before the leading edge of the following sheet reaches the sheet discharge rollers.

Selective sheet loading apparatus

Depending upon a position in a dot matrix where an ink drop is to be deposited, the velocity imparted to that ink drop is controlled. The ink drop is charged by a charge electrode impressed with a constant charging voltage and deflected by a pair of electrodes impressed with a constant deflection voltage so as to be placed at an given point.

Controllable ink drop velocity type ink-jet printer

Deflection plates for electrostatic ink-jet printers in which the leaving and entering ends of the deflection plates are tapered or curved outwardly away from each other or formed with notches in parallel with the flight path of ink drops.

Deflection plates for electrostatic ink-jet printer

In an ink jet printer of the type wherein an ink jet nozzle continuously ejects the train of ink droplets and only ink droplets which are directed towards a recording surface are electrically charged and deflected by a pair of deflection electrodes so as to dot-form a character, a pair of auxiliary or compensation electrodes are provided in order to eliminate or control the inclination relative to the vertical line of dot-formed characters due to the relative speed between the recording surface and the ink jet nozzle.

Ink jet printer

In an ink jet printing device wherein when a number of n nozzles are sequentially arranged in the direction of transport of recording paper and spaced apart from each other by a distance corresponding to m characters or ink dots so that when ink dots discharged from each nozzle are arranged in one column on the recording paper in the direction of transport thereof, the adjacent ink dots have a very small spacing, but they are nearly in contact with each other, a modulo-m address counter is stepped so as to store data in a memory while a modulo-n address counter is stepped to read out data. Thus positional deviations between nozzles may be compensated.

Nozzle position deviation compensation arrangement for ink jet printing

An ink-jet recording device in which the pressurized ink is supplied from a single source of pressurized ink to an ink manifold with one inlet port and a plurality of outlet ports each of which is connected to one end of a flexible pipe the other end of which is connected to an ink emission head, whereby the pressurized ink is supplied from the ink manifold to the ink emission head. The ink manifold is hollow and the inlet and outlet ports are communicated with each other through the hollow space. Alternatively, inserted into the ink manifold is an ink distributor having a plurality of branches which are in alignment with said outlet ports and are spaced apart from each other. An ink flow control means is disposed in each branch. The ink manifold is provided with a common ink passage or chamber which is communicated with an air vent means so that air bubbles trapped in the ink passage or chamber may be vented.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Yutaka Kodama