Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Yuu Sakakibara

Hisashi Kikuchi

Kenji Sugiura

Yoshiki Hozumi

Kazuhiko Watanabe

Naomi Sugimoto

Takaaki Tawada

Osamu Naruse

Takaya Muraishi

Akira Asaoka

Eisuke Shimizu

Takatsugu Fujishiro

An elastic blade includes a contact edge to contact a contact object, an edge region including the contact edge and having a thickness smaller than or equal to 0.50 mm, and a backup region different in material or property from the edge region. The backup region is adjacent to the edge region on a cross section perpendicular to a direction in which the contact edge extends. The elastic blade has a converted Martens hardness X (N/mm) in a range of from 0.9 to 2.9. The converted Martens hardness is defined as: 

Blade and image forming apparatus and cleaning device incorporating same

A cleaning blade includes: a blade having plural layers formed with elastic materials having different degrees of hardness from each other, an edge line portion of the blade being brought into contact with a surface of a cleaning target performing surface movement to remove adhering matter from the surface of the cleaning target. A cleaning layer of the plural layers including the edge line portion is impregnated with a resin or is made of an elastic material having a high degree of hardness. A permanent elongation rate of the entire blade is set at 3.0% or lower.

Cleaning blade, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge

An elastic blade includes a contact edge to contact a contact object, an edge region including the contact edge, and a backup region different in at least one of material and physical property from the edge region and adjacent to the edge region on a cross section perpendicular to a direction in which the contact edge extends. The backup region is free of direct contact with the contact object. In the elastic blade, a converted elastic power X is from 57% to 90% and defined as 

Blade, cleaning device, and image forming apparatus incorporating same

A multilayered blade made of an elastic material includes an edge layer, having a contact edge to contact an object, and at least one backup layer laminated on the edge layer. The blade has a converted loss tangent tan &#x3b4; of 0.23 or greater and 0.51 or smaller in a temperature range of from 0&#xb0; C. to 50&#xb0; C. The converted loss tangent tan &#x3b4; is defined as: 

Blade and image forming apparatus incorporating same

An image forming apparatus includes a rotatable image bearer, a charging member to contact a surface of the image bearer and charge the image bearer, an exposure device to expose the image bearer and form a latent image, a developing device to develop the latent image on the image bearer into a toner image, a transfer device to transfer the toner image from the image bearer onto a transfer medium, and a cleaning blade to contact the surface of the image bearer and remove toner from the image bearer after image transfer. The charging member has surface unevenness created by projections and recesses extending in a direction of rotation of the image bearer. The cleaning blade is configured to abrade projections formed on the surface of the image bearer.

Image forming apparatus and process cartridge therefor

A cleaner is provided. The cleaner includes a cleaning blade having an edge to be contacted with a surface of a member to be cleaned while moving relative to the member to clean the surface of the member. The cleaning blade includes the edge, and first and second side surfaces, wherein the edge is disposed between the first and second side surfaces. When the cleaning blade is not contacted with the surface of the member to be cleaned, the first side surface is opposed to the surface of the member, and when the cleaning blade is contacted with the surface of the member, the edge, and the first and second side surfaces of the cleaning blade are contacted with the surface of the member.

Cleaner, and process cartridge and image forming apparatus using the cleaner

An image forming apparatus including a setting memory storing multiple voltage settings; two or more voltage applying members each contacting a voltage applied member at respective contact positions close to each other, which are simultaneously being applied with respective voltages selected from the voltage settings; two or more current detectors each detecting a current flowing in the respective contact positions; and a setting changer performing a setting changing processing in which the voltage applied to one of the voltage applying members is changed based on the current detected by the corresponding current detector while a predetermined voltage is applied to the other voltage applying members, so that an optimum current flows in the corresponding contact position.

Apparatus and method for changing a voltage setting for an image forming apparatus

A cleaning device including a rotatable cleaning member contacting a rotatable image carrier bearing a toner image to electrostatically remove toner from the image carrier while rotating, and a control unit to control rotation of the cleaning member to satisfy a relation of (60/R)&#x3e;(L/V) during removal of a toner pattern formed on the image carrier at a predetermined timing and remaining attached to the image carrier without being transferred from the image carrier onto a transfer member using the cleaning member, where R (rpm) is a number of rotations of the cleaning member, L (mm) is a length of the toner pattern in a direction of rotation of the image carrier, and V (mm/s) is a speed of the image carrier.

Cleaning device and image forming apparatus including same

A cleaning device including: multiple cleaning members arranged consecutively in a direction of movement of a cleaning target to remove adhered substances from the cleaning target; multiple casings to individually hold and at least partially enclose the multiple cleaning members, respectively, the casings and the cleaning members together constituting multiple sub-units; and a sub-unit holder to hold the multiple sub-units, from which the sub-units are individually removable.

Cleaning device, image forming apparatus including same, and method for mounting same

A cleaning device disposed downstream from a transfer position in a direction of rotation of the image carrier to remove toner from the image carrier. The cleaning device includes a normally-charged toner cleaning member to electrostatically remove normally-charged toner from the image carrier, one of a polarity controller to control the toner on the image carrier to have a normal charging polarity and a reversely-charged toner cleaning member to electrostatically remove reversely-charged toner from the image carrier, a pre-cleaning member to electrostatically remove normally-charged toner from the image carrier, a pre-collection member to electrostatically collect the toner from the pre-cleaning member, and a control unit to reduce a voltage applied to the pre-cleaning member immediately after an untransferred toner image is removed from the image carrier by the pre-cleaning member below a voltage applied to the pre-cleaning member during removal of the untransferred toner image.

There is provided a pre-cleaning brush roller being a pre-cleaning member which is disposed on an upstream of a normally-charged-toner cleaning brush roller and an oppositely-charged-toner cleaning brush roller in a surface moving direction of an intermediate transfer belt, is applied with a voltage having a polarity opposite to a normal charge polarity of toner, and electrostatically removes the toner having the normal charge polarity.

Cleaning device and image forming apparatus

A cleaning device including a normally charged toner cleaning member provided in contact with a cleaning target at a contact position to remove normally charged toner from the cleaning target, a reversely charged toner cleaning member provided in contact with the cleaning target at a contact position upstream from the normally charged toner cleaning member to remove reversely charged toner from the cleaning target, and a pre-cleaning member provided in contact with the cleaning target at a contact position upstream from both the normally and reversely charged toner cleaning members to remove normally charged toner from the cleaning target. The contact position between the pre-cleaning member and the cleaning target has a width wider than a width of the contact position between the normally charged toner cleaning member and the cleaning target and a width of the contact position between the reversely charged toner cleaning member and the cleaning target.

A cleaning apparatus including: a normally-charged toner cleaning member that receives a voltage having a polarity reverse to a normal charging polarity of a toner and electostatically removes a toner having the normal charging polarity on a cleaning target; a reversely-charged toner cleaning member that receives a voltage having the same polarity as the normal charging polarity of a toner and electrostatically removes a toner having a polarity reverse to the normal charging polarity on the cleaning target; and a pre-cleaning member that is disposed at an upstream side of the normally-charged toner cleaning member and the reverse-charged toner cleaning member in a surface moving direction of the cleaning target, receives a voltage having a polarity reverse to the normal charging polarity of the toner, and electrostatically removes a toner having the normal charging polarity on the cleaning target, is provided.

Cleaning apparatus and image forming apparatus

A cleaning device includes a normally charged toner cleaning unit, a reversely charged toner cleaning unit, and a pre-cleaning unit. The normally charged toner cleaning unit has a normally charged toner cleaning member, a normally charged toner recovery member, and a normally charged toner scraping member. The reversely charged toner cleaning unit has a reversely charged toner cleaning member, a reversely charged toner recovery member, and a reversely charged toner scraping member. The pre-cleaning unit has a pre-cleaning member, a pre-recovery member, and a pre-scraping member.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Yuu Sakakibara