Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Yuusuke Kohri

Yoshinori Shirasaki

Masayuki Hayashi

Akinori Yamaguchi

Motohiro Kawanabe

Masatoshi Murakami

Takeshi Sano

Tomokazu Takeuchi

Norikazu Okada

An optical writing control device controls emission or lighting of a light source onto a photoconductor surface in a latent image forming process and a discharge process, by either setting a light emission time longer in the discharge process or setting a resolution in a sub-scanning direction lower in the discharge process, compared to the latent image forming process.

Optical writing control device, image forming apparatus, and optical writing control method for controlling light emission of a light source

An optical writing control device and method are provided, for controlling light emission of a plurality of light sources to form an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive element, the light sources including a plurality of light emitting elements disposed in a line and classified into a plurality of groups, including frequency converter circuitry configured to acquire image information to be formed as the electrostatic latent image; and a light source controller configured to control the plurality of light sources based on pixel information generated from the acquired image information, wherein the light source controller is further configured to control the light emission of the plurality of light sources by classifying the light emitting elements into the plurality of groups, and shifting a timing of light emission from one group of the plurality of groups to a next group of the plurality of groups, and determine a common illuminating period for the light emitting elements of at least one light source of the plurality of light sources based on the shifted timing of light emission among the plurality of groups.

Optical writing control device, image forming apparatus, and method of controlling optical writing device

An image forming apparatus comprises: a plurality of exposure units, each of the exposure units including a plurality of light emitting elements that are arranged in a main scanning direction; a calculating unit that, with respect to each of the exposure units, calculates a pre-charge period that is a period during which a pre-charge is performed on at least any of the light emitting elements included in a corresponding exposure unit; and an emission control unit that, with respect to each of the exposure units, causes the light emitting elements included in a corresponding exposure unit to emit light such that a pre-charge period of at least any of the exposure units is shifted with respect to pre-charge periods of remaining ones of the exposure units.

Image forming apparatus and emission control method for controlling pre-charge of light emitting elements of exposure units

An optical writing control device and method are provided, for controlling light emission of a plurality of light sources to form an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive element, the light sources including a plurality of light emitting elements disposed in a line, including frequency converter circuitry configured to acquire image information to be formed as the electrostatic latent image; and a light source controller configured to control the plurality of light sources based on pixel information generated from the acquired image information, the light source controller being further configured to control the light emission of the plurality of light sources by classifying the light emitting elements into a plurality of groups, and shifting the timing of light emission from one group of the plurality of groups to a next group of the plurality of groups, and determine an illuminating period for each light source of the plurality of light sources based on the shifted timing of light emission among the plurality of groups.

Optical writing control device for reducing driving power of optical writing device

An image forming apparatus includes multiple exposure units each including multiple light emitting elements, a reading unit that reads data to be used for exposure by each one of the exposure units, one at a time from the exposure unit by the time the exposure units starts exposure, a storing unit that stores the data read by the reading unit, and a transfer unit that transfers the data stored in the storing unit to the exposure unit by the time the exposure unit starts exposure.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and recording medium storing an image forming program

An optical writing controller controls emission of a light source device including multiple light emitting element rows each constituted by multiple light emitting elements arranged in a sub-scanning direction to form an electrostatic latent image on a photoconductor. The optical writing controller includes an image information acquisition unit to acquire image information on an image to be formed as the electrostatic latent image; a light source control unit to sequentially control emission of the multiple light emitting elements on the basis of information on pixels generated on the basis of the acquired image information; an error information acquisition unit to acquire information indicating an error of a direction in which the light emitting elements are arranged with respect to the sub-scanning direction; and an adjustment value generation unit to generate an adjustment value for adjusting a light quantity of each light emitting element on the basis of the error.

Optical writing controller, image forming apparatus, and optical writing control method

A system including: first and second apparatuses that supply electric power to each other; the first and second apparatuses including first and second converters configured to convert externally supplied power to first and second direct current powers; a predicted value calculator configured to calculate first, second, and third predicted values of needed electric power in first, second, and third power source conditions based on a first conversion efficiency of the first converter and a second conversion efficiency of the second converter; and a controller configured to switch an electric power condition corresponding to a smallest predicted value of the first, second, and third predicted values.

System including first and second apparatuses supplying electric power to each other

According to an embodiment, an image forming system includes: an image forming apparatus; a peripheral device; and a first control unit. The image forming apparatus includes a first voltage detecting unit that detects voltage of a first power source supplied by an external power source, and outputs as first voltage value; and a first current detecting unit that detects current of the first power source, and outputs as first current value. The peripheral device includes a second voltage detecting unit that detects voltage of a second power source supplied by an external power source, and outputs as second voltage value; and a second current detecting unit that detects current of the second power source and outputs as second current value. The first control unit calculates total power value of the image forming system based on: the first voltage value; first current value; second voltage value; and second current value.

Image forming system, power calculation method, and power calculating apparatus

A reception unit sequentially receives input of voltage values indicating an AC input voltage from an AC power supply. A ROM stores a power control table in which a power control parameter corresponding to the AC power supply voltage is matched with each group of the voltage values indicating the same AC power supply voltage. A decision unit determines to which group the received voltage values belong among the plurality of groups, whenever the reception unit receives the input of the voltage value and decides the group, to which a predetermined number of voltage values belongs among the plurality of voltage values sequentially received by the reception unit, among the plurality of groups using the determination result. A power control unit controls power supply according to the power control parameter matched with the decided group.

Power control apparatus, image forming apparatus, and power control program product

A relay failure detecting device includes: an opening-closing unit that is driven by a coil for opening and closing a current pathway; a detecting unit that detects a current value of a current flowing in the coil; an opening-closing instructing unit that outputs an instruction signal to instruct opening and closing of the opening-closing unit; and a failure detecting unit that detects a failure in the opening-closing unit by using the current value output by the detecting unit within a predetermined period of time starting from when the instruction signal is output.

Relay failure detecting device, power-supply device, image forming apparatus, relay failure detecting method, and computer program product

An image forming apparatus and a method of monitoring power consumption of the image forming apparatus are provided. For each one of parts of the image forming apparatus selected for monitoring, part-specific power consumption information is obtained based on accumulated operation amount information. The obtained part-specific power consumption information is used to generate power consumption information indicating an amount of electric power consumed by at least a portion of the image forming apparatus.

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Osaka, Japan

Yuusuke Kohri