The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 23, 2000
Filed:
Mar. 29, 1999
Hironobu Kohno, Osaka, JP;
Sueaki Okamoto, Osaka, JP;
Mita Industrial Co., Ltd., Osaka, JP;
Abstract
An image-forming machine includes an image-forming unit, a transfer belt assembly disposed beneath the image-forming unit so as to freely ascend and descend between an acting position and a non-acting position, and a lift device for asending and descending the transfer belt assembly. The transfer belt assembly includes a driven roller, a tension roller, an endless belt wrapped around the driven roller and the tension roller, and a resilient urging device for resiliently urging the tension roller toward a direction of applying tension to apply tension to the endless belt. A tension release device is disposed which, when the transfer belt assembly is descended to the non-acting position, moves the tension roller in the direction in which tension is no longer applied, against a resilient urging action of the resiliently urging device, so that the application of tension to the endless belt is discontinued. A tension release invalidation device is further disposed to invalidate the tension release action of the tension release device upon detecting the manual operation for drawing out the image-forming unit from a required acting position when the tension release device discontinues the application of tension to the endless belt.