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:
Nov. 27, 2012
Filed:
Sep. 07, 2010
Yoshiaki Satoh, Kanagawa, JP;
Yuuichiroh Tsujiguchi, Kanagawa, JP;
Yasumasa Mihara, Kanagawa, JP;
Tomokazu Tsuchiya, Kanagawa, JP;
Yoshiaki Satoh, Kanagawa, JP;
Yuuichiroh Tsujiguchi, Kanagawa, JP;
Yasumasa Mihara, Kanagawa, JP;
Tomokazu Tsuchiya, Kanagawa, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes a head to eject liquid droplets, a sub-tank having a container to store an amount of liquid supplied to the head, a negative pressure generator unit generating a negative pressure and an air introducing mechanism to introduce air, a main-tank to supply the amount of liquid into the sub-tank, a pressure detector unit to detect a pressure inside the sub-tank, and a controller to control an image forming operation using a remaining amount of liquid in the sub-tank while the main-tank is at an end status, where the controller determines whether the pressure inside the sub-tank is within a normal range, causes, if the detected pressure is not within the normal range, the air introducing mechanism to introduce air to raise the pressure inside the sub-tank, and causes the head to eject non-image forming liquid to cause the pressure to fall within the normal range.