Image forming apparatus
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsHiroaki Nieda, Naoki Matsuda
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes a unit, a housing, an outer cover, a lock, a detector, and circuitry. The unit is disposed in the image forming apparatus. The housing stores a toner bottle and has an insertion opening and an inner cover openably closable the insertion opening. The outer cover is openably closable to expose the inner cover and the unit or cover the inner cover and the unit. The lock locks the inner cover at a closed position. The detector detects an amount of toner remaining in the toner bottle. The circuitry controls the lock to unlock the inner cover based on the amount of the toner detected by the detector.
Claims9
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a unit disposed in the image forming apparatus;
- a housing to store a toner bottle, the housing having:
- an insertion opening;
- and
- an inner cover openably closable the insertion opening;
- an outer cover openably closable to expose the inner cover and the unit or cover the inner cover and the unit;
- a lock to lock the inner cover at a closed position;
- a detector to detect an amount of toner remaining in the toner bottle;
- and
- circuitry configured to control the lock to unlock the inner cover based on the amount of the toner detected by the detector.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a housing to store a toner bottle, the housing having:
- an insertion opening;
- and
- an inner cover openably closable the insertion opening;
- an outer cover openably closable to expose the inner cover or cover the inner cover;
- a lock to lock the inner cover at a closed position,
- the lock including:
- a locking portion;
- and
- a locked portion in the inner cover, the locked portion locked by the locking portion,
- the locking portion downstream from the locked portion of the inner cover at the closed position in an opening direction of the inner cover,
- the locking portion including a contact portion to contact with the locked portion of the inner cover at the closed position;
- a detector to detect an amount of toner remaining in the toner bottle;
- an another detector to detect an opening of the outer cover from the closed position;
- and
- circuitry configured to control the lock to unlock the inner cover based on the amount of the toner detected by the detector and the opening of the outer cover detected by the another detector,
- wherein a gap between the inner cover at the closed position and the outer cover at a closed position is smaller than a distance, in the opening direction of the inner cover, between the locked portion of the inner cover at the closed position and the contact portion of the locking portion unlocking the locked portion.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.