Image forming apparatus
AssigneeBrother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsYoshikatsu Kameyama, Takashi Ohama
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes an upper body, an image reading device that is mounted in the upper body, a lower body that is placed under the upper body, an image forming device that is mounted in the lower body, a hinge member that connects the upper body and the lower body, at least one groove that is formed on the lower body, at least one link member that is connected to the upper body at one end and connected to the groove at the other end, and at least one elastic member that is connected to the lower body at one end and the link member at the other end. The groove has a first range where a moment to pivot the upper body to the close position is generated.
Claims19
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an upper body;
- an image reading device that is mounted in the upper body and that reads an image on an original document;
- a lower body that is placed under the upper body;
- an image forming device that is mounted in the lower body that forms the image on a recording medium;
- a hinge member that connects the upper body and the lower body, the upper body being pivoted about the hinge member between an open position where the upper body is open with respect to the lower body and a close position where the upper body is closed with respect to the lower body;
- a groove that is formed on the lower body;
- a link member that is pivotally connected to the upper body at one end and connected to the groove at the other end so as to slide in the groove;
- and
- an elastic member that is connected to the lower body at one end and the link member at the other end, the elastic member being deformed when the link member moves together with the upper body, an amount of deformation of the elastic member increasing when the upper body is moved from the open position to the close position, wherein the groove has a first range where a moment to pivot the upper body to the close position is generated.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- an upper body;
- an image reading device that is mounted in the upper body and that reads an image on an original document;
- a lower body that is placed under the upper body;
- an image forming device that is mounted in the lower body that forms the image on a recording medium;
- a hinge member that connects the upper body and the lower body, the upper body being pivoted about the hinge member between an open position where the upper body is open with respect to the lower body and a close position where the upper body is closed with respect to the lower body;
- a groove that is formed in the lower body;
- a link member that is pivotally connected to the upper body at one end so as to pivot about the upper body and connected to the groove at the other end so as to slide in the groove;
- an elastic member that is connected to the lower body at one end and connected to the link member at the other end, the elastic member being deformed when the link member moves together with the upper body, an amount of deformation of the elastic member increasing when the upper body is moved from the open position to the close position, wherein the groove has a first range and a second range, the first range is inclined such that a force acting on the link member generated in accordance with a weight of the upper body is greater than a force acting on the link member generated in accordance with a load of the elastic member, and the second range is inclined such that the force acting on the link member generated in accordance with the load of the elastic member is greater than or equal to the force acting on the link member generated in accordance with the weight of the upper body.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.