Image forming apparatus with reciprocally movable carriage

An image forming apparatus, comprising:

• a reciprocally movable carriage to move in a main scan direction;
• an image forming unit mounted on the carriage;
• a first drive source to move the carriage;
• a variation suppressor to suppress vibration caused by movement of the carriage, the variation suppressor comprising:
• a variation suppression member having a mass smaller than a mass of the carriage;
• and
• a second drive source independent of the first drive source to move the variation suppressor;
• and
• a variation-suppression controller that drives the second drive source to cause the vibration suppressor to perform vibration suppression operation of suppressing the vibration.

An image forming apparatus, comprising:

• a reciprocally movable carriage to move in a main scan direction;
• an image forming unit mounted on the carriage;
• a first drive source to move the carriage;
• a vibration suppressor to suppress vibration caused by movement of the carriage, the vibration suppressor comprising a vibration suppression member and a second drive source independent of the first drive source to move the vibration suppression member;
• and
• a vibration-suppression controller that drives the second drive source to cause the vibration suppressor to perform vibration suppression operation during at least one of an acceleration period and a deceleration period of the carriage and stops movement of the vibration suppression member during a constant-speed period of the carriage.