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AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsAtsuki IWATA, Takanobu SAITOH, Tetsuya YANO, Tsuyoshi ENDOH, Shuntaroh NAKAYAMA, Toshimasa AOKI, Seiya OGAWA
Estimating the term…
An image forming apparatus includes a plurality of power generation units, a charge control unit, a charge switch unit, and a controller, Each of the plurality of power generation units is respectively provided to a corresponding one of a plurality of high-temperature portions in the image forming apparatus to generate power based on temperatures of the high-temperature portions. The charge control unit charges a power storage unit with electrical energy generated by the power generation units. The charge switch unit switches between the power generation units to connect one of the power generation units to the charge control unit. The controller controls the charge switch unit to selectively connect one of the power generation units capable of achieving a maximum power generation efficiency to the charge control unit.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
The image forming apparatus according to claim I, wherein the controller selects the one of the power generation units based on an operational state of the image forming apparatus.
A charge control method for an image forming apparatus including a plurality of power generation units each respectively provided to a corresponding one of a plurality of high-temperature portions in the image forming apparatus to generate power based on temperatures of the high-temperature portions and a power storage unit to be charged with electrical energy generated by the power generation units,
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.