Image forming apparatus featuring a constant contact-pressure drive
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorYoshiro Tsuchiya
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image forming apparatus including an image bearing member and a rotatable member such as a transfer roller, a charging roller or a cleaning roller press-contacted to the image bearing member in relation to an image formation process on the image bearing member. A coupling is employed for transmitting the driving force from a driving power source to the rotatable member, so that the state of press-contact between the image bearing member and the rotatable member is maintained substantially uniform along the longitudinal direction with stability.
Claims44
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- a movable image bearing member;
- a rotatable member press-contacted to said image bearing member in relation to an image forming process for forming an image on said image bearing member, said rotatable member having a longitudinal shaft;
- driving means for driving said rotatable member;
- and
- transmission means for transmitting a driving force to the shaft of said rotatable member from said driving means, said transmission means having coupling means for transmitting a rotational force substantially without imparting to said shaft a force in a radial direction thereof.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- a movable image bearing member;
- a rotatable member press-contacted to said image bearing member in relation to an image formation process for forming an image on said image bearing member, said rotatable member having a longitudinal shaft, said image bearing member being rotatably supported;
- driving means for driving said rotatable member;
- drive transmission means for transmitting driving force from said driving means coaxially with said shaft of said rotatable member, said drive transmission means having a drive transmission member rotatably supported on a shaft for transmitting the driving force to said shaft of said press-contacted rotatable member, and the drive transmitting force being transmitted to said shaft of said press-contacted rotatable member substantially without changing an angular speed of said drive transmission member despite movement of said shaft of said press-contacted rotatable member relative to said shaft of said drive transmission member.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image bearing member rotatable about an axis;
- a rotatable member press-contacted to said image bearing member in relation to an image forming process for forming an image on said image bearing member, said rotatable member having a longitudinal shaft;
- driving means for driving said image bearing member;
- and
- transmission means for transmitting a driving force from said driving means to said image bearing member, said transmission means including coupling means for transmitting a rotational force substantially without imparting to said shaft a force in a radial direction thereof.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.