Color electronic photographic apparatus with multiple image forming units

A color electronic photographic apparatus comprising:

• a main body;
• a plurality of image forming units movably mounted in said main body, each of said image forming units including a rotatable electrostatic image carrier and a developing means for developing a toner image on said electrostatic image carrier, the toner images developed by the developing means of the image forming units being of different colors, respectively;
• transferring means for transferring the toner images from said electrostatic image carriers onto a transfer material at a single predetermined transfer position;
• moving means for sequentially moving each of the image forming units to a single predetermined image forming position opposite said transfer position;
• a light exposing means for effecting an image light exposing operation at a single predetermined light exposing position which corresponds to said image forming position;
• a transfer carrying means for carrying the transfer material along a predetermined path which extends through said transfer position;
• fixing means mounted in said maim body downstream of said transfer position for fixing the toner images on the transfer material;
• and
• control means for controlling an operating speed of said fixing means and a speed of said transfer carrying means, and for controlling the speed of said transfer carrying means during transfer of the toner images from aid electrostatic image carriers to the transfer material to be different than the operation speed of said fixing means and the speed of said transfer carrying means after transfer of the toner images from said electrostatic image carriers to the transfer material;
• whereby toner images of different colors can be superposed on the transfer material to form color images.

A color electronic photographic apparatus comprising:

• a main body;
• a plurality of image forming units movably mounted in said main body, each of said image forming units including a rotatable electronic image carrier and a developing means for developing a toner image on said electrostatic image carrier, the toner images developed by the developing means of the image forming units being of different colors, respectively;
• transferring means for transferring the toner images from said electrostatic image carriers onto a transfer material at a single predetermined transfer position;
• moving means for sequentially moving each of the image forming units to a single predetermined image forming position opposite said transfer position;
• a light exposing means for effecting an image light exposing operation at a single predetermined light exposing position which corresponds to said image forming position;
• a transfer carrying means for carrying the transfer material along a predetermined path which extends through said transfer position;
• first cleaning means for cleaning surfaces of said electrostatic image carriers;
• second cleaning means for cleaning said transfer carrying means;
• an excess toner reservoir;
• and
• coupling means for coupling both said first and second cleaning means to said excess toner reservoir.

A color electronic photographic apparatus comprising:

• a main body;
• an image forming unit group comprising a plurality of image forming units in a straight line and movably mounted in said main body for movement along said straight each of said image forming units including a rotatable electrostatic image carrier and a developing means for developing a toner image on said electrostatic image carrier, the toner images developed by the developing means of the image forming units being of different colors, respectively,
• transferring means for transferring the toner images from said electrostatic image carriers onto a transfer material at a single predetermined transfer position along said line;
• moving means for moving said image forming unit group to sequentially position each of said image forming units at a single predetermined image forming position opposite said transfer position;
• a light exposing means for effecting an image light exposing operation at a single predetermined light exposing position which corresponds to said image forming position;
• and
• a transfer carrying means for carrying the transfer material along a predetermined path which extends through said transfer position;
• whereby toner images of different colors can be superposed on the transfer material to form color images.