Removably mountable image forming unit held together by thermally shrinkable film
AssigneeMinolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsMasashi Sakamoto, Shin Miyata
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image forming unit removably mountable in an image forming apparatus is composed of a plurality of image forming elements including at least a photosensitive drum. The unit is assembled by providing a pair of side plates with the image forming elements between, and covering the outside of the side plates with a thermally shrinkable resin film to firmly connect the image forming elements with the side plates.
Claims23
An image forming unit removably mountable in an image forming apparatus, said unit comprising:
- a plurality of components;
- and
- a covering film means for tightly covering and contacting said plurality of components in the form of said unit in order to firmly join and maintain said components together after said unit has been mounted in said image forming apparatus.
An image forming unit removably mountable in an image forming apparatus, said unit comprising:
- a plurality of image forming elements;
- a support member for fixedly positioning each said image forming element;
- and
- a covering member means for tightly covering and contacting said support member and said image forming elements in order to firmly connect each said image forming element with said support member after said unit has been mounted in said image forming apparatus.
An image forming unit removably mountable in an image forming apparatus, said unit comprising:
- a plurality of image forming elements;
- and
- a thermally shrinkable resin film means for tightly covering and contacting said image forming elements in order to firmly connect each said image forming element together after said unit has been mounted in said image forming apparatus.
A method for forming an image forming unit assembled by a plurality of components and mountable in an image forming apparatus, said method comprising the following steps of:
- fixedly positioning said plurality of components to a support member;
- covering the outside of said support member and said plurality of components fixedly positioned thereto with a resin material;
- causing said resin material to contact with said support member and said plurality of components in order to firmly join said plurality of components with said support member;
- and
- maintaining said plurality of components and said support ;member in said joined state before and after said image forming unit has been mounted in said image forming apparatus.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.