Image forming apparatus having a mounting/dismounting mechanism

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• a body;
• a plurality of image forming units each including a respective image carrier and being movable in an axial direction of said image carrier to be selectively mounted to or dismounted from said body, said plurality of image forming units being arranged linearly in a direction perpendicular to axes of image carriers thereof,
• a conveying device configured to convey a recording medium linearly via said plurality of image forming units such that said recording medium sequentially passes through image transfer positions respectively facing said image carriers;
• a body side positioning device configured to position an end of the individual image forming unit opposite to an end to be operated for mounting and dismounting;
• a plurality of support members configured to support said end of said individual image forming unit to be operated when said individual image forming unit is mounted to said body, said plurality of support members extending substantially parallel to a linear transport path for the recording medium, but outside of a mounting/dismounting path assigned to said individual image forming unit;
• and
• a mounting/dismounting side positioning device configured to position said end of said individual image forming unit to be operated relative to said plurality of support members and configured to position an end of an optical writing device.

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• a body;
• a plurality of image forming units each including a respective image carrier and being movable in an axial direction of said image carrier to be selectively mounted to or dismounted from said body, said plurality of image forming units being arranged linearly in a direction perpendicular to axes of image carriers thereof,
• conveying means for conveying a recording medium linearly via said plurality of image forming units such that said recording medium sequentially passes through image transfer positions respectively facing said image carriers,
• body side positioning means for positioning an end of the individual image forming unit opposite to an end to be operated for mounting and dismounting;
• a plurality of support members for supporting said end of said individual image forming unit to be operated when said individual image forming unit is mounted to said body, said plurality of support members extending substantially parallel to a linear transport path for the recording medium, but outside of a mounting/dismounting path assigned to said individual image forming unit, at least one of said plurality of support members having a tubular configuration;
• and
• mounting/dismounting side positioning means for positioning said end of said individual image forming unit to be operated relative to said plurality of support members.