Printer
AssigneeTohoku Ricoh Co., Ltd.
InventorsKeiichi Chiba, Hironobu Takasawa
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A printer capable of printing a multicolor image with a single pass of a paper or similar recording medium includes a plurality of print drums. Drum drive gears each are mounted on a particular print drum such that the print drum is replaceable. The print drums are interlocked to each other by rotatable members including relay gears meshing with the drum drive gears, timing pulleys fixed to the relay gears, a timing belt, and pulleys for adjustment. Each rotatable member has teeth the number of which is selected such that the number of rotations of the rotatable member to occur in a single period of the print drums is an integral multiple of the number of rotations of the print drums.
Claims6
A printer comprising:
- a plurality of print drums spaced from each other in a direction in which a recording medium is conveyed;
- and
- a plurality of rotatable members associated with said plurality of print drums, and configured to drive the plurality of print drums in an interlocked fashion,
- wherein a rotating period of each of the plurality of rotatable members is less than or equal to a rotating period of the plurality of print drums, and is preselected so each rotatable member makes, in a single period of the print drums, a number of rotations that is an integral multiple of a number of rotations of the print drums so as to prevent an upstream and a downstream print drum rotating synchronously to each other from being brought out of synchronism when the recording medium arrives at said downstream print drum.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.