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US 7,444,097 B2Granted
Air-conditioned electrophotographic image forming apparatus
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsYasuo Suzuki, Satoshi Igari, Katsuaki Miyawaki, Yasushi Nakazato, Takeo Suda, Tetsuroh Miura, Takeshi Saitou
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Abstract
An electrophotographic image forming apparatus of the present invention includes a frame, a photoconductive drum disposed in the frame, and an air conditioning device for removing moisture around the drum inside the frame. The drum has a wear-resistant, durable surface layer that wears by an amount of 0.05 μm to 0.5 μm for 100,000 rotations.
Claims25
An electrophotographic image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image forming module which has a case accommodating a photoconductive element, a developing unit, a charger, and a cleaning unit, wherein the image forming module has an image forming module inlet port and an image forming module outlet port;
- wherein said case is provided with an opening for transferring a toner image onto a surface layer of said photoconductive element;
- wherein said case is provided with a slit for allowing a laser beam issuing from a writing unit to reach the photoconductive element;
- wherein said slit is covered with a transparent plate;
- and
- an air conditioning device for removing moisture around said photoconductive element inside said case;
- wherein said air conditioning device comprises:
- a case having an AC device case inlet port and an AC device case outlet port;
- a dehumidifier which comprises condensing means, absorbing and conveying means for conveying condensed dew to the outside of the case of said air conditioning device;
- wherein a part of said absorbing and conveying means is protruding to the outside of the case and wherein said part serves as an evaporating portion;
- wherein the AC device case inlet port is connected with the image forming module outlet port and the AC device case outlet port is connected with the image forming module inlet port.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.