Image forming apparatus having toner passage blocking mechanism
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsKaoru Tada, Nobuhiko Kita, Sei Onuma, Masafumi Takahira, Genta Hagiwara, Yuusuke Furuichi
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Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes a handle member that is held by an operator when an orientation of the image forming apparatus is changed from a predetermined use orientation to a different orientation; and a blocking unit that is caused to block a path between the inside and an opening of a toner container, without being powered, in association with an operator operation performed to the handle member upon changing the orientation of the image forming apparatus from the use orientation to the different orientation.
Claims10
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a toner container having a portion defining an opening through which toner contained therein are released or toner is received inside;
- and
- a toner conveying channel that is connected to the opening of the toner container to convey the toner from the inside of the toner container or into the toner container, wherein
- the image forming apparatus forms an image by transferring a toner image, obtained by attaching the toner to a latent image on a latent image carrying body, onto a recording medium, and
- the image forming apparatus further comprises:
- a handle member that is held by an operator when an orientation of the image forming apparatus is changed from a predetermined use orientation to a different orientation;
- and
- a blocking unit that is caused to block a path between the inside and the opening of the toner container, without being powered, in association with an operator operation performed to the handle member upon changing the orientation of the image forming apparatus from the use orientation to the different orientation.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a toner container having a portion defining an opening through which toner contained therein is released or toner is received inside;
- and
- a toner conveying channel that is connected to the opening of the toner container to convey the toner from the inside of the toner container or into the toner container, wherein
- the image forming apparatus forms an image by transferring a toner image, obtained by attaching the toner to a latent image on a latent image carrying body, onto a recording medium, and
- the image forming apparatus further comprises:
- a displacement member that is displaced, without being powered, by a change in an orientation of the image forming apparatus;
- and
- a blocking unit that is caused to block a path between the inside and the opening of the toner container, without being powered, in association with displacement of the displacement member caused when the orientation of the image forming apparatus is changed from a use orientation to a different orientation.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a toner container having a portion defining an opening through which toner contained therein are released or toner is received inside;
- and
- a toner conveying channel that is connected to the opening of the toner container to convey the toner from the inside of the toner container or into the toner container, wherein
- the image forming apparatus forms an image by transferring a toner image, obtained by attaching the toner to a latent image on a latent image carrying body, onto a recording medium, and
- the image forming apparatus further comprises:
- a handle member that is held by an operator when an orientation of the image forming apparatus is changed from a predetermined use orientation to a different orientation;
- and
- a blocking unit that is caused to block a path between the inside and the opening of the toner container, without being powered, in association with movement of the handle member upon changing the orientation of the image forming apparatus from the use orientation to the different orientation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.