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AssigneeKonica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.
InventorsHiroshi Hiraguchi, Takashi Hasebe, Tomonobu Tamura, Mineo Yamamoto, Yuhei Tatsumoto
Estimating the term…
An image forming apparatus includes a functional unit, a first power supply circuit supplying electric power to the functional unit from a commercial power supply, a second power supply circuit including a self-generation power supply, and a third power supply circuit including a power storage unit storing electric power and a charging circuit charging the power storage unit upon receipt of supply of electric power from at least one of the commercial power supply and the self-generation power supply. In accordance with the amount of power supply from the self-generation power supply, higher priority is given to supply of electric power to the functional unit from at least one of the second and third power supply circuits than to supply of electric power from the first power supply circuit.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
No references of this kind are recorded.
Power saving in peripheral device: power saving in printer
Means for saving power: power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
Energy efficient computing
Reducing energy consumption in communication networks: in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate
About 6 years 9 months of term left · ends 20 Jul 2033 (estimated)
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2011-201706 filed with the Japan Patent Office on Sep. 15, 2011, the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having mounted thereon a power supply device arranged between an external power supply and an electric power load and capable of storing electric power.
FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an image forming apparatus MFP according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a control configuration according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing a procedure executed in image forming apparatus MFP according to the embodiment of the present invention.
An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. It is noted that the same or corresponding portions in the drawings have the same reference characters allotted, and detailed description thereof will not be repeated.
FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of image forming apparatus MFP according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, image forming apparatus MFP with a tandem-type color print engine mounted thereon is illustrated.
Referring to FIG. 1, image forming apparatus MFP has a print engine including main control unit 100, sub-control unit 400, a main power supply unit 200, and a sub-power supply unit 300.