Image forming apparatus having housing, exposing member disposed in the housing, and process cartridge mounted in the housing
AssigneeBrother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsTakeyuki Takagi, Hiroki Mori
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes a housing, a cartridge, and an exposing member. The housing is formed with an opening. The cartridge is configured to be detachably mounted in the housing through the opening. The cartridge is provided with an image bearing member, and a holding part configured to be held by a user so as to remove the cartridge from the housing. The exposing member is disposed in the housing and configured to emit a laser light to the image bearing member in an emitting direction so as to expose the image bearing member to the laser light. The cartridge is mounted in the housing at a side opposite to the opening with respect to a trajectory of the laser light.
Claims14
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a housing having a cartridge access opening formed in an upper end portion of the housing and a paper-introducing opening formed in a front end portion of the housing;
- a top cover provided on the upper end portion of the housing, the top cover being movable between a closed position for covering the cartridge access opening and an open position for exposing the cartridge access opening;
- a sheet-feeding cover provided on the front end portion of the housing, the sheet-feeding cover being movable between a first position in which the sheet-feeding cover covers the paper-introducing opening and a second position in which the paper-introducing opening is exposed;
- a process cartridge detachably mountable in the housing through the cartridge access opening, the process cartridge comprising:
- a drum cartridge including a photosensitive drum and a drum holding part configured to be held by a user so as to remove the process cartridge from the housing;
- and
- a developing cartridge detachably mountable in the drum cartridge, the developing cartridge including a developing roller and a developing holding part configured to be held by a user so as to remove the developing cartridge from the drum cartridge;
- and
- a scanning unit configured to emit a laser light to the photosensitive drum in an emitting direction so as to expose the photosensitive drum to the laser light, the scanning unit being disposed between the process cartridge and the sheet-feeding cover when the process cartridge is mounted in the housing, the scanning unit being disposed so as not to overlap with the process cartridge when the process cartridge is mounted in the housing;
- wherein the drum holding part and the developing holding part located below a trajectory of the laser light when the scanning unit emits the laser light in a state where the process cartridge is mounted in the housing, and
- wherein a distance between the drum holding part and the top cover is smaller than a distance between a developing holding part and the top cover when the scanning unit emits the laser light in a state where the process cartridge is mounted in the housing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.