Patent ID: 6580443
Filing Date: 2003-06-17
Classification: G03G

Abstract:
A color image forming device for forming a color image of a plurality of colors on a recording medium, comprising:a laser source for emitting a plurality of laser beams based on image information; a plurality of photosensitive drums; one polygon mirror that rotates and reflects laser beams emitted from said laser sources for laser scanning; a plurality of reflection mirrors provided for said respective photosensitive drums and located in an optical path between said polygon mirror and each of said photosensitive drums, said reflection mirrors reflecting the laser beams traveling from said polygon mirror towards said photosensitive drums for scanning said respective photosensitive drums, and the reflection mirror having the longer optical path from the reflection mirror to the corresponding photosensitive drum being provided more closely to said polygon mirror than the reflection mirror having the optical path from the reflection mirror to the corresponding photosensitive drum shorter than that of the reflection mirror of longer optical path, and all optical path lengths from said polygon mirror to the corresponding photosensitive drums via said reflection mirrors being equal to each other; developing units for developing latent electrostatic images formed by said laser beams on said photosensitive drums to provide an intermediate image formed by mono-color developer; an intermediate image carrier made of an endless belt and driven in one direction, said photosensitive drums being provided along said intermediate image carrier and being in contact with and rotated with said intermediate image carrier to transfer said intermediate images of mono-color to said intermediate image carrier so as to overlap each other to form a color developer image; a transfer unit for transferring said color developer image from said intermediate image carrier to said recording medium; and a fixing unit for fixing said color developer image on said recording medium; wherein said plurality of photosensitive drums are provided on a imaginary flat plane which makes an angle larger than zero degree and less than 90 degrees with a scanning plane of the laser beams from said polygon mirror.