Patent ID: 8544986
Filing Date: 2013-10-01
Classification: B41J

Abstract:
1. An image forming apparatus comprising: a carriage movable in a main scanning direction and including a recording head having a nozzle surface in which nozzles to eject liquid droplets in a horizontal direction or a direction slanted from the horizontal direction are formed, the nozzle surface being disposed in a vertical direction or a direction slanted from the vertical direction; a guide shaft to guide the carriage in the main scanning direction; and a plurality of bearings provided to the carriage, each of the plurality of bearings having two sloped sides slidably and tangentially contacting an outer circumferential surface of the guide shaft at respective contact points, wherein, in a plane perpendicular to an axis of the guide shaft, the two sloped sides of each of the plurality of bearings are disposed such that a line passing through both the axis of the guide shaft and an intersection of two tangent lines from the contact points on the outer circumferential surface of the guide shaft at which the two sloped sides contact the outer circumferential surface of the guide shaft diagonally intersects a line extending along a plane of the nozzle surface, and wherein an angle that the line passing through both the axis of the guide shaft and the intersection of the two tangent lines forms with a vertical line ranges from 60 degrees to 90 degrees.