Development of environmentally friendly energy-efficient copier

Offering the ease of operation that enables instantaneous copier use, while at the same time reducing sleep energy consumption, is a major research topic. In 1998, the IEA proposed the IEA/DSM "Copier of the Future" program to attain this goal. The specifications of this program were exceedingly strict: sleep power consumption was to be reduced to at most 1/10 that of current copiers of the same class. Ricoh joined this program, and in 1999 became the first in the world to pass the program specifications. Ricoh then began sales of the imagio Neo 350 (overseas model: Aficio1035), incorporating this energy-saving technology, in February 2001. The imagio Neo 350, a mid-high speed copier capable of 35 copies per minute, consumes no more than 7W in sleep mode, and recovers from sleep mode within 10 seconds. This technology consists of the following three basic technologies, all developed by Ricoh: (1) an energy-efficient fusing unit; (2) control of fusing temperature using twin heater; (3) low-temperature fusing toner. This allowed Ricoh to offer a revolutionary environmentally friendly digital multi-functional copier with four times the energy efficiency of its predecessors.