Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Akiyoshi Shinagawa

Hiroki Kawai

Masanobu Tanaka

Oki Kitagawa

Shigeaki Takada

Asuna Fukamachi

Yasuharu Toratani

Daigo Matsuura

Hiroshi Miyamoto

Ayano Ogata

Misa Kawashima

Ikuo Nakamoto

Toru Katsumi

Junichi Moteki

Suguru Takeuchi

Takuma Tadomi

Tatsuo Yasui

Takahiro Ohnishi

Mitsuru Hasegawa

Hiroto Ito

Koichi Kakubari

Shigeru Tanaka

Yutaka Arai

Yasuhiro Miyahara

Akeshi Asaka

Masayuki Tamaki

Naoki Akiyama

Kengo Koyama

Ayano Saito

Shuhei Yasuda

A fixing device includes an endless belt, a rotatable pressing member, a pad member inside of the belt, and a sliding member held by the pad member and sliding on an inner circumferential surface of the belt in a nip. The rotatable pressing member nips and feeds a recording material in the nip in cooperation with the belt and fixes a toner image on the recording material by applying heat and pressure. The sliding member includes a base material layer on which a plurality of projections projecting toward the rotatable pressing member are formed on a side sliding with the belt and a sliding layer provided on an outer surface of the plurality of projections. A shape of a surface of the sliding layer is a curved surface and a radius of curvature R of the curved surface satisfies 300 μm≤R≤850 μm.

Fixing device

A fixing unit includes an endless belt, a heating unit configured to heat the belt, a pressure rotary member configured to form a fixing nip portion that nips and conveys a recording material with the belt, a pad configured to press the belt toward the pressure rotary member, a sliding sheet provided on the pad and configured to slide against the belt, a plate-like member configured to fix the sliding sheet to the pad, the sliding sheet being fixed in a manner sandwiched between the plate-like member and the pad, and fixing tools configured to fix the plate-like member at a plurality of positions along a longitudinal direction of the plate-like member. A width of the sliding sheet is wider than a width of the fixing nip portion and narrower than a width of the plate-like member in the longitudinal direction.

Fixing unit

A fixing device includes an endless belt configured to heat a recording material, a pressure member contacting an outer circumferential surface of the endless belt to form a nip portion, and a pad. A length of the endless belt is larger than a length of the pad in a width direction of the endless belt. The pad includes a first surface forming the nip portion, a second surface facing the first surface, and a third surface connecting the first surface and the second surface in the width direction and formed in a conveyance direction of the recording material. And the third surface has a curved shape in a cross section orthogonal to the conveyance direction of the recording material.

Fixing device and image forming apparatus with nip portion that prevents belt cracking and oil leakage

A fixing device includes a fixing belt configured to heat a recording material, a pressure member configured to press the fixing belt, and a sliding member configured to be in sliding contact with an inner peripheral surface of the fixing belt and being opposed to the pressure member. The pressure member and the fixing belt form a fixing nip portion, and heat and pressure are applied to the recording material at the fixing nip portion to fix a toner image onto the recording material. The sliding member includes a plurality of protrusions on a surface of the sliding member that is in sliding contact with the inner peripheral surface of the fixing belt. The following expressions are satisfied: The fixing belt satisfies the prescribed formula.

A fixing device includes an endless belt, a rotatable pressing member contacting an outer circumferential surface of the belt, and a sliding member inside of the belt. The sliding member forms a nip portion by nipping and feeding the belt between itself and the rotatable pressing member and slides on an inner circumferential surface of the belt. The rotatable pressing member nips and feeds the recording material in the nip portion in cooperation with the belt and fixes a toner image on the recording material by applying heat and pressure. The sliding member includes a substrate extending in a widthwise direction of the belt, and the substrate is made of metal and includes a plurality of projections projecting toward the rotatable pressing member.

Fixing device with holding member made of resin

Fixing unit having a sliding sheet with a width in a longitudinal direction smaller than the width of first and second contact members

A fixing device includes an endless belt, a rotatable pressing member, a pad member inside of the belt, and a sliding member held by the pad member and sliding on an inner circumferential surface of the belt in a nip. The rotatable pressing member nips and feeds a recording material in the nip in cooperation with the belt and fixes a toner image on the recording material by applying heat and pressure. The sliding member includes a base material layer on which a plurality of projections projecting toward the rotatable pressing member are formed on a side sliding with the belt and a sliding layer provided on an outer surface of the plurality of projections. A leading end of the plurality of projections is a plane and an average roughness (Ra) of the plane satisfies 0.13 μm≤Ra≤1.67 μm.

Fixing unit having a pad to press a belt on a supporting member and a sliding sheet fixed to the supporting member

An image heating apparatus including first and second rotatable members, first and second cooling fans, an air blowing port, a shutter member, a shutter controller, and a fan controller. The first cooling fan is provided at a position opposing a first region which is a part of an end portion region of the first rotatable member on one end side. The second cooling fan is provided at a position opposing a second region which is part of the end portion region. The second region is adjacent to the first region with respect to the longitudinal direction. The shutter controller is configured to control a position of the shutter member depending on a width size of a recording material. The fan controller is configured to independently control an operation of the first cooling fan and an operation of the second cooling fan depending on the width size of the recording material.

Image heating apparatus having first and second cooling fans cooling an end portion of a first rotatable member

An image fixing device includes a rotatable fixing belt, a pressing roller, a nip forming member, a heating roller, a cooling fan, a temperature sensor, and a controller. The nip forming member contacts an inner surface of the fixing belt to sandwich the fixing belt between the pressing roller to form a nip. The heating roller stretches the fixing belt. The cooling fan cools the fixing belt and is opposite to the belt at a position downstream of the heating roller and upstream of the nip forming member in the rotational movement direction of the fixing belt. The temperature sensor detects a temperature of the fixing belt and is provided at a position downstream of the cooling fan and upstream of the nip. The controller controls the power supplied to the heater on the basis of an output of the temperature sensor.

Fixing apparatus with a temperature sensor detecting a temperature of a surface of a fixing belt

An image heating apparatus includes a fixing member, a pressing member, a fan, and a controller. When a mixed job including a first image forming step for continuously forming images on recording materials having a first basis weight and including a second image forming step, subsequent to the first image forming step, for continuously forming the images on recording materials having a second basis weight is executed, the controller switches, before a final recording material in the first image forming step completely passes through the nip, the operation of the fan to an operation of the fan for making a temperature of the pressing member higher than the temperature of the pressing member when the images are formed on the recording materials having the first basis weight.

Image heating apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an executing portion for cleaning a rotatable heating member by introducing, into a nip, sheets, of a plurality of sheets, on which a predetermined toner image is formed by an image forming portion, a changing mechanism for making positional relationships of first and second sheets, of the plurality of sheets, relative to the rotatable heating member, different from each other with respect to a widthwise direction of the rotatable heating member when the first and second sheets are successively introduced into the nip in a cleaning mode, and a re-introducing mechanism for re-introducing the first and second sheets into the nip, the first and second sheets having passed through the nip and having been turned upside down, wherein the changing mechanism changes the relative positional relationship of the first and second sheets, which are turned upside down, relative to the rotatable heating member.

Image forming apparatus that executes a cleaning mode in which positional relationships of a first sheet and a second sheet, fed through a fixing nip during a cleaning mode, relative to a rotatable heating member differ from each other

Provided is an electrophotographic member capable of reducing a rise time of a fixing apparatus and preventing occurrence of a defective image due to an electrostatic offset. The electrophotographic member has a substrate, an elastic layer, and a surface layer containing a fluororesin, in this order, the elastic layer has a communication hole of which pores are communicated with each other, and an ionic conductive agent is adhered to an inner wall of the communication hole.

Electrophotographic member, method for manufacturing electrophotographic member, and fixing apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming portion forming a toner image on a sheet, a rotatable heating member and a rotatable pressing member for fixing, at a nip, the toner image formed on the sheet by the image forming portion, an executing portion for executing a cleaning mode for cleaning the rotatable heating member by introducing, into the nip, the sheet on which a predetermined toner image is formed by the image forming portion, a re-introducing mechanism for re-introducing the sheet, into the nip, which has passed through the nip and then has been turned upside down, and a shifting mechanism for shifting a sheet position so that when a single sheet is introduced twice into the nip in the cleaning mode by using the re-introducing mechanism, positional relationships of a first-time sheet and a second-time sheet relative to the rotatable heating member with respect to a widthwise direction of the rotatable heating member are made different from each other.

Growing community of inventors

Kasukabe, Japan

Akiyoshi Shinagawa