Konica Corporation

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica Minolta Technosearch Co., Ltd.

Hidetoshi Katayanagi

Toshiki Hayami

Hajime Tanaka

Masashi Saito

Shigetaka Kurosu

Masami Maruko

Naohiko Hanyu

Masashi Sonoyama

Yoshikazu Kuribayashi

Hisayoshi Nagase

Junichi Hamada

Makoto Fujii

Masahiro Onodera

Hiroshi Funabiki

Mikihiko Takada

Hiroyuki Maeda

Kazunori Katada

Etsuaki Urano

Hirotaka Kanou

Tetsuko Kurosu

Miho Toyoda

Tomoya Sato

Tomohiro Takagi

A fixing device fixes a toner image onto a piece of paper by conveying the piece of paper formed with the toner image while nipping the piece of paper at a fixing nip, and includes: an endless belt that is rotated; a pressing member that presses the belt; a support member that supports the pressing member; a sheet wound around the pressing member along the conveyance direction; and a pressurizing member that forms the fixing nip with the belt, wherein a part of an upstream region of the sheet existing more on an upstream side in a winding direction than a contact region contacting the belt and the pressing member and a part of a downstream region of the sheet existing more on a downstream side in the winding direction than the contact region are interposed between the pressing member and the support member, and are fixed by pressing force.

Fixing device and image forming apparatus

A fuser for fixing an unfixed toner image on a recording material includes: an endless belt body heated by a heat source; a pressing body moved to be connected to and disconnected from an inner peripheral surface of the belt body; a pressure roller member making pressure-contact with the pressing body through the belt body; a tension body moved to be connected to and disconnected from the inner peripheral surface of the belt body, contrary to the connection and disconnection movement of the pressing body; and a rotation transmitting unit configured to transmit a rotational force of the pressure roller member to the belt body using the tension body, while the pressing body is separated from and the tension body makes contact with the inner peripheral surface of the belt body.

Fuser and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a first rotary body; a second rotary body provided to face the first rotary body, wherein the first rotary body and the second rotary body form a nip portion by coming in contact with each other to rotate, at which a sheet bearing a toner image is conveyed while being heated and pressed, thereby fixing the toner image onto the sheet; a first nozzle which blows air to a first air blowing position established on a circumferential surface of the first rotary body and on a side of an outlet of the nip portion; and a second nozzle which blows air to a second air blowing position established on a circumferential surface of the second rotary body and established downstream of the first air blowing position in a traveling direction of the sheet.

Image forming apparatus for forming an image on a sheet at a nip portion formed by rotary bodies

A fixing device includes: a heating section; and a press section which presses the heating section and thereby forms a fixing nip section, wherein at least one of the heating section and the press section comprises, an endless fixing belt; a press member which presses the fixing belt to the fixing nip; and a sliding sheet covering the press member, wherein the sliding sheet is wider than the fixing belt; projections are provided at a first area which is inside of an end part of the press member of a surface of the sliding sheet in the width direction; and projections lower than the projections provided at the first area are provided at a second area which is near the end of the fixing belt of the surface of the sliding sheet, or projections are not provided at all at the second area.

A gloss difference control method includes: forming a predetermined image on a sheet in each of a plurality of image forming apparatuses connected to a network; measuring a glossiness of the image formed on each sheet; and controlling a gloss difference among the plurality of image forming apparatuses by changing a gloss adjustment parameter of each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses, based on a plurality of the measured glossiness.

Gloss difference control in a plurality of networked image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus including: a black developing unit accommodating black toner; and at least one color developing unit accommodating color toner. The black toner has a softening point higher than that of the at least one color toner and contains a release agent at a percentage higher than that of the at least one color toner.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An image forming apparatus includes: a heating unit; a pressure roller; a separation roller whose diameter is smaller than the pressure roller's one; a belt which connects the pressure roller and the separation roller to form a pressure unit, wherein the pressure roller presses the heating unit through the belt to fix a toner image on a sheet of paper passing through a nip between the heating unit and the pressure unit, wherein the separation roller is located such that a direction of the belt from the pressure roller to the separation roller coincides with a tangent to an imaginary circle which the pressure roller forms at the nip or is on a pressure roller side with respect to the tangent.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus is provided with a fixing section, including a heating member, a pressing member, in which the heating member and the pressing member are arranged to form a nipping section therebetween, and a belt member inserted through the nipping section for fixing a toner image on a recordig sheet by conveying the recording sheet through the nipping section; and a control section for controlling the fixing section and obtaining recording sheet information with respect to at least one of a plurality of conditions. The pressig member includes a plurality of pressing heads differing in shape and with respect to at least one of a plurality of characteristics, and the control section selects one of the plurality of pressing heads in accordance with the recording sheet information and controls the fixing section to press the recording sheet through the belt member with the selected one of the plurality of pressing heads.

Image forming apparatus with a fixing device employing a plurality of pressing members

An image forming apparatus having a fixing device for fixing toner including wax on a transfer sheet including a fixing rotating member for fixing toner on the transfer sheet with a rotation thereof, and first cleaning member contacting to the fixing rotating member so as to remove melted wax on the fixing rotating member. A surface roughness Rz of the first cleaning member is not more than 1.6 &#x3bc;m.

Image forming apparatus having a fixing device for fixing toner including wax on a transfer sheet

The fixing apparatus prevents transfer paper from sticking or jamming. This fixing apparatus is intended to fix polymerized toner on transfer material and has a heating roller and a pressure roller. The difference in hardness between the heating roller and pressure roller is 5 through 10 degrees in AskerC, and the hardness of the pressure roller is higher than that of the heating roller. A fixing nip portion, convex-shaped on the side closest to the heating roller, is formed between the heating roller and pressure roller and the nip pressure of the fixing nip portion is 24.5 N/cm or more.

Fixing apparatus

An image forming apparatus equipped with a heat fixing device includes a heating member having an elastic layer on a substrate and a fluorine resin coated on the elastic layer, a pressure member having a substrate covered with a fluorine resin tube through an elastic layer or without the elastic layer in pressure contact with the heating member, and at least one heater as a heat source. The surface roughness of the fluorine resin of the heating member is greater than the surface roughness of the fluorine resin tube of the pressure member.

Fixing device with specific surface roughness

An image-forming apparatus is provided which primarily transfers a toner image onto an intermediate transfer member, and then secondarily transfers the toner image from the intermediate transfer member onto a transfer material, wherein a controller controls the process so that when the image forming apparatus stops, a toner image pattern &#x3b1; formed on a non-image area of a photoconductive member is prevented from causing image problems.

Image-forming apparatus for obtaining clean images

A fixing apparatus includes a fixing roller, a fixing belt forming a nip between them, a heat source for heating at least one of the rollers, wherein a recording medium carrying an unfixed toner image passes through the nip to perform fixing operation, and a flattener having a conveyance roller and a pressure contact member which is in pressure contact with the conveyance roller, which is provided downstream in the conveying direction of the recording medium of the nip. A convex shape of the nip formed by the fixing roller and the fixing belt, and a convex shape of a nip of the flattener formed by the conveyance roller and the pressure contact member are arranged to have opposite directions to each other, when viewed from a direction perpendicular to the conveyance direction of the recording medium.

Fixing apparatus equipped with sheet flattener

A fixing device for use in an image forming apparatus capable of forming both-side images on a sheet by using a sheet reversing and conveying device. The fixing device has a heat applying rotary body with an elastic layer made of rubber and a toner releasing layer on top thereof, for coming into contact with and heating a side bearing an unfixed toner image of a transfer sheet; a pressure applying rotary body with an elastic layer made of rubber and a toner releasing layer on top thereof, for fixing and conveying the transfer material by coming into pressure contact and rotating with the heat applying rotary body; a drive source for driving one of the rotary bodies; and a heat applying source for heating one of the rotary bodies. The pressure applying rotary body has a micro-hardness smaller than that of the heat applying rotary body.

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Tokyo, Japan

Hidetoshi Katayanagi