Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Keita Ishiguro

Masanobu Tanaka

Asuna Fukamachi

Oki Kitagawa

Yasuharu Toratani

Suguru Takeuchi

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit, a fixing unit, a sheet discharge unit to stack sheets, an acquisition unit, and a controller. The fixing unit fixes a toner image formed on a sheet by the image forming unit. The acquisition unit acquires information corresponding to a maximum toner application amount per unit area of the formed toner image. The controller controls the number of image formations on the sheets per unit time based on the acquired information. The controller executes a first job with a first number of image formations on the sheets per unit time during a period from an Lth sheet to an Mth sheet in the first job, and executes a second job with a second and smaller number of image formations on the sheets per unit time during the period from the Lth to the Mth sheet in the second job.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming portion configured to form a toner image on a recording material; an endless belt and a roller which are configured to form a nip therebetween for fixing, on the recording material, the toner image formed by the image forming portion; a pad configured to urge the endless belt from an inside of the endless belt toward the roller; a motor configured to drive the roller; an acquiring portion configured to acquire a starting torque when rotation of the roller is started; and a discriminating portion configured to discriminate a lifetime of the endless belt depending on the starting torque acquired by the acquiring portion.

A fixing device includes first and second rotatable members that form a nip for fixing a toner image on a recording material, and a pressing mechanism that presses one of the first and second rotatable members toward the other. A pressure P1 at a first position, in an upstream side of a center of a recording material feeding direction, and which is a maximum pressure in the nip, an average pressure P0 from the first position to a second position, which is a downstream end of the nip in the recording material feeding direction, a toner melt viscosity M1 at the first position, and a toner melt viscosity M2 at the second position, satisfy: 0.3 MPa&#x2264;P1&#x2264;0.6 MPa, 0&#x3c;P0&#x2264;0.25 MPa, 1.0&#xd7;10Pa&#xb7;s&#x2264;M1&#x3c;1.0&#xd7;10Pa&#xb7;s, and 0.5&#xd7;10Pa&#xb7;s&#x2264;M2&#x2264;1.0&#xd7;10Pa&#xb7;s.

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Kawasaki, Japan

Keita Ishiguro