Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Sharp Labushiki Kaisha

Tomiyuki Ishikawa

Takashi Kubo

Toshiki Ohgita

Hideo Matsuda

Hidetoshi Kaneko

Yoshiaki Masuda

Tokiyuki Okano

Kazunori Soda

Kazunori Iwasa

Nobuyuki Ueda

Yasuhiro Ono

Masato Tokishige

Kiyoshi Inamoto

Atsushi Kurimoto

Syuichi Yoshinaka

An electrophotographic apparatus is provided with a fixing device having the first through third fixing rollers for forming the first fixing section by contacting the first and second fixing rollers as well as forming the second fixing section by contacting the second and third fixing rollers, the first fixing section being temperature-adjusted in relation to a first copying mode, the second fixing section being temperature-adjusted in relation to a second copying mode. Either the first or second fixing section is temperature-adjusted according to the order of priority in such a manner that after the completion of the temperature adjustments, temperature adjustments with respect to the other fixing section is successively carried out.

Electrophotographic apparatus having two fixing sections and control

A copying machine as an example of electrophotographic printing machines is composed of a main body which permits both black-and-white copying and full color copying, and a reverse and retransport unit provided under the main body, for reversing and retransporting a sheet after being copied on one surface thereof to the main body. The main body has a fixing means including upper and lower fixing portions formed between three heat rollers. The lower fixing portion placed closer to the reverse and retransport unit is associated with the black-and-white copying, and the upper fixing portion is associated with the full color copying. Upper and lower discharge transport paths for discharging the sheet out of the device are provided so as to respectively extend from the upper and lower fixing portions. Further, a retransport path is provided so as to extend from the lower fixing portion. Since the above three paths are provided without having any crossing point, the structure of the paths is simplified. Furthermore, when carrying out a black-and-white copying on one surface of the sheet and a color copying on the other surface, the black-and-white copying is carried out first, thereby eliminating the problem of the sheet being stuck in the device.

Electrophotographic printing machine providing both monochrome and color

Growing community of inventors

Yamatokoriyama, Japan

Tomiyuki Ishikawa