Konica Minolta, Inc.

Yu Harashima

Masashi Saito

Taizou Oonishi

Kazunori Nishinoue

Tsutomu Sakamaki

An image forming apparatus including: an image former that forms an image on a recording material; includes a fixer that has a first fixing member having an elastic layer, a second fixing member that forms a fixing nip with the first fixing member, and an external heater that heats the first fixing member from outside, and fixes the image on the recording material by heating and pressing the conveyed recording material at the fixing nip; and a hardware processor that executes a thermal expansion mode, in which in the thermal expansion mode, the hardware processor causes the external heater to heat the first fixing member to a temperature higher than a temperature during normal printing.

Image forming apparatus

Provided is an image forming apparatus including a transfer mechanism which transfers a toner image formed on a photosensitive member onto a transfer receiving member, wherein the transfer mechanism includes a conductive member having resistance whose current-voltage characteristic changes by energization, and the image forming apparatus further includes a detector which detects a resistance value when currents or voltages of two or more levels are switched from one to another and applied to the conductive member, and a hardware processor which computes a slope of the current-voltage characteristic from the resistance value detected by the detector and determines a deterioration state of the conductive member by the slope.

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Hino, Japan

Yu Harashima