The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 07, 2007
Filed:
Apr. 14, 2005
Kunihiko Tomita, Hadano, JP;
Kunihiko Tomita, Hadano, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
The object of the present invention is to provide an image fixing apparatus which enables achieving saving of energy in fixing by controlling the temperature of a heater to fix a toner image on a recording medium, an image forming apparatus having the image fixing apparatus therein, and an image forming process using the same. To achieve the object, there is provided an image fixing apparatus which includes a heater having a heat source to generate heat; a fixing belt which moves in a direction to which a recording medium is transported in a state where the belt comes into contact with the heater; and a pressing portion which presses the transported recording medium with a toner image carried thereon on an area of the fixing belt which comes into contact with the heater, and is characterized in that the contact surface of the heater which comes into contact with the fixing belt has a smoothly formed convex toward the side which comes into contact with the fixing belt with a curvature radius of 200 mm to 100,000 mm, and an amount of contact time between the fixing belt and the recording medium is 20 msec. or more.