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:
Mar. 06, 2018
Filed:
Nov. 23, 2016
Konica Minolta, Inc., Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, JP;
Akira Okamoto, Hino, JP;
Keigo Ogura, Tokyo, JP;
KONICA MINOLTA, INC., Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes a processor and heaters which heat a fixing member of an image fixing device. The processor calculates an application pattern for the heaters based on a temperature of the fixing member and generates a drive voltage by suitably selecting half waves from an AC waveform of an AC power supply according to the application pattern. When a duration of time the drive voltage is applied to a first heater in the application pattern having a duty cycle of a predetermined level or less exceeds a predetermined period of time, (i) the processor turns off the first heater and turns on a second heater with a different distribution, or (ii) the processor increases the duty cycle of the first heater and decreases a duty cycle of the second heater.