Patent Grant
9217972
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fixing device of an image forming apparatus that uses an electrophotographic method or an electrostatic recording method. Examples of the image forming apparatus include printers, such as laser beam printers and LED printers, and digital copiers.
2. Description of the Related Art
A film is used in some fixing devices of electrophotographic image forming apparatuses. Typically, a fixing device of this type includes a film, a heater that is in contact with the film and that heats the film, and a backup member that is in contact with the film and that forms a nip for transporting a recording medium. The fixing device, which uses a film having a small heat capacity, requires only a short warm-up time and has a merit in that it can contribute to reduction of a first print out time (FPOT).
On the other hand, it is known that the fixing device using a film tends to cause a so-called “temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area”, that is, a phenomenon in which the temperature of the sheet-non-passing area is increased considerably when a recording medium having a width smaller than the largest size (hereinafter referred to as a small-sized recording medium) is passed through the fixing device. In order to suppress the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-84919 describes a structure in which a metal plate is in contact with the heater.
With the structure described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-84919, the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area can be suppressed due to the function of the metal plate, which is in contact with the heater over the entire length of the heater. However, when warming up the fixing device, a decrease of the temperature of an end portion of the heater in the longitudinal direction (hereinafter referred to as “end portion temperature decrease”) tends to occur. Due to the end portion temperature decrease, this structure has a problem in that, when fixing is performed on a recording medium having a large size, a fixing failure may occur at the end portion of the recording medium.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a fixing device that fixes a toner image on a recording medium by heating the toner image while conveying the recording medium bearing the toner image at a nip. The fixing device includes a tubular film; a heater, including an elongate substrate and a heat generating resistor formed on the substrate, configured to contact the film, the heater having a first region on which the heat generating resistor is formed and a second region, located outside of the first region in a longitudinal direction of the substrate, on which the heat generating resistor is not formed; and a heat conductive member configured to contact a surface of the heater opposite to a surface of the heater that contacts the film, the heat conductive member having a heat conductivity higher than that of the substrate. The heat conductive member contacts the heater in a region extending across the first region and the second region, and an amount of heat generated by the heat generating resistor at an end portion thereof is greater than an amount of heat generated at a middle portion thereof in the longitudinal direction.
Further features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of exemplary embodiments with reference to the attached drawings.
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described.
Image Forming Apparatus
As illustrated in
A recording medium P is fed from a sheet feed cassette 7 by a feed roller 6 and transported to the transfer nip. The sheet feed cassette 7 includes regulation plates 40 that regulate the positions of both ends of the recording medium in order to transport the recording medium at a predetermined position in the width direction. As described above, a toner image is transferred to the recording medium P, which has been transported to the transfer nip. Subsequently, the recording medium, on which the toner image has been formed, is transported to a fixing device 10, and the fixing device 10 fixes the toner image to the recording medium. Lastly, the recording medium, to which the toner image has been fixed, is output to the outside of the image forming apparatus. The above image forming process can be continuously performed on a plurality of recording media. A laser beam printer according to the present embodiment has a resolution of 600 dpi and a throughput of 40 pages/minute (letter-size longitudinal feed: process speed of about 222 mm/s).
Fixing Device
As illustrated in
The heater 11 includes a substrate 111, a heat generating resistor 112 formed on the substrate 111, and a protective layer 113 that covers and protects the heat generating resistor 112. The substrate 111 is made of alumina or aluminum nitride. The heat generating resistor 112 is formed by screen-printing a silver-palladium alloy or the like on the substrate 111. The protective layer 113 is made of a pressure-resistant glass or the like.
A heat conductive member 30 is in contact with a surface of the heater 11 opposite to a surface that is in contact with the film 13. The material of the heat conductive member 30 may be a metal that has a higher heat conductivity than the substrate 111, such as aluminum, copper, or silver, or a graphite sheet. A flexible graphite sheet having a thickness of 100 μm or less may be used.
A thermistor 14, which is an example of a temperature detector, is disposed on a region of the surface of the heat conductive member 30 opposite to the surface that is in contact with the heater 11, the region corresponding to a sheet-passing area through which a recording medium passes. A controller 8 controls supply of electric power to the heat generating resistor 112 so that the temperature detected by the thermistor 14 becomes a target temperature. In the present embodiment, the heat generating resistor 112 has a resistance of 20Ω (720 W for an input of 120 V).
A support member 12 guides the inner surface of the film 13 while supporting the heater 11 via the heat conductive member 30. The support member 12 is made of a liquid crystal polymer, a phenolic resin, polyether sulfone (PPS), polyphenylene sulfide (PEEK), or the like. The film 13 is loosely fitted onto the support member 12 with a space therebetween, so that the film 13 can rotate in the direction indicated by an arrow.
The film 13, the heater 11, and the support member 12 are unitized into a film unit.
The pressure roller 20 includes a metal core 21, an elastic layer 22 formed around the metal core 21, and a release layer 24 formed around the elastic layer 22. A bonding layer 23 may be disposed between the elastic layer 22 and the release layer 24. The metal core 21 is made of a metal material, such as aluminum or iron. The elastic layer 22 is made by foaming a heat-resistant rubber, such as silicone rubber or fluorocarbon resin rubber. The release layer 24 is made by covering or coating a tube that is made of a fluorocarbon resin in which particles of a conductive agent, such as carbon or the like, are diffused. The bonding layer 23 is formed by applying an RTV silicone rubber to the outer surface of the elastic layer 22.
In the present embodiment, the pressure roller 20 has an outer diameter of 20 mm and a roller hardness of 48° (Asker-C 600 g weight); and the heatproof temperature of the pressure roller is 250° C.
The film unit is pressed against the pressure roller 20 at both ends thereof in the longitudinal direction by a pressing mechanism (not shown). The heater 11 forms a nip in cooperation with the pressure roller 20 with the film 13 therebetween. The nip has a width needed to perform a fixing operation. The pressure roller 20 is rotated in the direction indicated by an arrow in
Next, referring to
Next, specific examples will be described. Table 1 shows the result of evaluating the end portion fixing performance, the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area, and the fixing performance when sheets are continuously passed, for the structures of comparative example 1, comparative example 2, and example 1, which will be described below.
In each of comparative example 1, comparative example 2, and example 1, an aluminum plate is sandwiched between the heater 11 and the support member 12. As illustrated in
Next, the evaluation conditions will be described. The evaluation of the end portion fixing performance was performed by comparing recording media in which the degree of toner flaking at an end of an image was the worst when 200 sheets of Xx4200 (75 g/m2, letter) were passed. As a test pattern, a pattern of 2d/3s horizontal lines was used. The evaluation of the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area was performed by comparing the highest values of the surface temperature of the sheet-non-passing area of the pressure roller 20 when 200 sheets of Oce Red Label (80 g/m2, A4) were passed. The evaluation of the fixing performance when sheets are continuously passed was performed by comparing the performance of fixing a halftone image (50%) on the 200th sheet when 200 sheets of Oce Red Label (80 g/m2, A4) were passed.
These evaluations were performed under the following conditions: a temperature of 20° C., a humidity of 50%, a target temperature of 210° C., a process speed of 230 mm/sec, and a throughput of 40 pages/minute.
As shown in Table 1, in comparative example 1, although the end portion fixing performance was good, the surface temperature of an end portion of the pressure roller increased to 240° C. As a result, the effect of suppressing the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area was not sufficient. Moreover, the fixing performance when sheets are continuously passed was not good. The mechanism behind such a result will be described below. The graph in the lower part of
In comparative example 2, the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area and the fixing performance when sheets are continuously passed were good. However, the end portion fixing performance was not sufficient. The mechanism behind such a result will be described below.
In example 1, the end portion fixing performance, the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area, and the fixing performance when sheets are continuously passed were all good. The reason for this is considered as follows. As illustrated in
Accordingly, the fixing device according to the first embodiment has an advantage in that the fixing device can suppress temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area while maintaining the end portion fixing performance and in that the fixing device does not give great influence on the fixing performance when sheets are continuously passed.
The heater 11 according to the present embodiment includes only the heat generating resistor 112. However, the heater 11 may include two or more heat generating resistors that have different heat generation distributions, which can be changed by independently controlling the heat generating resistors. The heat conductive member 30 according to the present embodiment is longer than the heat generating resistor 112. However, the heat conductive member 30 may have the same length as the heat generating resistor, and the ends of the heat conductive member 30 in the longitudinal direction may be at the same positions as the ends of the heat generating resistor. Also in this case, the same advantage can be obtained.
The structure of the fixing device according to the present embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment except for the aluminum plate. Therefore, descriptions of elements other than the aluminum plate will be omitted.
With the structure of the present embodiment, regarding the end portion fixing performance and the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area, an advantage equivalent to that of the first embodiment was obtained. In the second embodiment, the thickness of the end portion of the aluminum plate 302, whose length is larger than that of the first embodiment, is reduced. Therefore, the heat capacity of the end portion is not considerably different from that of the heat conductive member 30 of the first embodiment. Therefore, the end portion fixing performance is not impaired. Regarding the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area, although the thermal contact resistance of the end portion of the aluminum plate 302 due to contact with the heater 11, having the thickness D, is increased, the amount of heat that flows out of the sheet-non-passing area does not considerably change, because the length of the end portion is increased. Thus, because heat of the sheet-non-passing area flows to the sheet-passing area (inside area) and the end portion (outside area) as in the first embodiment, the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area is suppressed. A characteristic of the second embodiment is that the fixing performance when sheets are continuously passed is better than that of the first embodiment. The reason for this is that, because the length of the end portion of the aluminum plate 302 in the longitudinal direction is greater than that of the first embodiment, heat of the sheet-non-passing area more easily flows from the sheet-passing area to the end portion (outside area), which is further away from the sheet-passing area. In other words, because heat of the sheet-non-passing area flows to the end portion (outside), which is further away from the sheet-passing area, flow of heat into the sheet-passing area is suppressed.
As a modification of the second embodiment, an aluminum plate 303 may be used in which the thickness of each end portion in the longitudinal direction is reduced and the width of the end portion is reduced.
As described above, the second embodiment and the modification of the second embodiment not only have an advantage in that the temperature rise of sheet-non-passing area can be suppressed while maintaining the end portion fixing performance as in the first embodiment but also have an advantage in that the fixing performance when sheets are continuously passed can be made better than that of the first embodiment.
In the first and second embodiments, the heater is in contact with the inner surface of the film and forms a transport nip, for transporting a recording medium, in cooperation with the backup member. However, it is not necessary that the heater, which is in contact with the inner surface of the film, form a transport nip. Alternatively, the backup member may form a transport nip in cooperation with a nip forming member that is different from the heater and that is in contact with the inner surface of the film. The heater may be an external heater that is in contact with an outer surface of the film, and the backup member may form a transport nip in cooperation with a nip forming member that is in contact with the inner surface of the film.
While the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments. The scope of the following claims is to be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent structures and functions.
This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No. 2014-054180, filed Mar. 17, 2014, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-054180 | Mar 2014 | JP | national |
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