Image forming apparatus and method
AssigneeToshiba Tec Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorSatoshi Hasegawa
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming device, a heater, and a controller. The image forming device is configured to generate a laser scanning beam based on the image data to form a toner image on a sheet. The heater is configured to heat the sheet. The heater includes heater elements arranged in a direction corresponding to the main scanning direction of the laser scanning. The controller is configured to selectively control the heater elements to be energized at an energization start timing based on the image data and a signal from the image forming device indicating a start of scanning by the laser scanning beam in the main scanning direction.
Claims20
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image forming device configured to receive image data and control a laser scanning beam based on the image data to form a toner image on a sheet;
- a heater configured to heat the sheet, the heater including a plurality of heater elements arranged in direction corresponding to a main scanning direction of the laser scanning beam;
- and
- a controller configured to:
- count a number of exposure pixels in each of a plurality of sub-image regions based on the image data, the sub-image regions corresponding to divisions of an image region in the main scanning direction and a sub-scanning direction;
- and
- selectively control the heater elements to be energized at an energization timing based on the counted number of exposure pixels in each of the sub-image regions and a signal from the image forming device indicating a start of scanning of the laser scanning beam in the main scanning direction.
A method for controlling an image forming apparatus including:
- an image forming device configured to receive image data and control a laser scanning beam based on the image data to form a toner image on a sheet;
- a heater configured to heat the sheet, the heater including a plurality of heater elements arranged in a direction corresponding to a main scanning direction of the laser scanning beam;
- and
- a controller configured to selectively control the heater elements to be energized at an energization timing based on the image data and a signal from the image forming device indicating a start of scanning of the laser scanning beam in the main scanning direction, the method comprising:
- counting a number of exposure pixels in each of a plurality of sub-image regions based on the image data, the sub-image regions corresponding to divisions of an image region in the main scanning direction and a sub-scanning direction;
- and
- selecting a heater element to be energized at an energization timing based on the counted number of exposure pixels in each of the sub-image regions and a signal from the image forming device indicating a start of scanning of the laser scanning beam in the main scanning direction.
An image forming apparatus, comprising:
- an image forming device configured to receive image data and transfer a toner image to a sheet, the toner image corresponding to the image data and being formed from an electrostatic latent image formed on a photoconductive by selectively exposing the photoconductive drum to a laser beam scanned along the photoconductive drum in a main-scanning direction while the photoconductive drum rotates in a sub-scanning direction;
- a fixing device configured to receive the sheet from the image forming device and heat the sheet with the toner image thereon, the fixing device including a plurality of heater elements arranged adjacently along a direction corresponding to the main-scanning direction;
- and
- an engine controller configured to control the fixing device so as to selectively control the heater elements to be energized at an energization timing based on the image data and a beam detection signal from the image forming device indicating a start of a scanning of the laser beam across the photoconductive drum in the main-scanning direction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.