Compliant hard fusing pressure roller for reducing media curl and wave in electrophotographic printers

Abstract

A compliant hard fusing pressure roller for reducing media curl and wave in electrophotographic printers as part of an improved fuser apparatus. The improved fuser consists of the standard components of a fuser, namely of a heated fuser roller and one or more pressure rollers. The pressure roller is constructed with a central rotation shaft with a cylindrical deformable material such as silicone rubber is formed around the central rotation shaft. However, a cylindrical hard outer shell is formed around the deformable material. The compliant hard pressure roller exerts a tangential force toward the fuser roller. Because the outer hard shell of the compliant hard pressure roller is formed from a malleable type material, it provides some compliance and therefor deforms slightly from roundness for small, sharp errors in the fuser roller or media. Larger errors such as out of roundness, or miss alignment between the compliant hard pressure roller and the fuser roller, are absorbed by the cylindrical deformable material. Both the pressure and heated fuser rollers are rotated about their respective axis. The printed media is compressed between the pressure roller and the heated fuser roller thereby fusing the image onto the printed media while the media is transported within the printer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.