Image forming apparatus that discriminates an abnormality in a fixing unit
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorHirofumi Takayama
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes image forming unit for forming an image on a recording material; a fixing unit for heating and fixing the image on the recording material, said fixing unit having a heater for generating heat upon electric energy supply thereto and a temperature detecting element for detecting a temperature; an abnormality detecting unit for discriminating an abnormality of said fixing unit on the basis of an output of said temperature detecting unit; a shutting unit for shutting electric energy supply to said heater; a storing unit for storing an event of discrimination of the abnormality; and an erasing unit for erasing abnormality data stored in said storing unit, when said fixing unit starts up normally upon electric power supply to said apparatus.
Claims5
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- image forming means for forming an image on a recording material;
- fixing means for heating and fixing the image on the recording material, said fixing means having a heater for generating heat upon electric energy supply thereto and a temperature detecting element for detecting a temperature;
- abnormality discriminating means for discriminating an abnormality of said fixing means on the basis of an output of said temperature detecting element after start of electric energy supply to said heater by actuation of a main switch of said apparatus;
- storing means for storing an event of discrimination of the abnormality by said abnormality discriminating means,
- wherein when the main switch is actuated during a time period that said storing means stores the event of discrimination of the abnormality, the electric energy supply is carried out again, and then said abnormality discriminating means discriminates the abnormality;
- a counter for counting a number of consecutive discriminations of an abnormality by said abnormality discriminating means;
- and
- prohibiting means for prohibiting the electric energy supply to said heater by the actuation of the main switch when a count of said counter reaches a predetermined number.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.