Patent ID: 9116479
Filing Date: 2015-08-25
Classification: G03G

Abstract:
1. A fixing control device which controls a fixing device including a plurality of heaters to fix an image based on image data to a recording material, the fixing control device comprising: an image detection unit configured to determine presence or absence of the image in each of a plurality of areas obtained by division of an image formation region in which the image is formed; a heater selection unit configured to select, from the plurality of heaters, heaters at positions corresponding to areas in which the presence of the image is determined; a heating amount computation unit configured to compute a heating amount of a heating area heated by each of the selected heaters in a fixing region corresponding to the image formation region; a change amount computation unit configured to compute an amount of change of the heating amount between adjoining ones of the heating areas; a heating amount correction unit configured to correct one of the heating amounts of the adjoining heating areas so that the amount of change after the correction is less than a set threshold; and a heater drive unit configured to supply a drive signal of a set period to each of the plurality of heaters and turn ON and OFF power supply to each of the plurality of heaters by the drive signal, wherein each of the heating areas in the fixing region is an area heated by a heater when the drive signal of one period is supplied to the heater, and the change amount computation unit computes an amount of change of the heating amounts of the adjoining heating areas in a sub-scanning direction, and wherein the plurality of heaters are arranged in a line in a main scanning direction, the heating amount computation unit computes a sum of the heating amounts of the heating areas heated by the plurality of heaters, and the change amount computation unit computes a difference between a sum of the heating amounts of the heating areas during an N-th period of the drive signal and a sum of the heating amounts of the heating areas during an (N+1)-th period of the drive signal.