Patent ID: 7783239

Claim:
A fuser unit for an image forming apparatus which provides a fixing function of fusing a toner and fixing it on a recording sheet, the fuser unit comprising: a fuser roller; a web cleaning member that abuts on the fuser roller, and cleans its peripheral surface; a press roller that presses the fuser roller via the cleaning member abutting on said peripheral surface of the fuser roller, and forms a cleaning nip portion which is an area where the cleaning member is pressed against the fuser roller; a feed roller that feeds said cleaning member provided in an originally wound state; a wind roller that winds the cleaning member therearound, which is fed from the feed roller and passes through said cleaning nip portion; and a controller that actuates the fixing function before an image formation is performed by the image forming apparatus, stops it after said image formation is performed, and rotates and stops the wind roller and/or the feed roller to control a winding quantity of the cleaning member, wherein said controller calculates a toner image amount based on a prescribed number of pages by tracking from a page on which an image is formed just before the image formation is completed, and controls so that when the calculated toner image amount is a predetermined amount or more, said cleaning member is wound around the wind roller during a non-fixing period after completing the image formation until next actuating the fixing function, and when said calculated toner image amount is less than the prescribed toner image amount, said cleaning member is not wound around the wind roller during said non-fixing period; and said controller further rotates the wind roller during said image formation, and said prescribed number of the pages is the number of pages on which the toner is fixed while a length of the cleaning member corresponding to a length of said cleaning nip portion is wound around the wind roller during said image formation.