Patent ID: 7787783

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image forming section which is provided in the image forming apparatus main unit and forms a toner image on a transported sheet; a fixing section which has a fixing member including a heat source and a pressure member provided with being opposed to the fixing member and fixes the toner image on the sheet; a coupling unit which electrically couples the image forming apparatus main unit and the fixing section to each other and can detect the mounting/dismounting condition of the fixing section, the coupling unit comprises a pair of connectors which couples the image forming apparatus main unit and the fixing equipment to each other, has a loop harness in the connector of the fixing equipment side and enables the mounting/dismounting condition of the fixing equipment to be detected via the loop harness when the pair of connectors is connected; first and second temperature detection elements which detect the temperatures of various portions of the fixing equipment; a temperature control circuit which controls the energization condition to the heat source depending on the temperature detection results by the first and second temperature detection elements; and an energization stopping circuit which stops the energization of the heat source if a temperature beyond a predetermined temperature range is detected by either the first or second temperature detection element, if the coupling unit is disconnected, or if the second temperature detection element is broken.