Patent ID: 7813660

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a feeding unit adapted to feed a sheet; an image forming unit adapted to form an image on an image carrier; a transfer unit adapted to transfer, to the sheet, the image formed on the image carrier; a fixing unit adapted to fix the transferred image onto the sheet; a temperature detection unit adapted to detect a temperature of said fixing unit; a feeding interval changing portion adapted to widen a feeding interval between sheets fed by said feeding unit, when said temperature detection unit detects that the temperature of said fixing unit falls outside a set temperature range; an adjustment portion adapted to execute adjustment processing to form on the image carrier an adjusting image for adjusting an image forming condition, and adjust the image forming condition on the basis of a result of reading the adjusting image; and a determination portion adapted to determine a timing to execute the adjustment processing by comparing the number of images formed after executing a recent adjustment processing with a reference value, wherein when said temperature detection unit detects that the temperature of said fixing unit falls outside the set temperature range, said determination portion changes the reference value so that a timing to be determined when said temperature detection unit detects that the temperature of said fixing unit falls outside the set temperature range is earlier than a timing to be determined when said temperature detection unit detects that the temperature of said fixing unit does not exceed the set temperature range.