Appeal No. 1998-2142 Page 2
Application No. 08/125,189
conventionally used for thermal fixing. Such a device
comprises a hollow metal roller coated with a fluorine-based
resin or silicon rubber. A heater lamp is disposed in the
hollow of the roller. A current is supplied to the lamp such
that radiative heat therefrom is absorbed by the internal wall
of the roller, thereby heating the entire roller to a
temperature required for fixing. When a recording medium,
e.g., paper, having an unfixed toner image is passed between
the heating roller and a pressure roller, the toner image is
fixed to the medium by heat and pressure.
Unfortunately, the conventional heating roller suffers
several problems. The high heat capacity of the heating
roller lengthens the time needed to heat the roller to the
required temperature. Heating the entire metal roller to and
maintaining the required temperature consumes much power.
Furthermore, the large amount of generated heat and leakage
thereof raises the temperature inside the heating roller. In
addition, the difficulty of accurately controlling the
temperature when fixing reduces the quality of the resultant
image.
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