Wet-type image forming apparatus with adjusting device to adjust amount of carrier liquid contained in toner image

摘要

An infiltration amount measuring unit is provided to measure the amount of carrier liquid infiltrated in recording paper. An output signal of the infiltration amount measuring unit is input to a control device to be used to calculate a voltage supplied to a heat source (heater) in a pre-fixing unit. A signal of a paper temperature measuring unit is input to the control device, which determines whether a target temperature is reached. The control device estimates the amount of carrier liquid in a toner layer based on the information from the infiltration amount measuring unit. Then, the pre-fixing unit is controlled such that the amount of carrier liquid in the toner layer falls within an appropriate range, based on the estimation result of the amount of carrier liquid.

主权项

1. A wet-type image forming apparatus which forms an image using a liquid developer containing carrier liquid and toner dispersed therein, comprising:
a fixing device structured to fix a toner image formed by development using the liquid developer onto an image recording medium; a first measuring device structured to carry out measurement for obtaining information corresponding to an amount of the carrier liquid infiltrated into the image recording medium before the image recording medium passes through the fixing device; and an adjusting device structured to adjust an amount of the carrier liquid contained in the toner image on the image recording medium by heating based on a result of the measurement carried out by the first measuring device, the adjusting device comprising:
a first heating device structured to heat the image recording medium, anda controlling device structured to determine heating conditions of the first heating device based on the result of the measurement for obtaining the information corresponding to the amount of the carrier liquid infiltrated into the image recording medium before the image recording medium passes through the fixing device.