IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS, MOISTURE CONTENT DETECTOR AND SENSOR FOR IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming apparatus closely identifying moisture contents on a surface layer of a recording medium to which an image is to be formed with high responsiveness and high accuracy and then feeding it back to processing condition.

SOLUTION: The moisture contents in sheet materials 1 being moved are detected by installing a sensor unit part 109 in a transporting path of the sheet materials 150 in the image forming apparatus. Air in the vicinity of the surface of the sheet materials 150 is stripped off by an air conducting duct 108 and guided to an air exhausting opening 104. A heat conduction type humidity sensor (heat conductivity sensor 101) with a heat sensitive resistor formed by MEMS (micro electromechanical system) technique is installed at the air exhausting opening 104 and the humidity is detected. The moisture contents on the surface layer of the sheet materials 150 is estimated from an output from the heat conductivity sensor 101 by a control part 120, and the processing condition corresponding to the moisture contents is set in an image forming process part.

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