Hydraulic wide nip flex sleeve fuser

摘要

An apparatus including a fixing assembly for fixing an image onto a medium as the medium travels in a path through the assembly, the fixing assembly having a wide nip along the path of travel of the medium formed by a pair of nip forming rollers, at least one of which rollers contains a hydraulic fluid and maybe heated. The hydraulic roller has an aluminum core encased in a sealed stainless steel flexible hydraulic sleeve. In the space between the core and sleeve of each roller is a pressurized fluid. The apparatus also has a hydraulic piston for pressurizing the fluid.