JP2014235324A - Fixing device and image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

An object of the present invention is to suppress edge traces on a surface of a pressure rotator corresponding to an end in a width direction of a recording material and maintain a fixed image with high quality. In a fixing device that fixes an unfixed toner image carried on a conveyed paper Pa during conveyance between a fixing belt 43 and a pressure roller 44 that are in pressure contact with each other, the circumference of the pressure roller 44 is fixed. A contact member 442 that is a part of the surface and contacts a portion corresponding to an end in the width direction of the paper Pa to be conveyed is provided. [Selection] Figure 2

Description

  The present invention relates to a fixing device that heats and fixes an unfixed toner image carried on the surface of a recording material, and an electrophotographic system such as a copying machine, a printer, a facsimile having such a fixing device, and a multifunction machine having these functions. The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus.

  The image forming apparatus includes a fixing device that fixes an unfixed toner image carried on a sheet surface to a sheet. The fixing device includes a fixing roller heated to a predetermined temperature and a pressure roller pressed against the fixing roller, and pressurizes while nipping and conveying the sheet at a nip portion formed at a position where both the rollers are pressed against each other. By heating in the state, the unfixed toner image is fixed on the paper.

  In recent years, a fixing roller and a pressure roller have been made into soft rollers in order to meet the demand for higher image quality and higher copy speed. When employing a soft roller, it is known that the state of the roller surface greatly affects the formed image. By the way, due to peeling of paper dust adhered to both ends of the paper in the width direction, paper edge traces are generated on portions of the peripheral surface of the fixing roller corresponding to both ends of the paper in the width direction. Since traces may be transferred in a streak pattern to the next large-size sheet, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-151867 discloses that fixing is performed when the sheet size is changed in order to remove the transfer of the sheet edge trace. There has been proposed a technique relating to a cleaning means for cleaning a paper edge trace by abutting against a roller.

Japanese Patent No. 4715572

  On the other hand, the pressure roller generally includes a base that is a conductive cylinder, and a surface on which a highly conductive elastic layer containing a metal oxide such as carbon as a filler is formed. Thus, every time the paper is nipped and conveyed, it has been found that the portion of the elastic layer of the pressure roller that is in contact with both ends in the width direction of the paper is gradually scraped. In addition to the problem of transfer of the paper dust, there is a possibility that discontinuity occurs in the surface width direction (hereinafter, the transferred paper powder and discontinuity are collectively referred to as an edge trace). Patent Document 1 discloses that a dedicated cleaning means is provided for cleaning paper dust and the like that has been peeled off from the paper and adhered to the fixing roller (fixing belt) side. Since the cause of the discontinuity is not necessarily the same as that on the heating roller side, no measures are taken.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above, and suppresses the generation of the edge trace caused by the nipping and conveying of the recording material on the surface of the heating rotator or the pressure rotator, thereby fixing one or both sides of the recording material. An object of the present invention is to provide a fixing device and an image forming apparatus that maintain an image with high quality.

  The present invention has a heating rotator that rotates about rotation axes parallel to each other and a pressure rotator that presses against the heating rotator, and is carried on the surface of the recording material during conveyance between the two rotators. In a fixing device for fixing an unfixed toner image, a part of the peripheral surface of the heating rotator or the pressure rotator and corresponding to an end portion in the rotation axis direction of the recording material to be conveyed An abutting member that abuts is provided.

  According to this configuration, an unfixed toner image carried on a sheet-like recording material surface such as paper is pressed while passing through a pressure contact portion between a heating rotator and a pressure rotator of the fixing device, for example. It is fixed by being heated while being done. Paper dust or the like when cutting into a regular size is generally attached to the end face of the recording material. Further, by the nipping and conveying at the press contact portion, the portion corresponding to the end portion in the width direction of the recording material on the peripheral surface of the pressure rotator is scraped or peeled off, and the surface property of the rotating shaft direction is improved. Discontinuity occurs (the edge trace is a combination of the adhesion of paper dust and the surface discontinuity). Therefore, an edge mark is generated at a part corresponding to the end of the recording material on a part of the circumferential surface of the pressure rotating body. However, since the edge trace is relaxed or leveled by abutting the abutting member on this part, even if an unfixed toner image such as a solid image is carried on this part, it is caused by the edge trace. The occurrence of a defective image (for example, a streaky image or a partial gloss difference in a solid image) is suppressed, and a high-quality fixed image is maintained.

  Further, the contact member is at least in a portion corresponding to an end portion in the rotation axis direction of a recording material other than a recording material having a maximum size corresponding to the rotation axis direction among recording materials of different sizes that can be conveyed. It is characterized by being in contact. According to this configuration, when the size of the recording material is changed to a larger size, the edge trace suppression process is executed more effectively.

  In addition, the contact member extends to a portion of the recording material of the smallest size among the recording materials that can be transported to the inside of both ends in the rotational axis direction, and the recording material transport direction of the both rotating bodies. It is abutted like a counter with respect to the rotation direction of the pressure rotator on the downstream side. According to this configuration, the contact member also has a function of separating the recording material from the minimum size to the maximum size that can be transported that has passed through the pressure rotator from the pressure rotator. The member can be omitted, and the size can be reduced. Moreover, the same effect is obtained by using the peeling member which peels a recording material from the said pressurization rotary body as a contact member.

  Further, the contact member is characterized in that PFA (chemical name: perfluoroalkoxyalkane) is used at a contact portion that contacts the pressure rotating body. According to this configuration, edge traces are effectively suppressed by the flexibility and releasability of PFA.

  The present invention also provides an image forming apparatus including the fixing device. According to this configuration, it is possible to provide a suitable image forming apparatus in which edge traces are suppressed.

  In addition, the image forming apparatus includes a conveying device that conveys the recording material to the fixing device, and the conveying device is configured such that a separation distance in a conveying direction between continuously conveyed recording materials is set to be equal to or greater than a circumferential length of the rotating body. It is characterized by. According to this configuration, the contact processing time for suppressing the edge trace is ensured.

  Further, the contact member may be brought into contact with the peripheral surface on the heating rotator side, and the peeling member on the heating rotator side may be used as the contact member. Thus, the same effect as described above can be obtained.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to suppress edge traces on the surface of the heating rotator or the pressure rotator due to the nipping and conveying of the recording material, and to maintain a high-quality fixed image.

1 is a front view illustrating a schematic configuration that is a first embodiment of an image forming apparatus; 1A and 1B are configuration diagrams illustrating an embodiment of a fixing device, in which FIG. 1A is a front cross-sectional view, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram illustrating a second embodiment of the fixing device, where (A) is a front sectional view and (B) is a plan view.

  FIG. 1 is a front view showing a schematic configuration as an embodiment of an image forming apparatus according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the image forming apparatus 100 includes an image forming unit 10, an intermediate transfer unit 20, a secondary transfer unit 30, a fixing unit 40, a paper feeding unit 50, a paper conveyance path 60, and an image reading unit 70. The automatic document feeder 80 is mounted on the upper part of the apparatus main body 101. The image forming apparatus 100 performs electrophotographic multicolor or single color image forming processing on image data read from a document or image data input from an external device (not shown) on a recording medium.

  The image reading unit 70 is disposed on the upper part of the apparatus main body 101 and includes document tables 71 and 72 on the upper surface. The automatic document feeder 80 is mounted on the upper surface side of the image reading unit 70, and conveys the document placed on the tray 81 via the document table 72. The automatic document feeder 80 is mounted on the upper back side of the apparatus main body 101 so as to be freely opened and closed around a horizontal support shaft in the left-right (left-right direction in FIG. 1) direction. The image reading unit 70 outputs a single color image from a document passing on the document table 72 by the automatic document conveyance device 80 or a document placed on the document table 71 by manual operation with opening / closing of the automatic document conveyance device 80 by the operator. Optically read as data or color data of three primary colors.

  The image forming unit 10 includes an exposure unit 1 and image forming units 10A to 10D. The exposure unit 1 is a laser scanning unit including optical system components such as a semiconductor laser, a polygon mirror, an fθ lens, and a reflection mirror. The exposure unit 1 converts the image data read by the image reading unit 70 into Bk, C, M, and Y, and the photoreceptors of the image forming units 10A to 10D with the laser light modulated by the converted image data of each color. The surfaces of the drums 2A to 2D are exposed and scanned along the axial direction to form respective electrostatic latent images.

  The image forming unit 10A includes a photosensitive drum 2A, and includes a charger 3A, a developing unit 4A, and a cleaner unit 5A along the rotation direction, and forms a black (Bk) image. The charger 3A uniformly charges the surface of the photosensitive drum 2A to a predetermined potential. Exposure scanning by the exposure unit 1 is performed immediately after uniform charging by the charger 3A.

  The developing device 4A visualizes the electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive drum 2A by exposure of the exposure unit 1 into a Bk toner image. The cleaner unit 5A collects the transferred toner remaining on the peripheral surface of the photosensitive drum 2A. The image forming units 10B to 10D have the same structure as the image forming unit 10A, and form cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) toner images on the surfaces of the photosensitive drums 2B to 2D, respectively. .

  The intermediate transfer unit 20 includes an intermediate transfer belt 21, a driving roller 22, a driven roller 23, primary transfer rollers 24A to 24D, and a cleaning unit 25. The intermediate transfer belt 21 is stretched between the driving roller 22 and the driven roller 23, and circulates along a circulation path that passes through the image forming units 10D, 10C, 10B, and 10A in this order. The primary transfer rollers 24 </ b> A to 24 </ b> D are arranged to face the photosensitive drums 2 </ b> A to 2 </ b> D with the intermediate transfer belt 21 interposed therebetween, and toner images formed on the peripheral surfaces of the photosensitive drums 2 </ b> A to 2 </ b> D are transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 21. Primary transfer to the surface. At the time of forming a color image, Y, M, C, and Bk toner images are sequentially superimposed and transferred onto the surface of the intermediate transfer belt 21 while the intermediate transfer belt 21 circulates along the circulation path. When the monochrome image is formed, only the Bk toner image is transferred to the surface of the intermediate transfer belt 21 while the intermediate transfer belt 21 circulates along the circulation path.

  The secondary transfer unit 30 includes a secondary transfer belt 31 and a secondary transfer roller 32. The secondary transfer belt 31 is stretched around a plurality of rollers and circulates along a predetermined circulation path. The secondary transfer roller 32 is disposed opposite to the driving roller 22 with the secondary transfer belt 31 and the intermediate transfer belt 21 interposed therebetween. The secondary transfer unit 30 secondarily transfers the toner image on the surface of the intermediate transfer belt 21 to a sheet conveyed to a secondary transfer position between the intermediate transfer belt 21 and the secondary transfer belt 31. The toner after the secondary transfer remaining on the surface of the intermediate transfer belt 21 is collected by the cleaning unit 25.

  The fixing unit 40 heats and fixes the toner image transferred (carrying) on the sheet when the sheet passes through a nip formed by the contact between the fixing belt 43 and the pressure roller 44. When the toner is melted by heating, the toner image is fixed on the surface of the paper. The sheet that has passed through the fixing unit 40 is discharged, for example, to a sheet discharge tray 73 provided above the image forming unit 10. The details of the fixing unit 40 will be described later.

  The paper feed unit 50 is disposed, for example, at the lower part of the apparatus main body, and includes a paper feed cassette 51 and a manual feed tray 52 that can load and set sheets of a desired size. The paper feed cassette 51 can store a plurality of sheets used for image forming processing. The manual feed tray 52 is provided on the side surface of the image forming apparatus 100. Note that the paper feed cassette is not limited to a single stage, and a plurality of stages may be provided, each of which is loaded with a desired size of paper, and the paper is fed out from the selected paper feed cassette. The paper feed unit 50 feeds paper one by one from the paper feed cassette 51 or the manual feed tray 52 to the paper transport path 60.

  The sheet conveyance path 60 is formed between the sheet feeding unit 50, the intermediate transfer belt 21 and the secondary transfer unit 30, and the discharge roller pair 61 via the fixing unit 40. In addition, the sheet conveyance path 60 includes a circulation path 62 that extends from the downstream side of the fixing unit 40 to the upstream side of the secondary transfer unit 30. The circulation path 62 is driven when double-sided copy is instructed as the copy mode. That is, in double-sided copying, first, fixing on one side of the sheet is performed, and the sheet is conveyed to the discharge roller pair 61 and stopped. Subsequently, it is reversely conveyed (reversely fed) from the rear end side toward the circulation path 62. The sheet is circulated through the circulation path 62 in a state where the sheet is reversed, and when the sheet returns to the position of the secondary transfer unit 30, the sheet is reversed and the secondary transfer to the other side is performed. Next, a fixing process is performed on the other side, and the sheet is discharged onto the discharge tray 73 through the discharge roller pair 61. As is well known, a plurality of pairs of rollers and a direction switching member at a branching point in the conveyance path are disposed in the circulation path 62 of the sheet conveyance path 60 at an appropriate position. During duplex copying, rotation control of the discharge roller pair 61, rotation direction switching, and direction switching member switching are performed.

  2A and 2B are configuration diagrams illustrating the first embodiment of the fixing unit, in which FIG. 2A is a front sectional view and FIG. 2B is a plan view. The fixing unit 40 includes housings 401 and 402 whose opposite surfaces are open. The housing 401 stores a heating roller 41 that incorporates a heater 410 that is a heating source, a fixing roller 42, and a fixing belt 43 that is stretched between the heating roller 41 and the fixing roller 42. The casing 402 stores a pressure roller 44 that is pressed against the fixing roller 42 with a predetermined pressure by a biasing unit (not shown) with the fixing belt 43 interposed therebetween. As shown in FIG. 2B, the rotation shafts of the heating roller 41, the fixing roller 42, and the pressure roller 44 are supported in parallel with each other. The pressure contact position between the fixing belt 43 and the pressure roller 44 forms a nip portion. Further, the heat of the heater 410 is transmitted to the fixing belt 43 via the peripheral surface of the heating roller 41, and the toner image carried on the paper Pa (see FIG. 2A) conveyed to the nip portion is melted. To fix on the paper Pa side.

  The pressure roller 44 is connected to a motor (not shown) so as to be rotationally driven, and sandwiches and conveys the paper at the nip portion. The pressure roller 44 incorporates a heater 440 and heats itself and the fixing belt 43. The pressure roller 44 has a conductive cylindrical body as a base, and a highly conductive elastic layer 44a including a metal oxide such as carbon as a filler is formed on the outer peripheral surface thereof.

  A peeling claw 421 is attached to the peripheral surface of the fixing belt 43 in a counter-like manner with respect to the rotation direction of the fixing belt 43 immediately downstream of the nip portion where the fixing belt 43 and the pressure roller 44 are in pressure contact with each other. On the other hand, a peeling claw 441 is attached to the peripheral surface of the pressure roller 44 in a counter shape with respect to the rotation direction of the pressure roller 44. The peeling claws 421 and 441 are more than both ends of the paper Pa to be conveyed in the width direction of the smallest size paper Pa (X direction parallel to the rotation axis direction of the pressure roller 44; see FIG. 2B). A plurality of, for example, one at a right and left symmetrical positions with respect to the sheet conveyance center OO ′ in the X direction, are disposed at appropriate positions on the inner side, for example, as shown in FIG.

  The image forming apparatus 100 can perform image forming processing on a plurality of sizes of paper Pa. In the present invention, since the size in the X direction, that is, the width direction of the paper Pa is a problem, the vertical conveyance and the horizontal conveyance are handled as different sizes of paper. In the present embodiment, for convenience of explanation, as shown in FIG. 2B, an example in which image forming processing is possible on three types of paper of the maximum B4 size, the middle A4 size, and the minimum B5 size is shown. I will explain.

  By the way, it is not unusual for a lot of paper dust to adhere to both ends in the width direction of the paper Pa. When the paper dust is nipped and conveyed between the fixing belt 43 and the pressure roller 44, it is considered that the paper powder is peeled off from the paper Pa and entangled (transfers) to a corresponding portion of the surface of the pressure roller 44. . Further, it is considered that the surface of the elastic layer 44a of the pressure roller 44 is gradually scraped at the portions where both end portions in the width direction of the paper Pa to be nipped and conveyed hit to cause discontinuity in the width direction. In particular, when paper Pa of the same size is continuously conveyed, the tendency becomes more remarkable. As described above, if there is an edge trace on the surface portion of the pressure roller 44 corresponding to both ends in the width direction of the paper Pa, the next paper to be fixed is a larger size paper, and the copy mode is mainly duplex. In the case of copying, the following adverse effects may occur more remarkably in the image on the large size paper. That is, when the unfixed toner image on the larger size paper surface coincides in the X direction with the position corresponding to both end portions in the width direction of the immediately preceding small size paper, the edge trace of the position on the pressure roller 44 is The fixing process may be affected, resulting in a reduction in image quality, such as a streak-like image being transferred or a so-called solid image formed with toner carried in a planar shape having a non-uniform gloss. This phenomenon appears on the first sheet, but gradually disappears after the second sheet.

  The contact member 442 suppresses such deterioration in image quality. The contact member 442 has a predetermined shape, preferably a plate shape, and a tip thereof is in contact with the peripheral surface of the pressure roller 44 with a required pressure via a biasing member (not shown). For example, it is supported at an appropriate position of the housing 402. For the contact member 442, a resin material, preferably a fluororesin material, more preferably PFA (chemical name: perfluoroalkoxyalkane) having flexibility and releasability is adopted. The contact member 442 is in contact with an appropriate position on the circumferential surface of the pressure roller 44 in the rotation direction. Further, the abutting member 442 may be attached in a direction that becomes a right angle or an acute angle (counter shape) in addition to an obtuse angle (see FIG. 2A) with respect to the rotation direction of the pressure roller 44. Further, as shown in FIG. 2B, the contact member 442 has both ends in the width direction of A4 size paper and B5 size paper smaller than the maximum size B4 with respect to the X direction in the case of the center conveyance method. It has a dimensional shape that includes parts corresponding to the parts, and is arranged at a position that covers both parts.

  The contact member 442 is switched from a B5 size to an A4 size or a B4 size, or from an A4 size to a B4 size, that is, from a previous size to a relatively large size paper. In this case, it works as follows.

  When the contact member 442 is pressed against a portion of the pressure roller 44 where the edge layer of the elastic layer 44a is generated, the paper powder is scraped off and cleaned, and the discontinuity is relaxed and leveled. That is, edge traces are suppressed. Therefore, an adverse effect due to the edge trace is suppressed for the sheet conveyed to the fixing unit 40 next time. In particular, in double-sided copying, fixing on one side (first printing surface) facing the pressure roller 44 side while fixing processing is performed on the unfixed toner image on the other side via the circulation path 62. It is conceivable that the finished toner image is affected by the edge trace, but the image quality on this one side can be maintained at a high level by abutting the contact member 442 on this portion and suppressing the edge trace in advance. . For example, when about 100 sheets of the same size are passed through immediately before the paper is changed to a large size, the influence of the edge trace on the first sheet may cause the fixed image to have a fixed image quality of “bad”. In the test visually evaluated at levels 1 to 5 (five levels) from the first to the “good” state, it was found that the level was 4, and that the second level was better than level 2 when the contact member 442 was not employed. .

  3A and 3B are configuration diagrams showing a second embodiment of the fixing unit, where FIG. 3A is a front sectional view and FIG. 3B is a plan view. The difference from FIG. 2 is that the peeling claw 441 is removed and the contact member 443 is also used as the peeling claw of the pressure roller 44. The arrangement position of the contact member 443 is symmetric with respect to the transport center O-O ′ as in FIG. 2, and is the same position as the peeling claw 441 in the circumferential direction as in FIG. 2A. Further, the abutting member 443 is extended so as to include both ends of a size smaller than the maximum size in the X direction, that is, A4 size and B5 size in this example, and further include the position Ls of the peeling claw 441. Have a different shape. The contact member 443 may have the same shape as the contact member 442 in FIG. 2, or the tip side that contacts the pressure roller 44 is the same as the separation claw 441 from the point of using the separation claw 441 in FIG. It may be a thin plate. Further, in the example of FIG. 3, the contact member 443 is attached in a direction that forms an acute angle (counter shape) with respect to the rotation direction of the pressure roller 44 to improve the sheet peeling action. By adopting such a dual-use structure, it is possible to reduce the size. In the above description of the second embodiment, the point that the pressure roller 44 is also used as the peeling claw has been described. However, the invention may be applied not only to the pressure roller 44 side but also to the peeling claw 421 of the fixing belt 43. Similar effects can be obtained.

  In the embodiment of FIGS. 2 and 3, a pair of contact members 442 and 443 are provided in the axial direction for the portions corresponding to both ends in the width direction of each paper size. Alternatively, it may be one piece that is elongated so as to straddle both sides in the X direction. Moreover, it is good also as an apparatus straddling each site | part individually or all the parts also with respect to the apparatus which is not a center conveyance system. In addition, it is good also as an aspect which includes the site | part corresponding to the width direction both ends of the largest size paper as a range where the contact members 442 and 443 are arranged.

  Further, as the third embodiment, in the configuration diagram shown in FIG. 2, a mode in which the contact member 442 acts when the paper size is changed from the small size to the large size and duplex copying is designated is adopted. May be. In this case, the contact member 442 is configured to be able to contact and separate from the pressure roller 44. These conditions are determined when the copy target paper size is selected to be relatively larger than the previous size via the operation panel unit (not shown) of the image forming apparatus 100 and double-sided copy is designated as the copy mode. The position of the contact member 442 is brought into contact with the pressure roller 44 by driving the contact / separation means such as an electromagnetic clutch or a motor, and in other cases, the position is controlled to be separated.

  Further, as the fourth embodiment, in the configuration diagram shown in FIG. 2, two contact members 442 may be provided in the X direction, and the sheet may be slid in the X direction with respect to each size sheet. Further, in the case of the slide type, when not in use, the pressure roller 44 may be configured to be slidable to the outside in the X direction and retracted. The structure for the slide may be such that two racks are arranged in parallel in the X direction with one pinion gear interposed therebetween and the contact member 442 is attached to both racks. As a result, the pinion gear is rotated by driving means such as a motor (not shown) corresponding to the paper size selected as the next copy target, and the rack is slid by the same amount in the opposite direction in the X direction. do it.

  In addition, the sheet conveying unit 60 is configured to suppress the edge trace stress by conveying the paper Pa with the separation distance in the conveying direction between the continuously conveyed sheets Pa being equal to or greater than the circumferential length of the pressure roller 44. Is preferable.

  In the fifth embodiment, the contact member 443 is provided on the pressure roller 44 side in FIG. 3, but a similar structure may be provided on the fixing belt 43 side instead of or in addition to FIG. It is often possible to reduce the size by adopting such a combined structure.

  In addition, the description of the above-described embodiment is an example in all respects, and should be considered not restrictive. The scope of the present invention is shown not by the above embodiments but by the claims. Furthermore, the scope of the present invention is intended to include all modifications within the meaning and scope equivalent to the scope of the claims.

100 Image forming device 40 Fixing device 43 Fixing belt (fixing rotating body)
44 Pressure roller (Pressure rotating body)
441 Separating claws 442 and 443 Contact member 60 Paper transport unit (transport device)
62 Circulation path (transport device)
Pa paper (recording material)

Claims (9)

A non-fixed toner having a heating rotator rotating around rotation axes parallel to each other and a pressure rotator pressing against the heating rotator, and being carried on the surface of the recording material while being conveyed between the two rotators In a fixing device for fixing an image,
A fixing device comprising a contact member that is a part of a peripheral surface of the pressure rotating body and contacts a portion corresponding to an end of the recording material to be conveyed in the rotation axis direction.   The abutting member abuts at least a portion corresponding to an end portion in the rotation axis direction of a recording material other than a recording material having a maximum size corresponding to the rotation axis direction among recording materials of different sizes that can be conveyed. The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein the fixing device is provided.   The abutting member is extended to a portion of the recording material of the smallest size among the recording materials that can be transported to the inside of both ends in the rotational axis direction, and is downstream of the rotating members in the recording material transport direction. The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein the fixing device is in a counter-like contact with the rotation direction of the pressure rotator on the side.   The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein the contact member uses PFA (perfluoroalkoxyalkane) at a contact portion that contacts the pressure rotating body.   The fixing device according to claim 1, wherein the contact member is a peeling member that peels a recording material from the pressure rotator.   An image forming apparatus comprising the fixing device according to claim 1.   A conveying device configured to convey the recording material to the fixing device, wherein the conveying device is configured such that a separation distance in a conveying direction between the recording materials continuously conveyed is set to be equal to or greater than a circumferential length of the pressure rotating body. The image forming apparatus according to claim 6, wherein: A non-fixed toner having a heating rotator rotating around rotation axes parallel to each other and a pressure rotator pressing against the heating rotator, and being carried on the surface of the recording material while being conveyed between the two rotators In a fixing device for fixing an image,
A fixing device comprising: a contact member that is a part of a peripheral surface of the heating rotator and contacts a portion corresponding to an end of the recording material to be conveyed in the rotation axis direction.   The fixing device according to claim 8, wherein the contact member is a peeling member that peels a recording material from the heating rotator.

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