An image forming apparatus includes at least one conveyance roller pair, an image forming unit, at least one brushless motor, a motor drive control unit, a delay amount detector, and an image formation control unit. The image formation control unit controls the motor drive control unit to convey the sheets at a predetermined timing toward the image forming unit. The image formation control unit, during a continuous image formation in which a plurality of sheets are continuously conveyed by the conveyance roller pair with a predetermined sheet spacing and images are sequentially formed on the respective sheets, controls the motor drive control unit to sequentially perform an on and off control of the brushless motor corresponding to the respective sheets, and adjusts the sheet spacing and a rise time in the on control of the brushless motor corresponding to the rotation delay amount detected by the delay amount detector.

An image forming apparatus including: a sheet feeding roller which feeds a sheet accumulated on a tray; and a hardware processor which: detects a movement speed of the sheet currently fed by the sheet feeding roller; and calculates a difference amount between the movement speed and a first reference speed, and determines a life of the sheet feeding roller based on the difference amount, wherein the hardware processor determines whether or not to use the movement speed of a first sheet for life determination based on a relationship between the movement speed of the first sheet and the movement speed of a sheet fed before the first sheet, and if the hardware processor determines not to use the movement speed of the first sheet for the life determination, the hardware processor calculates the difference amount by excluding the movement speed of the first sheet.

Provided is a sensor control apparatus including a main board and a plurality of sensors to the main board. The main board alternately applies a first voltage and a second voltage to the plurality of sensors, to thereby cause the plurality of sensors to perform detection operations in order from an upstream side. A time period for applying the first voltage to a sensor that is not a target from which a detection result is to be acquired is shorter than a time period for applying the first voltage to a sensor that is the target from which a detection result is to be acquired.

An image forming apparatus including: a fixer that fixes a toner image formed on a recording medium by pressing and heating the recording medium nipped in a nip portion formed by causing two rotating bodies to pressedly abut on each other, and conveying the recording medium by rotating the rotating bodies; a motor that drives the rotating bodies by transmitting a torque to at least one of the rotating bodies; a torque detector that detects the torque transmitted to the rotating body by the motor; a temperature detector that detects temperature of the rotating body; a speed detector that detects a conveyance speed for conveying the recording medium by the fixer; and a controller that corrects the detected torque based on at least any one of the detected temperature and the detected conveyance speed and predicts a life of the fixer based on the corrected torque.

According to examples, an apparatus may include a processor and a memory. The memory may have stored thereon machine readable instructions that when executed by the processor, may cause the processor to determine a job thickness of a print job including sheets, determine an average sheet thickness of the sheets, and determine an average print material coverage on the sheets. The instructions may also cause the processor to identify, based on the determined job thickness, the determined average sheet thickness, and the average print material coverage, a plurality of correction factors to be applied in a calculation of a corrected stack height of print jobs in an output bin and apply the identified plurality of correction factors to a measured stack height in the output bin to calculate the corrected stack height.

A recording material discriminating apparatus includes: a hardware processor that: detects a physical property of a recording material in different ways; and when transmittance of the recording material is within a first range, discriminates a type of the recording material by using a detection result from the hardware processor, and when the transmittance of the recording material is within a second range different from the first range, discriminates the type of the recording material by using a detection result from the hardware processor.

An image forming apparatus includes a load detection sensor located on a feeder to detect whether a print medium is loaded on the feeder, an overload detection sensor to detect an overload state of a discharger, and a controller to detect a width of the print medium according to a combination of a feeder load state of a feeder load detection signal of the load detection sensor and an overload state of a discharger overload detection signal of the overload detection sensor and control an image former to perform printing by applying different print modes according to the detected width of the print medium.

A sheet conveyance device includes a shape detecting portion, and a switch control portion. The shape detecting portion detects a shape of a sheet at a detection position between a first conveyance member and a second conveyance member. The switch control portion, when a front end of the sheet has passed a arrangement position at which the first conveyance member is arranged, switches an detection interval at which the shape of the sheet is detected by the shape detecting portion, to a first interval that corresponds to a rotation speed of the first conveyance member, and when a rear end of the sheet has passed the arrangement position, switches the detection interval to a second interval that corresponds to the rotation speed of the second conveyance member.

A sheet conveying apparatus of an embodiment includes a conveyance path along which a sheet can be conveyed, and a plurality of conveyance rollers configured to move a sheet along the conveyance path. A wireless tag reader/writer is configured to read information from, and write information to, a wireless tag of a sheet on the conveyance path. A controller is configured to detect a phase change in response waves received by the wireless tag reader/writer from a wireless tag. The controller is also configured to identify whether a wireless tag is moving along the conveyance path based on the detected phase change in response waves from the wireless tag. The controller controls the wireless tag reader/writer to write information to the wireless tag identified as moving along the conveyance path.

A sheet conveyance device includes a shape detecting portion, and a switch control portion. The shape detecting portion detects a shape of a sheet at a detection position between a first conveyance member and a second conveyance member. The switch control portion, when a front end of the sheet has passed a arrangement position at which the first conveyance member is arranged, switches an detection interval at which the shape of the sheet is detected by the shape detecting portion, to a first interval that corresponds to a rotation speed of the first conveyance member, and when a rear end of the sheet has passed the arrangement position, switches the detection interval to a second interval that corresponds to the rotation speed of the second conveyance member.