The present disclosure relates to a sheet feed conveyance device that feeds a sheet using a roller. The present disclosure further relates to an image forming apparatus including the sheet feed conveyance device.
There are known image forming apparatuses such as a multifunction peripheral, a copier, and a printer. A sheet of paper is set in an image forming apparatus. The sheet of paper is fed and conveyed. A sheet feed roller may be included in the image forming apparatus for sheet feeding. The sheet feed roller comes in contact with the sheet. The sheet feed roller rotates during sheet feeding. Friction force of the feed roller with the sheet is utilized for feeding the sheet. Friction causes abrasion of the sheet feed roller. It is necessary to replace the sheet feed roller before the sheet feed roller is abraded to such a degree that the sheet feed roller is disabled from feeding a sheet. In view of the foregoing, the lifetime of the sheet feed roller may be detected (estimated).
A sheet feed conveyance device is known that feeds a recording medium from a recording medium accommodation site, performs separation on the fed recording medium using a recording median separation section, and then temporarily stops the separated recording medium. After temporarily stopping the recording medium, the sheet feed conveyance device conveys the recording medium with desired timing toward a registration roller disposed before a site where an image transfer is performed. The sheet feed conveyance device estimates the lifetime of the sheet feed roller based on a e period from restarting after temporarily stopping the recording medium to passing of the recording medium over a sensor disposed downstream. In a conveyance method using the above sheet feed device in which the recording medium is fed, subjected to separation, temporarily stopped after a specific time period, and then re-conveyed with predetermined timing, the lifetime of the sheet feed roller is detected.