Patent ID: 9348271
Filing Date: 2016-05-24
CPC Classification: G03G

Claim Text:
1. A transfer device, comprising: an image bearer to bear a toner image on a surface of the image bearer; a nip forming device to approach the image bearer to form a transfer nip between the nip forming device and the image bearer; a transfer bias power source including a direct current (DC) power source and an alternating current (AC) power source electrically connected to each other, to output a transfer bias including at least one of a DC bias and a superimposed bias in which a DC voltage and an AC voltage are superimposed to transfer the toner image borne on the image bearer onto a recording medium interposed between the nip forming device and the image bearer in the transfer nip; an approach-and-separation device to cause the image bearer and the nip forming device to approach and separate from each other; and a controller to control the approach-and-separation device to increase a size of a space between the image bearer and the nip forming device at a start of a transfer using the superimposed bias such that the size of the space upon transfer, only when using the superimposed bias, is larger than a size of the space upon transfer using the DC bias.