Patent ID: 7440720
Filing Date: 2008-10-21
Classification: G03G

Abstract:
1. An image forming apparatus for forming a toner image on a sheet-like recording medium, said image forming apparatus comprising: a plurality of image carriers arranged side by side; charging means, exposing means and developing means arranged around each of said plurality of image carriers for respectively charging an associated one of said plurality of image carriers, forming a latent image on said associated image carrier and developing said latent image with toner to thereby produce a corresponding toner image; and image transferring means for sequentially transferring toner images formed on said plurality of image carriers to the recording medium one above the other; wherein said image transferring means comprises an image transfer belt and a plurality of bias applying members for applying image transfer biases to image transfer nips formed between said plurality of bias applying members and said plurality of image carriers, which face each other with the intermediary of said image transfer belt, said plurality of bias applying members each has an axis positioned downstream, in a direction of movement of said image transfer belt, of a virtual vertical line extending from an axis of an associated one of said plurality of image carriers downward, and at least two of said plurality of bias applying members are provided with respective belt holding members positioned downstream of said two bias applying members in the direction of movement of said image transfer belt, each said belt holding member being supported by a resilient member.