Patent ID: 8768233

Claim:
A solid lubricant-coating device, comprising: a solid lubricant to be applied to the surface of a latent image-supporting member; a supply roller installed in contact with the solid lubricant and the latent image-supporting member that scrapes off the solid lubricant and supplies the scraped solid lubricant onto the surface of the latent image-supporting member by self rotation; a pressing unit for pressing the solid lubricant to the supply roller; a flattening unit installed in contact with the latent image-supporting member at a downstream position of the supply roller in the rotation direction of the latent image-supporting member that forms a thin film of the supplied solid lubricant on the latent image-supporting member surface; and a cleaning unit installed in contact with the latent image-supporting member at an upstream position of the supply roller in the rotation direction of the latent image-supporting member that removes the residual toner on the latent image-supporting member surface and recovers the solid lubricant thin film on the latent image-supporting member surface, wherein when a thickness of the solid lubricant thin film formed on the latent image-supporting member surface immediately before the supply roller in the rotation direction of the latent image-supporting member is designated as thickness A (nm) and a thickness immediately after the flattening unit is designated as thickness B (nm), the thicknesses A and B satisfy the following relational formulae (1) and (2): B−A≧ 8 (1) and A≧4 (2).