Patent ID: 7711309

Claim:
A sheet feeding device comprising: (a) a conveying member of a conveying unit which conveys a sheet, the conveying unit comprising: a first sheet feeding unit which interposes and conveys a sheet by coming into pressure contact with an uppermost surface of sheets stored in a sheet storing section, the first sheet feeding unit comprising: a first conveying member which comes in pressure contact with the uppermost surface of the sheets stored in the sheet storing section to feed a sheet; and a second conveying member provided downstream of the first sheet conveying member in the sheet conveyance direction, which separates and interposes the sheet which has been conveyed by the first sheet conveying member to convey toward the downstream side; and a pair of conveyance rollers provided downstream of the first sheet feeding unit in a sheet conveyance direction, which further conveys the sheet which has been conveyed by the first sheet feeding unit toward a downstream side; and (b) a cleaning member which is in sliding contact with a circumferential surface of the conveying member to clean the circumferential surface, wherein the conveying member and the cleaning member rotate in the same tangential direction at a sliding contact position thereof, and drives of the conveyance member and the cleaning member are controlled so that the following expression is satisfied: V 1 >V 2 where V 1 represents a line speed of the circumferential surface of the conveying member during a rotation thereof, and V 2 represents a line speed of a sliding contact portion of the cleaning member during a rotation thereof; the cleaning member is a cleaning brush which is rotated by a driving unit; and the cleaning member cleans the first conveying member and the second conveying member by coming into sliding contact with the first conveying member and the second conveying member.