Patent ID: 7392001

Claim:
A transfer belt device comprising: an endless transfer belt, tightly stretched by a plurality of rollers and forming a transport path in which a recording medium or a developer image is transported facing a monochrome image bearing member and a plurality of color image bearing members arranged in parallel along a fixed direction; a first transfer unit that comprises at least one of the plurality of rollers, a monochrome image transfer roller that can be raised and lowered and that transfers a developer image formed on the monochrome image bearing member onto the recording medium or an outer peripheral surface of the transfer belt, a monochrome image transfer member movement mechanism provided with the monochrome image transfer roller, and a first linking member provided with the monochrome image transfer member movement mechanism; a second transfer unit that comprises at least one of the plurality of rollers other than the roller included in the first transfer unit, a plurality of color image transfer rollers that can be raised and lowered and that transfer developer images formed on each of the plurality of color image bearing members onto the recording medium or the outer peripheral surface of the transfer belt, a color image transfer member movement mechanism provided with the plurality of color image transfer rollers, and a second linking member provided with the color image transfer member movement mechanism; and a driving mechanism that raises and lowers the transfer rollers via the monochrome image transfer member movement mechanism and the color image transfer member movement mechanism, and comprises a single rotating shaft that receives a transmission of driving force and supplies the driving force to the monochrome image transfer member movement mechanism and the color image transfer member movement mechanism; wherein the first linking member and the second linking member are linked at the rotating shaft such that they can swing.