Patent ID: 8600256

Claim:
A cleaning device, disposed downstream from a transfer position where a toner image formed on an image carrier is transferred onto a transfer member in a direction of rotation of the image carrier to remove toner from the image carrier, the cleaning device comprising: a normally-charged toner cleaning member, to which a voltage having a polarity opposite a normal charging polarity of the toner is applied, provided in contact with the image carrier to electrostatically remove normally-charged toner from the image carrier; one of a polarity controller provided on an upstream side from the normally-charged toner cleaning member in the direction of rotation of the image carrier to control the toner on the image carrier to have the normal charging polarity and a reversely-charged toner cleaning member, to which a voltage having the same polarity as the normal charging polarity of the toner is applied, provided in contact with the image carrier on the upstream side from the normally-charged toner cleaning member to electrostatically remove reversely-charged toner from the image carrier; a pre-cleaning member, to which a voltage having the polarity opposite the normal charging polarity of the toner is applied, provided in contact with the image carrier on the extreme upstream side in the direction of rotation of the image carrier to electrostatically remove normally-charged toner from the image carrier; a pre-collection member, to which a voltage having the same polarity as and greater than the voltage applied to the pre-cleaning member is applied, provided in contact with the pre-cleaning member to electrostatically collect the toner from the pre-cleaning member; and a control unit to reduce the voltage applied to the pre-cleaning member immediately after an untransferred toner image, which is not transferred from the image carrier onto the transfer member at the transfer position, is removed from the image carrier by the pre-cleaning member below a voltage applied to the pre-cleaning member during removal of the untransferred toner image.