Belt cleaning apparatus and image forming apparatus
AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorTomomi TANAKA
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A belt cleaning apparatus includes a cleaning blade and a waste toner case. The cleaning blade is a plate-like elastic member that extends in parallel with a width direction of an intermediate transfer belt and is provided so that one end of a lateral direction thereof abuts on an outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer belt. The waste toner case supports the other end in the lateral direction of the cleaning blade. The cleaning blade is formed such that a width W1 of the one end in the lateral direction thereof is longer than a width W2 of an elastic layer in the width direction of the intermediate transfer belt.
Claims6
A belt cleaning apparatus removing, after the toner image is transferred to a recording medium, a residual toner remaining on an outer peripheral surface of an endless intermediate transfer belt which comprises a base material and an elastic layer formed on a surface of the base material, is rotatably supported around a plurality of supporting rollers with tension, and bears and conveys a toner image, the belt cleaning apparatus comprising:
- a cleaning blade formed of a plate-like elastic member, having an abutting side which is a straight end side abutting on the outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer belt, and removing a residual toner by abutting on the outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer belt, the cleaning blade being provided so as to be parallel to a width direction of the intermediate transfer belt, a side length of the abutting side being longer than a width of the elastic layer in the width direction of the intermediate transfer belt;
- and
- a housing that supports the end side other than the abutting side of the cleaning blade and contains a residual toner removed by the cleaning blade.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.