Lubricant applying device, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A process cartridge comprising:

• at least an image carrier carrying a latent image;
• and
• one or more units which are selected from the group consisting of a charging unit uniformly charging the surface of the image carrier, a developing unit supplying a toner to an electrostatic latent image formed on the surface of the image carrier to obtain a visible image, and a cleaning unit cleaning the surface of the image carrier;
• wherein the process cartridge integrally supported and integrally attachable to and detachable from an image forming apparatus,
• wherein the process cartridge includes lubricant applying device comprising:
• a solid lubricant;
• a rotatable applying member scraping lubricant off the solid lubricant and applying the scraped lubricant onto a lubricant application target, and
• a pressing unit
• that applies an applying pressure of pressing the solid lubricant against the applying member and
• that varies the applying pressure in accordance with a rotation speed of the applying member.

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• an image carrier carrying a latent image;
• a charging device charging the image carrier;
• an exposing device exposing the image carrier to form an electrostatic latent image on the image carrier;
• a developing device forming a toner image on the image carrier;
• a transfer device transferring the toner image onto a recording medium directly or through an intermediate transfer medium;
• and
• a cleaning device removing a toner remaining on the image carrier after the transfer,
• wherein the image forming apparatus includes the lubricant applying device comprising:
• a solid lubricant;
• a rotatable applying member scraping lubricant off the solid lubricant and applying the scraped lubricant onto a lubricant application target, and
• a pressing unit
• that applies an applying pressure of pressing the solid lubricant against the applying member and
• that varies the applying pressure in accordance with a rotation speed of the applying member.