Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Itaru Matsuta

Hirokazu Ishii

Satoshi Takano

Yuko Harasawa

An image forming device incorporated in an image forming apparatus and capable of cleaning a residual toner on a transfer belt. A transfer belt transports a sheet to a nip portion of an image carrier and the transfer belt. A transfer bias current It1 is applied to the transfer belt from a power source, so that a toner image on the image carrier is transferred to the sheet at the nip portion. A cleaning bias current It2 is applied to a cleaning bias roller which is held in contact with the transfer belt so as to transfer the residual toner and paper particles from the transfer belt to the cleaning bias roller. An electric current Ir is returned from the transfer belt to a transfer control board which is also connected to the power source. The transfer control board controls the current It1 to satisfy an equation '(It1+It2)-Ir=IOUT' where IOUT is constant.

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Yokohama, Japan

Itaru Matsuta