Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Ran Kudo

Seiji Suzuki

Shingo Okushima

Takaya Sato

Satoshi Kimura

Ryosuke Araki

Takayuki Okamoto

Fukashi Hatano

Takuya Hane

Jirou Makinodan

The belt conveyance device includes an endless belt member, and a steering roller that stretches the belt member and has a tiltable rotation axis. The steering roller includes a roller that slides on the belt member and rubbing members that rub against the belt member at both ends of the roller. One or a plurality of recessed portions is formed in the surface of each rubbing member in an area where the surface of the rubbing member is opposed to an inner surface of the belt member.

Belt conveyance device and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes a guiding portion that acts on a shutter member to open and close the shutter member when a unit, including the shutter member, is mounted to and dismounted from a main assembly. The guiding portion includes an opening operating portion that moves the shutter member from the closing position to the opening position in interrelation with an inserting operation of the unit, a closing operating portion that moves the shutter member from the opening position to the closing position in interrelation with an extracting operation of the unit, and a shutter closing portion contacted to the shutter member at a position upstream of the opening operating portion and the closing operating portion, with respect to an inserting direction of the unit relative to the guiding portion, to move the shutter member from the opening position to the closing position in interrelation with the inserting operation.

Image forming apparatus

A belt unit including a steering mechanism employing a belt auto alignment method includes a restricting portion configured to enable a steering roller to rotate about a steering axis line for correcting the deviation of the position of the belt in the width-wise direction, while restricting the inclination of the steering roller due to the rotation.

Belt unit having a restricting portion for a steering roller and image forming apparatus including the same

Belt unit having steering roller to correct position of belt and image forming apparatus including the same

An image forming apparatus includes; a belt unit detachably mountable to a main assembly, said belt unit including a movable endless belt, a belt supporting roller, a steering unit for swinging the belt to incline relative to the supporting roller by a force produced by movement of the belt in a widthwise direction, and a cleaning unit, supported by the steering unit, for removing and collecting toner from the belt; a toner receiving unit, provided in the assembly, for receiving the toner collected by the cleaning unit; and a path member for guiding the toner collected by the cleaning unit to the toner receiving unit, the path member being supported by the assembly when the belt unit is not mounted, and the path member being supported by the cleaning swingably relative to the toner receiving unit when the belt unit is mounted.

An image forming apparatus is provided. A backup face disposed on an upward face of the control box makes contact with a backup reception part that is disposed on a downward face of a belt cleaning device, and supports a steering roller and cleaning blade. The backup face reduces the force that acts on the frame stay and so forth, following the sliding friction of the intermediate transfer belt and cleaning blade. The backup reception part and backup reception part are formed so that even if the steering roller moves in the tension application direction, the predetermined contact state can be maintained.

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Tokyo, Japan

Ran Kudo