Image forming apparatus for collecting toner with the developing roller

Claim 1

An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier for being formed with an electrostatic latent image; a charging device for uniformly charging a surface of said image carrier to a necessary voltage; a photo-writing device for forming an electrostatic latent image on said surface of said image carrier by emitting light onto said surface of said image carrier; a developing device for making toner adhere to said electrostatic latent image on said surface of said image carrier to form a toner image; a transferring device for transferring said toner image onto a transfer material; and a toner uniforming member, disposed on a downstream side of said charging device in a rotary direction of said image carrier and pushed toward said image carrier with a predetermined pressure, for making remaining toner adhere slightly and uniformly to said surface of said image carrier; said developing device being adapted to contact said image carrier and to be applied with a necessary voltage for collecting the toner remaining on said image carrier; said toner uniforming member being adapted to eliminate said toner remaining on said image carrier temporarily and to be applied with a necessary voltage for making the toner, which is remained and eliminated temporarily, adhere again to said surface of said image carrier; and said necessary voltage applied to said toner uniforming member being a negative DC voltage, the negative DC voltage having a magnitude between the voltage of the charging device and necessary voltage of the developing device.