Sheet feeding or delivering – Feeding – With means to interrupt feeding
Reexamination Certificate
2002-06-10
2004-01-06
Bollinger, David H. (Department: 3653)
Sheet feeding or delivering
Feeding
With means to interrupt feeding
C271S258010, C271S176000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06672586
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet processing apparatus for conveying and processing sheets and a method of controlling the same, a sheet processing method, and storage media therefor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a conventional sheet processing apparatus that performs processing operations such as conveyance, stacking, sort and so forth, upon sheets discharged from an image forming apparatus or the like, in order to avoid a degradation in the overall processing efficiency of relatively time-consuming sheet processing operations on a downstream side of the apparatus as best represented by a binding operation upon a sheet bundle, recently, it has been proposed to provide a turnout for storing sheets in the conveyance path where the conveyance of sheets is temporarily stayed so that a plurality of sheets consisting of the stored sheets and other sheets subsequently conveyed from an upstream side of the apparatus are conveyed together simultaneously. In this way, an ample time can be secured for processing sheets on the downstream side, to thereby avoid degraded overall processing efficiency.
However, when special sheets such as cover sheets, thick paper sheets, thin paper sheets, tabbed sheets, colored sheets or other sheets that have different attributes from those of ordinary sheets are conveyed from an inserter to the turnout, these different attributes give rise to various problems. In the case of thick paper sheets, for example, the gap of the conveyance path may be narrowed due to the thickness of the sheets, or the thick paper sheet(s) may be pushed at the turnout to become curled and this curling deformation in turn may make the sheet(s) further thicker and further narrow the gap of the conveyance path, leading to an increase of the conveyance load and eventually giving rise to a paper jam. In the case of colored sheets, for example, the colored sheets may also be deformed into a curled shape and may narrow the gap between the sheets and conveyance path at the turnout or in subsequent discharge of the sheets. As a result, conveyance rollers and the like are forced to exert a strong conveyance load on the sheets so that traces of the rollers may be formed on the colored sheets.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a sheet processing apparatus and a method of controlling the same, a sheet processing method, and storage media therefor, which overcome the above described problems.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a sheet processing apparatus and a method of controlling the same, a sheet processing method, and storage media therefor, which are capable of achieving high quality processing and maintaining high productivity without giving rise to problems such as sheet jam or damage of sheets even when various sheets having different attributes are conveyed.
To attain the above objects, according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sheet processing apparatus comprising a conveyance path, a discharging port, conveyance means for conveying sheets along the conveyance path to the discharging port, sheet staying means for temporarily staying the sheets on the conveyance path, sheet type determining means for determining whether each of the sheets conveyed by the conveyance means is a special sheet or not, and sheet staying number limiting means for limiting a number of sheets to be stayed by the sheet staying means when each of the sheets conveyed by the conveyance means is the special sheet.
Preferably, the sheet processing apparatus according to the first aspect further comprises sheet staying number detecting means for detecting a number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means, and wherein the sheet staying number limiting means comprises determining means for determining based on detection results of the sheet staying number detecting means whether the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means has reached a predetermined number that is set in advance in correspondence with the special sheet or not, and control means for causing conveyance of the sheets stayed by the sheet staying means by the conveyance means to be resumed when the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means has reached the predetermined number.
Preferably, when each of the sheets conveyed by the conveyance means is the special sheet, the sheet staying number limiting means inhibits staying of the sheets conveyed by the conveyance means by the sheet staying means.
Alternatively, the sheet processing apparatus according to the first aspect further comprises sheet staying number detecting means for detecting the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means, and wherein the sheet staying number limiting means comprises determining means for determining based on detection results of the sheet staying number detecting means whether the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means has reached a maximum number that is set in advance in correspondence with an ordinary sheet or not, and control means for causing conveyance of the sheets stayed by the sheet staying means by the conveyance means to be resumed when the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means has reached the maximum number.
More preferably, the sheet processing apparatus according to the first aspect further comprises sheet position detecting means for detecting a position of each of the sheets on the conveyance path, and wherein the control means temporarily keeps the conveyance means on standby to suspend conveyance of the sheets stayed by the sheet staying means by the conveyance means when the sheet position detecting means detects presence of at least one sheet downstream of the sheet staying means.
In the sheet processing apparatus according to the first aspect, the special sheet is a sheet selected from the group consisting of a sheet from a set tray, a sheet designated as a cover sheet, a sheet designated as a thick paper sheet, a sheet designated as a thin paper sheet, a tabbed sheet, and a colored sheet.
To attain the above objects, according to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sheet processing method for use in a sheet processing apparatus including a conveyance path, a discharging port, conveyance means for conveying sheets along the conveyance path to the discharging port, sheet staying means for temporarily staying the sheets on the conveyance path, the method comprising the steps of determining whether each of the sheets conveyed by the conveyance means is a special sheet or not; and limiting a number of sheets to be stayed by the sheet staying means when each of the sheets conveyed by the conveyance means is the special sheet.
Preferably, in the sheet processing method according to the second aspect, the step of limiting the number of sheets to be stayed by the sheet staying means comprises limiting the number of sheets to be stayed by said sheet staying means by detecting the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means, determining whether the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means has reached a predetermined number that is set in advance in correspondence with the special sheet or not, and causing conveyance of the stayed sheets to be resumed when the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means has reached the predetermined number.
Preferably, the step of limiting the number of sheets to be stayed by the sheet staying means comprises limiting the number of sheets to be stayed by said sheet staying means by inhibiting staying of the sheets conveyed by the conveyance means by the sheet staying means when each of the sheets conveyed by the conveyance means is the special sheet.
Alternatively, the sheet processing method according to the second aspect comprises the steps of detecting the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means, determining based on detection results of the step of detecting the number of sheets whether the number of sheets stayed by the sheet staying means has reached a
Miyake Norifumi
Murata Mitsushige
Okamoto Kiyoshi
Bollinger David H.
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Rossi & Associates
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