Sheet-material associating – Associating or disassociating – Sheet associating
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-23
2002-04-23
Ellis, Christopher P. (Department: 3651)
Sheet-material associating
Associating or disassociating
Sheet associating
C271S188000, C271S209000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06375181
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a finisher by which an image formed sheet is received, and finishing such as stapling by a stapling means is conducted, after that, the sheets are delivered onto a sheet exit tray, in an image forming apparatus such as an electrophotographic copier, printer, facsimile device or printing machine, and to an image forming apparatus provided with the finisher.
The finisher by which a plurality of sheets, on which images are formed, delivered from the image forming apparatus main body are aligned for each number of copy s, and finishing such as stapling is conducted on the sheets by a finishing means such as a stapling means, is used.
This kind of finisher is connected in its function to the image forming apparatus main body such as a copier, printer, or facsimile device, and is driven corresponding to the sequence operation of copying or printing processes.
Accordingly, for the image forming apparatus main body which can process the image forming process at high speed, the finisher which can performs the function following to the processing speed and can conduct high speed processing, is required.
Such the finisher which can conduct high speed processing, is disclosed already in Japanese Tokkaisho No. 60-142359, No. 60-158463, No. 62-239169, and Japanese Tokkaisho No. 62-288002, No. 63-267667, Japanese Tokkaihei No. 2-276691, and Japanese Tokkohei No. 5-41991.
In the above finisher, the sheets on which images are formed, delivered from the image forming apparatus main body, are successively stacked in the intermediate stacker while being aligned, and after the sheets are accommodated as one package of sheets, finishing by the stapler is conducted on the package of sheets, and stapled package of sheets is placed on an exit belt provided on the bottom portion of the intermediate stacker and conveyed, and nipped by a pair of upper and lower sheet exit rollers and delivered onto a sheet exit tray.
In the sheet exit tray, the sheet placement surface is slantingly arranged in such a manner that the sheet rises toward the leading edge from the trailing edge, and on the back end side of the sheet exit tray, a sheet trailing edge contact reference member is formed such that it is provided vertically. When the trailing edge of the delivered sheet passes on the sheet trailing edge contact reference member, the sheet naturally falls by its self weight, and falls slidingly on the upper surface of the sheets placed on the sheet exit tray, and is brought into contact with the sheet trailing edge contact reference member, thereby, the trailing edge of the sheets is aligned in the sheet exit direction. Such the sheet stacking mechanism is written in Japanese Tokkaisho No. 57-48558.
Th finisher disclosed in Japanese Tokkaihei No. 2-233456 has the sheet exit tray which can horizontally move perpendicularly to the sheet conveyance direction, and the relative position of the sheet exit tray and the delivery position is changed depending on whether finishing is necessary for the sheets.
FIGS.
13
(
a
) and
13
(
b
) show a sheet delivery means of a conventional finisher, and
13
(
a
) is a plan view and
13
(
b
) is a side view viewed from the direction of an arrow A.
The sheet delivered from the image forming apparatus main body is guided into the finisher, conveyed, and aligning processed on the intermediate stacker; after stacked and accommodated package of sheets PTa is stapling processed by the stapling means, the package of sheets PTa is nipped by the rotating sheet exit upper roller R
1
and the sheet exit lower roller R
2
; and its conveyance is assisted by a winding roller R
3
, the package of sheets PTa is delivered onto an up-and-down sheet exit tray T, and slidingly falls on the slanting surface of the up-and-down sheet exit tray T, or the upper surface of the package of sheets PTb which is already slantingly placed on the up-and-down sheet exit tray T, by the self weight of the package of sheets PTa, and brought into pressure-contact with the outer peripheral surface of the rotating winding roller R
3
and conveyed, and brought into contact with a sheet trailing edge contact reference member K and stops.
The leading edge portion of an oscillatable actuator AC to on-, off-operate a sheet exit tray upper limit sensor PS is in light pressure-contact with the upper surface of the package of sheets PT stacked on the up-and-down sheet exit tray T, and corresponding to the height of the sheets stacked on the up-and-down sheet exit tray T, a control means up-and-down controls the up-and-down sheet exit tray T so that the sheet exit lower roller R
2
and the upper surface of the package of sheets PT maintain a predetermined interval between them.
When the sheet is delivered one by one onto the slantingly arranged up-and-down sheet exit tray T, because it is difficult that the sheet is assuredly brought into contact with the sheet trailing edge contact reference member K and stopped, only by the self weight of the sheet, sliding contact by the rotating winding roller R
3
is necessary.
When the package of sheets, in which a plurality of sheets are stapling processed, is aligned on the up-and-down sheet exit tray T, staple wires stapled onto different positions for each sheet size, come into contact with the sheet exit lower roller R
2
or the winding roller R
3
, and thereby, there is a case that the sheet exit lower roller R
2
or the winding roller R
3
is shaved and damaged.
In the package of sheets stacking, while the first stapling-processed package of sheets is delivered onto the up-and-down sheet exit tray T, the up-and-down sheet exit tray T is moved below temporarily, and after the first package of sheets PT has been delivered, the up-and-down sheet exit tray T is elevated, and at the time when the sheet exit tray upper limit sensor PS detects the uppermost surface position of the package of sheets PT, the up-and-down sheet exit tray T is stopped, and stands by the sheet exit of the second package of sheets PT.
Conventionally, in the case where, after the stapling is conducted on the sheets, the package of sheets is delivered onto the up-and-down sheet exit tray by the drive of a sheet delivery means, and is brought into contact with a stopper by the winding roller R
3
and aligned, when there is a time period of the conveyance interval between respective package of sheets, the up-and-down sheet exit tray is lowered at the time of alignment of the package of sheets, and there is a time margin to stop the drive of the sheet delivery means, and there is no possibility that the staple wires by which the package of sheets is stapled, are brought into contact with the sheet exit lower roller R
2
or winding roller R
3
and shave them.
That is, in this method, when a large sized sheet (for example, A4R, B4, A3, etc.) or a large number of sheets (for example, more than 3) are stapled, because there is a sufficient time period of the conveyance interval between the first package of sheets and the second package of sheets at the delivery, the up-and-down movement of the up-and-down sheet exit tray T can be conducted.
However, when small sized sheets (for example, A4, B5 sheets) and a small number of sheets (for example, not more than 2 sheets) are stapled, and delivered onto the up-and-down sheet exit tray T by the sheet delivery means and brought into contact with the stopper and aligned, because a time period of the conveyance interval between the first package of sheets and the second package of sheets is greatly small, the drive of the sheet delivery means having the sheet exit upper roller R
1
and the sheet exit lower roller R
2
, and the winding roller R
3
, is not stopped and the sheet delivery means continues driving-rotation, therefore, the above up-and-down movement of the up-and-down sheet exit tray T can not be applied to it. Therefore, a problem occurs that the staple wires of the stapled package of sheets moving downward on the up-and-down sheet exit tray T shave the surface of the rotating delivery sheet lower roller R
2
Kawano Minoru
Matsumoto Toshitaka
Ohtsuka Masaru
Okabe Hirohiko
Tsuchiya Tsuyoshi
Bierman, Muserlian and Lucas
Konica Corporation
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