Electrophotography – Having particular structure – Modular or displaceable
Reexamination Certificate
2001-09-18
2004-01-06
Braun, Fred L. (Department: 2852)
Electrophotography
Having particular structure
Modular or displaceable
C271S009110, C271S117000, C399S391000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06674983
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such a printer, a copying machine, and a facsimile machine, and more particularly to improvements of an image forming apparatus in which a rear-side transporting path is included as at least a portion of recording-material transporting paths.
Further, the present invention relates to a sheet feeder for use in such as a printer, a copying machine, and a facsimile machine, and more particularly to improvements of a sheet feeder of the type in which sheets are fed from the innermost recess side of a sheet tray in the inserting direction thereof, the sheet tray being disposed in such a manner as to be capable of being inserted or pulled out. The sheet used in the present invention has a size in a range of a size from a postcard to the JIS standard A3 size for a machine drawing including a legal size.
2. Related Art
As a conventional image forming apparatus of this type, one is already known which is comprised of a printer unit incorporating an image forming engine inside an apparatus body and adapted to form an image on a recording material (paper, an OHP sheet, and the like) by means of this image forming engine; a discharge tray disposed above this printer unit to discharge and accommodate the recording material for which the image formation by the printer unit is completed; a recording-material supplying unit which is disposed below the printer unit, in which a recording material cassette for accommodating the recording material is loaded in the apparatus body in such a manner as to be capable of being pulled out from a user operation side (normally, this side of the apparatus body), and in which the user operation-side surface of the recording material cassette is set substantially flush with a surface of the apparatus body; and a recording-material transporting system in which transporting paths are provided for transporting to the printer unit the recording material supplied from the recording-material supplying unit and for guiding the recording material to the discharge tray (e.g., JP-A-7-219298).
This mode is preferable in that, in terms of the shape of the image forming apparatus, it is possible to adopt a basic configuration of a box type having no external projections while the installation space of the image forming apparatus is kept to the range of the recording-material supplying unit.
Incidentally, in image forming apparatuses of this type, a recording-material transporting system of a mode which has recording-material transporting paths extending in the left-and-right direction as viewed from the user operation side is frequently adopted.
In addition, in such image forming apparatuses as compact printers, a recording-material transporting system is already present which has recording-material transporting paths extending in the back-and-forth direction as viewed from the user operation side.
Further, as a conventionally known printer, one is known which is comprised of, for example, a paper feeding tray disposed in such a manner as to be capable of being inserted or pulled out from this side of the apparatus; a paper feeding section disposed on the innermost recess side of the paper feeding tray in the inserting direction thereof and adapted to separate and feed one by one the paper accommodated in the paper feeding tray; an image forming section disposed above the paper feeding tray to form an image on the paper thus fed; and a discharge tray for discharging the paper, after being subjected to image formation, from the innermost recess side of the apparatus toward this side (refer to JP-A-11-84981).
In this type of printer, since the above-described configuration is adopted, the paper feeding passages are substantially formed in a U-shape, and the paper transporting passages are provided on the innermost recess side as viewed in the inserting direction of the paper feeding tray, i.e., on the innermost recess side of the main body of the printer.
With such a printer, since the replacement of the paper feeding tray is required in correspondence with the print size, there is a problem in that the operation becomes complicated correspondingly.
Accordingly, a printer is conventionally known in which one or a plurality of separate paper feeding units are further disposed on the lower side of the main body of the printer to make it possible to feed paper corresponding to the print size.
Here, as the paper feeding unit, one is used which has a paper feeding tray disposed in the main body of the paper feeding unit in such a manner as to be capable of being inserted or pulled out and a paper feeding section disposed on the innermost recess side of the paper feeding tray in the inserting direction thereof and adapted to separate and feed one by one the paper accommodated in the paper feeding tray. By adopting this arrangement, the paper transporting passages in the paper feeding unit can be set on the innermost recess side, so that the paper fed out from the paper feeding unit can be smoothly delivered to the main body side of the printer.
[Problems to be Solved]
However, with the image forming apparatus of the above-described mode (the mode in which the discharge tray is provided above the printer unit, and the recording-material supplying unit is provided below the printer unit), in the case where the recording-material transporting paths extending in the left-and-right direction as viewed from the user operation side are adopted, since the transporting paths are generally disposed laterally of the apparatus body in supplying the recording material in the recording-material supplying unit on the lower side to the printer unit on the upper side, if a jam of the recording material is occurred in, for instance, the lateral transporting path, the jam must be cleared after opening a side cover of the apparatus body. Thus, it is inevitable to secure a jam clearing space (a space for opening the side cover) on the side of the apparatus body.
On the other hand, with the image forming apparatus of the above-described mode, in the case where the recording-material transporting paths extending in the back-and-forth direction as viewed from the user operation side are adopted, the transporting paths are generally disposed on the user operation side (this side) of the apparatus body or on the opposite side thereof (rear side).
At this time, in the mode in which all the transporting paths are arranged on this side of the apparatus body, in a case where the recording material is jammed in the transporting path on this side, the jam can be cleared after pulling out the recording material cassette or opening the front cover of the printer unit. However, due to the limitations imposed on the transporting paths of the recording material, the degree of freedom in the configuration or layout of the image forming engine inside the printer unit is impaired.
Meanwhile, in the mode in which the rear-side transporting path is included as a portion of the transporting paths, an arrangement generally provided is such that if a jam of the recording material occurs in the rear-side transporting path, a rear cover is opened to effect the clearing of the jam. Therefore, there is a technical problem in that the installation space of the image forming apparatus must be made wider on the rear side than the area occupied by the image forming apparatus by the portion required for opening or closing the rear cover.
In addition, although a technique is proposed in which, by making use of the space from which the recording material cassette is pulled out, the recording material which is jammed in the rear-side transporting path is manually removed (JP-A-11-84981), this type of technique is premised on the fact that the recording material cassette projects from the apparatus body toward the user operation side, and that the back-and-forth dimension of the apparatus body is small. Hence, this type of technique is difficult to apply to a mode in which the recording material cassette is accommodated
Enomoto Kazuo
Iihara Kazuhiro
Misu Toshiaki
Nishimura Masakuni
Braun Fred L.
Fuji 'Xerox Co., Ltd.
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
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