Advancing material of indeterminate length – With material-responsive control means – Responsive to break or depletion
Patent
1995-11-09
1997-12-16
Stodola, Daniel P.
Advancing material of indeterminate length
With material-responsive control means
Responsive to break or depletion
226 45, 226 48, B23Q 1500, B23Q 1600
Patent
active
056975392
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a sheet feeding apparatus used in a printer to print labels, tags, and the like for feeding a label sheet or a tag sheet.
BACKGROUND ART
A sheet feeding apparatus used in a label printer and the like feeds a label sheet or a tag sheet continuously by means of a sheet feeding mechanism constructed of a pulse motor, a feed roller, and the like. Generally, a label sheet is formed of backing paper constituted of a continuous sheet of paper with a number of labels removably stuck on the surface thereof at regular intervals and a tag sheet is formed of tags, which are serially joined with each other through a perforation, with markings individually formed on the surface thereof at regular intervals. In the printing of images on labels or tags through the use of such a label printer, it becomes necessary to detect the positions of the labels on the label sheet or the tags on the tag sheet continuously fed forward by the sheet feeding mechanism. Accordingly, there has been practiced to detect the positions of the labels by disposing a transmission type optical sensor in the sheet feeding mechanism or to detect the positions of the tags by disposing a reflection type optical sensor in the sheet feeding mechanism. Namely, the output power of the transmission type optical sensor becomes high at the position of the label placed on the label sheet and becomes low at the position of the backing paper. On the other hand, the output power of the reflection type optical sensor becomes low at the position of the marking and becomes high at the position of the space between the markings. Therefore, the position of the label or the position of the tag can be detected on the basis of the output of each optical sensor. More specifically, on the basis of various conditions such as transmission factor of the backing paper of the label sheet or the reflection factor of the tag sheet, a threshold value is set and the position of the label or the tag is detected by comparing the output of each optical sensor with the threshold value.
When, however, a failure in the feeding of the label sheet or tag sheet such as jamming of the sheet or peeling off of the label occurs, the detection timing of the label or the marking by each optical sensor shifts backward or forward and it becomes impossible to correctly detect the label or the tag. In order to avoid such a difficulty, there has been used such means as to provide a predetermined tolerance for the detection timing of each optical sensor. More specifically, as the factor to determine the right detection timing of each optical sensor, the label interval or the marking interval has been set to about 0.5 to 1.5 times as large as the right timing in the normal feeding and a failure in the feeding of the label sheet or the tag sheet or a failure of the sheet itself has been determined to have occurred when the detection timing by the optical sensor of the label or the marking deviated from the tolerance. Typically, a jam can be mentioned as a failure in the sheet feeding and unexpected peeling of a label off the label sheet and the like can be mentioned as a failure of the sheet itself. Thus, the position of the label on a label sheet and occurrence of a failure of it can be detected by the output power of the transmission type optical sensor and the position of the tag of the tag sheet and a failure of it can be detected by the output value of the reflection type optical sensor. When a failure of the label sheet or the tag sheet is detected, such a process is taken to stop the sheet feeding operation by the sheet feeding mechanism or indicates occurrence of a failure by sounding a buzzer or lighting a pilot lamp.
A problem with such means of conventional art will be described below. In the feeding of a label sheet, the output power level of the transparent type optical sensor remains high when the label sheet reaches its end. In the feeding of a tag sheet, the output power level of the reflection type optical sensor remains low when the
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IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, vol. 20, No. 11A, Apr. 1978, pp. 4266-4269, "side-of-forms, end-of-forms, and forms jam-. . . ".
Kabushiki Kaisha TEC
Kaness Matthew A.
Stodola Daniel P.
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