Sheet feeding or delivering – Feeding – By means to convey sheet
Reexamination Certificate
2001-12-18
2003-09-16
Bollinger, David H. (Department: 3653)
Sheet feeding or delivering
Feeding
By means to convey sheet
Reexamination Certificate
active
06619658
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a media-conveying apparatus, and more particularly, to a media-conveying apparatus in a printer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Printers are used to print information on a media (such as paper). Printers usually have a media-conveying apparatus to convey the media and make printers capable of printing on different areas of the media. Most media-conveying apparatuses use rollers to drive the media. But for some printers, such as inkjet printers, print by applying liquid dye to the media. To avoid staining the rollers with liquid dye while the media is being driven, the printing apparatus usually uses star-wheels, or called spurs. The star-wheel has a plurality of tips around an edge and uses the tips to contact to the printed media. Since the contact area between a tip and the printing media is quite small, printing quality is not reduced if attached dye is still wet. In addition, for the media-conveying apparatus to use printing media of different thicknesses, a printing apparatus of the prior art has an elastic apparatus for elastically pressing on the star-wheel so the star-wheel can move vertically according to the printing media thickness when the media-conveying apparatus is conveying printing media.
Please refer to
FIGS. 1 and 2
.
FIG. 1
is a schematic diagram of a media-conveying apparatus
20
of the prior art used in a printing machine
10
.
FIG. 2
is a cross-sectional diagram of a media-conveying apparatus
20
of
FIG. 1
along line
2
—
2
. The media-conveying apparatus
20
is used in printer
10
to convey a printing media
28
. The media-conveying apparatus
20
has a support
46
for placement of other parts of media-conveying apparatus
20
, a rotational arm
24
rotating around a fixed support point
36
, a spring
26
with one end fixed on support
46
for elastically pressing a first arm
32
of rotational arm
24
, a star-wheel
22
having a plurality of tips
38
around its circular edge and a roller
42
below star-wheel
22
to drive printing media
28
. Rotational arm
24
further has a second arm
34
. Star-wheel
22
is rotatable and is set on an axle that is placed on second arm
34
.
When roller
42
is driving printing media
28
, because the spring
26
elastically presses the first arm
32
of rotational arm
24
, the printing media
28
is nipped between star-wheel
22
and roller
42
, and tips
38
of star-wheel
22
elastically contact printing media
28
. So star-wheel
22
can accommodate printing media
28
of different thicknesses due to spring
26
.
Please refer to
FIG. 3
of a cross-sectional diagram of a media-conveying apparatus
50
of another prior art. The media-conveying apparatus
50
has a support
68
for placing other parts of the media-conveying apparatus
50
, a cylinder
62
having a support point
64
, a star-wheel
54
having a plurality of tips
56
around an edge, a spring
52
with one end fixed on support
68
for elastically pressing on arm
62
and a roller
58
below star-wheel
54
for driving printing media
66
. Star-wheel
54
uses support point
64
as a center and is set on arm
62
. When roller
58
is driving printing media
66
, spring
52
elastically presses the arm
62
, printing media
66
is nipped between the star-wheel
54
and the roller
58
and the tips
56
of star-wheel
54
elastically contact to printing media
66
.
Printing apparatuses
20
and
50
of prior arts have a weakness in that spring
26
and
52
are fixed on supports making maintenance and replacement of springs
26
and
52
difficult. In addition, media-conveying apparatuses
20
and
50
of prior arts have more components and are manufactured manually in a complex assembly process.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore a primary objective of the present invention to provide a media-conveying apparatus to solve the above-mentioned problem.
Briefly, in a preferred embodiment, the present invention provides a media-conveying apparatus comprising:
a support;
a star-wheel having a plurality of tips around an edge;
a wheel axle through a center of the star-wheel; and a monolithic first elastic apparatus having a first torsion arm placed on the support and a second torsion arm for pressing the axle to make the tips of the star-wheel elastically contact a printing media.
It is an advantage of the present invention that the media-conveying apparatus according to the present invention has fewer parts and is easy to assemble and maintain.
These and other objects and the advantages of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after having read the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4775142 (1988-10-01), Silverberg
patent: 4997179 (1991-03-01), Mizutani et al.
patent: 5606357 (1997-02-01), Bekki
patent: 5954327 (1999-09-01), Lin et al.
patent: 5988635 (1999-11-01), Ohshima
patent: 6336629 (2002-01-01), Carter et al.
patent: 0 472 893 (1992-03-01), None
patent: 58008679 (1983-01-01), None
patent: 01291966 (1989-11-01), None
patent: 05000542 (1993-01-01), None
patent: 6-64774 (1994-08-01), None
patent: 11170641 (1999-06-01), None
BenQ Corporation
Bollinger David H.
Hsu Winston
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