Sheet feeding or delivering – Feeding – Separators
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-24
2001-05-08
Walsh, Donald P. (Department: 3653)
Sheet feeding or delivering
Feeding
Separators
C271S147000, C271S145000, C271S157000, C271S158000, C271S009090, C271S009110, C271S009130
Reexamination Certificate
active
06227533
ABSTRACT:
CLAIM OF PRIORITY
This application makes reference to, incorporates the same herein, and claims all rights accruing thereto under 35 U.S.C. §119 through my patent application entitled A Sheet Feeding Apparatus earlier filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on Nov. 24, 1997 and there duly assigned Ser. No. 1997/62291.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet feeding apparatus for an electrophotographic device and, more particularly, to a multi-functional sheet feeding device that can intersperse a manually fed document between documents that are being loaded from a separate tray using an automatic document loading process.
2. Background Art
An image formation apparatus (e.g., a printer, scanner, facsimile or copier) must often accommodate printable mediums having a thickness or dimensions different from that of standard paper. Envelopes, postcards, transparencies, labels and resume paper are just a few examples of the different printable mediums that a sheet feeder must accommodate. A sheet feeder may be constructed to use a tray that supplies paper to a printer. The tray often has an adjustment lever allowing the paper to be moved away from a pickup roller in order to load additional sheets of paper into the tray. After loading additional paper, the adjustment lever is moved in a direction opposite that used for preparing the tray to receive additional paper causing the pickup roller to press against the paper on the tray and then transfer the paper to a transfer roller. Then, the transfer roller transports the sheet of paper to the printer cartridge.
Contemporary image forming devices use one of two kinds of methods to feed sheets into a printer or scanner. One method is to use an automatic paper feeding device that continues to load a multitude of papers as required by a controller. The second method of loading a document is to load the document manually. This normally requires that a user either replace the stack of papers normally being automatically loaded by the computer with the document to be loaded or that the user stop the printing process and position the document on top of the stack of papers currently being used for automatically feeding paper into the image forming or reading device. Having to stop the printing or scanning process of an imaging forming or recording device to change the medium that the device uses can be very inconvenient to a user, results in the waste of time, and thus lowers the printing or recording efficiency of the electrophotographic device.
As such, I believe that it may be possible to improve on the contemporary art by providing a multi-functional sheet feeding device that can intersperse a manually fed document between documents that are being loaded from a separate tray using an automatic document loading process, that reduces the number of components normally required to build sheet feeding device capable of both printing automatically or using a manually fed document from a second tray, that increases the productivity of a user by eliminating the need to stop the automatic sheet loading process to manually feed a document, that is simple to manufacture, and that is economical to produce.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved multi-functional sheet feeding device.
It is another object to provide a multi-functional sheet feeding device that can intersperse a manually fed document between documents that are being loaded from a separate tray using an automatic document loading process, without requiring the adjustment of the paper cassette.
It is still another object to provide a multi-functional sheet feeding device that reduces the number of components normally required to build sheet feeding device that is capable of both printing automatically or printing using a manually fed document from a second tray.
It is yet another object to provide a multi-functional sheet feeding device that increases the productivity of a user by eliminating the need to stop the automatic sheet loading process to manually feed a document.
It is still yet another object to provide a multi-functional sheet feeding device that is easy to manufacture and that is economical to produce.
To achieve these and other objects, a sheet feeding device, or paper cassette, is provided that may be constructed using a first tray mounted in a frame and biased by an elastic member to bring the paper stacked on the first tray into engagement with a pickup roller. A finger is pivotally attached to the frame to force the paper loaded from the first tray to be loaded sequentially. A second tray is attached to the frame and has an end that forms a document guide that is interposed between the finger and the pickup roller. Alternatively, the second tray can end before the pickup roller and a film can be attached to the second tray to form a document guide that extends between the pickup roller and the finger. Regardless of the method used to form a document guide, the document guide allows the paper cassette to intersperse a manually fed document between documents that are being loaded from a separate tray using an automatic document loading process.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4285510 (1981-08-01), Kanno et al.
patent: 4429863 (1984-02-01), Itoh et al.
patent: 5120040 (1992-06-01), Worley
patent: 5222722 (1993-06-01), Kamano
Bushnell , Esq. Robert E.
Miller Jonathan R.
Samsung Electronic Co. Ltd.
Walsh Donald P.
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