Sheet feeding or delivering – Feeding – Separators
Reexamination Certificate
2002-01-11
2003-11-25
Walsh, Donald P. (Department: 3653)
Sheet feeding or delivering
Feeding
Separators
Reexamination Certificate
active
06651971
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
This present invention relates to a paper collecting device, and more particularly to a paper collecting mechanism used in an automatic document feeder.
2. Description of Related Art
In common visual imaging output devices such as photocopying machine, fax machine, scanners or the like, image reading is accomplished by placing the original document on top of a glass platen. The optical reading unit is placed underneath the glass platen for reading the image of the original document. Due to increase usage of the automatic document feeder (herein after abbreviated as ADF) to feed original documents into the photocopying machine for images to be read, the position of the optical reading unit can be better defined and therefore reducing the area of the glass platen. The other application of the ADF is to place it on top of the glass platen. The stacked original documents are placed inside the tray of the ADF allowing the paper collecting device inside the ADF to feed the document to the glass platen for image reading. Furthermore, ADFs are applicable to printers or other machines that require paper separation.
FIG.
1
and
FIG. 2
are the schematic diagrams of a conventional paper collecting device. The paper collecting device
100
has a separation roller
110
, a drive roller
120
, and a feed roller
130
, a support member
140
, and a elastic member
150
supported between top wall
20
bottom wall
30
. Paper
10
feeds under the feed roller
130
in a forward direction as indicated by the arrow. Support member is seated horizontally and is connected to separation shaft
112
, drive shaft
122
, and feed shaft
132
. When separation roller
112
rotates, it will also rotate drive roller
120
, feed roller
130
, and support member down around separation shaft
112
and extend elastic member
150
to press down feed rim
136
to contact the surface of paper
10
, as illustrated in FIG.
2
. The continuous rotation of separation gear
114
rotates drive gear
124
to turn feed gear
134
and feed rim
136
, which are both mounted on feed shaft
132
. As a result, feed gear
134
rotates feed rim
136
and feeds the paper forward.
Please refer to
FIG. 2
, when paper
10
is fed in by feed rim
136
till it is between separation rim
116
and bottom wall
30
, the continuous rotating separation gear
114
engages the one-way clutch
118
to turn separation rim
116
. Once the separation process of paper
10
is finished, rotating separation rim
116
will immediately reverse rotation in the other direction to operate other parts. At this moment, one-way clutch
118
activates and releases separation rim
116
from separation gear
114
to allow free rotation. This will prevent separation rim
116
from pushing paper
10
in the reverse direction and causing paper wrinkle. At the same time, elastic member
150
will retract support member
140
, feed roller
130
, and drive roller
120
, and prevent separation
136
from pushing paper
10
in. Afterwards, separation gear
114
stops rotating and returns the paper collecting device back to the state in FIG.
1
.
The disadvantage of the conventional paper collecting device in
FIG. 2
is paper wrinkle and tear. When paper
10
leaves separation rim
116
, separation
112
immediately reverses rotation causing one-way clutch
118
to activate and to release separation rim
116
from separation shaft
112
. This prevents separation rim
116
to further push in paper
10
for separation process. At the same time, elastic member
150
retracts support member
140
, feed roller
130
, and drive roller
120
. If elastic member
150
cannot instantaneously retract and because separation gear
114
is still causing separation rim
116
to turn, feed rim
136
will either push or pull paper
10
and cause wrinkle or tear because of the different velocity of feed rim
136
and separation rim
116
. Moreover in designing the device, the dimensions of separation rim
116
and feed rim
136
have to be the accurately identical. If the dimensions differ in separation rim
116
and feed rim
136
, the linear velocity of paper
10
is unequal and will easily cause paper
10
to have wrinkle or tear.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide to a paper collecting device suitable to use in an ADF. It can accommodate separation rims and feed rims of different sizes and still maintain the same linear velocity for the paper at contact with the separation rim and feed rim to prevent pushing or pulling of paper causing paper wrinkle and tear.
In order to achieve the above object, a paper collecting device suitable to use in an ADF comprises a separation roller, a drive roller, a feed roller, a support member, and an elastic member. In this device, besides the separation roller having a one-way clutch, another one-way clutch is added in between the feed roller and feed gear. When feeding process of the paper stops, the separation shaft immediately reverses rotation to operate other parts. This will cause the separation rim and the feed rim to release from the driving source of the motor and allow them to rotate freely at the same tangential velocity. As a result, the paper is prevented from pushing or pulling by the feed rim, which causes paper wrinkle and tear.
Furthermore, the device in this invention allows the diameter of the feed rim to be smaller than the separation rim. The tangential velocity at the points of contact of the paper and the separation rim and the feed rim should be the same. However due to the feed rim having a smaller diameter than the separation rim, the tangential velocity of the separation rim is larger than the tangential velocity of the feed rim because the gear ratio between the separation gear and the feed gear is identical so the separation gear, separation rim, and feed gear all have the same angular velocity. Therefore in order to maintain the same tangential velocity at the points of contact of the paper and the separation rim and the feed rim, the one-way clutch inside the feed roller automatically disengages to allow the feed rim to rotate freely. This maintains a same tangential velocity when the same piece of paper contact the separation rim and the feed rim during the conveyance of the paper from the feed rim to the separation rim to prevent paper being pushed or pulled causing paper wrinkle and tear.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5497986 (1996-03-01), Kudo
patent: 6024356 (2000-02-01), Tanaka et al.
patent: 6390463 (2002-05-01), Iwago
Bower Kenneth W
J.C. Patents
Umax Data Systems Inc.
Walsh Donald P.
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