Sheet feeding or delivering – Delivering – Multiple discharge
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-22
2003-11-11
Walsh, Donald P. (Department: 3653)
Sheet feeding or delivering
Delivering
Multiple discharge
Reexamination Certificate
active
06644661
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an improvement in a post-printing processor for a printer.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In a recent business office environment, each person is usually provided with a personal computer that is connected to a plurality of other computers via a network.
One or more printers for printing out the works processed by the personal computers are also incorporated in the network to selectively be used by a plurality of shared users. However, printed jobs from the plurality of shared users are often stacked up together at a discharging port of the printer. Thus, after a printing operation, the user has to walk up to the printer and look for his/her job in a stack of jobs of other users.
Thus, printers used by a plurality of shared users require a post-printing processing for separating the jobs for users to help each user to easily pick up his/her job. This post-printing processing is more strongly demanded as the number of shared users connected to the network becomes larger.
As such a post-printing processing technique, a sorter is known in which a plurality of sheet-discharging ports are assigned to respective users and can automatically be selected by a controller of the printer to prevent jobs of different users from commingling. However, post-printing processing by this type of sorter requires multiple sheet travel paths and a mechanism for switching among the sheet travel paths for guiding jobs to the plurality of discharging ports, which results in a large-scaled device structure. Accordingly, such sorter has problems of a high installation cost as well as an unreasonably limited number of users despite of the expense, and thus is rarely employed.
In view of these problems, the following processes which employ simple mechanisms are known as processes that can be employed at a low cost by multiple users. Hereinafter, conventional post-printing processes that are used in practice will be described together with their problems.
FIG. 11
is a view showing the most major post-printing processor that is used in practice, where a job
200
currently under the process is discharged through a discharging roller
101
in a longitudinal direction and stacked up on already discharged jobs of other users.
The jobs of other users beneath the currently processed job
200
are stacked up in alternating directions such that the first job
201
is in the longitudinal direction, the second job
202
is in the transverse direction, the third job
203
is in the longitudinal direction again and the forth job
204
is in the transverse direction again. This type of sorting is accomplished by providing two sheet cassettes (not shown) for stocking sheets in the longitudinal and transverse directions. A controller of the printer alternately switches between the longitudinal and transverse directions for each job sent from the users via the network.
FIG. 12
is a view showing another exemplary simple sorting mechanism which can be mounted on a printer
100
. The small-sized sorter
103
which may be mounted as an option on a sheet discharger
102
of the printer
100
is configured to output jobs while the printer
100
switches between a sheet-conveying path directing to a standard discharging port
104
and a sheet-conveying path directing to the sorter
103
. The sorter
103
is provided with a plurality of sheet-discharging ports A, B, . . . N, and an internal conveying path switching mechanism for separating sheets by job. An internal controller of the sorter
103
may look for an empty discharging port to discharge a single job, or the sheet-discharging ports may be assigned to respective users in advance to serve as user-specific discharging ports.
The first conventional method shown in
FIG. 11
which alternately switches the sheet discharging directions requires two sheet cassettes for both longitudinal and transverse discharges. A sheet cassette requires a number of machinery components and a large-sized body, for example, for identifying a type of a stack of sheets set in the cassette, for picking a single sheet from the stack of sheets, and for forming a conveying path for the stacked sheets. Accordingly, the sheet cassette is expensive as an option and will increase an installation cost. In addition, when either of the two cassettes is low of paper stock, the printer detects “paper low” signal, which means that the maximum number of sheets that can actually be printed is not so large in spite of the size of the device.
Although each job may be stacked up in alternating directions, the jobs are not always removed in this order. For example, a job in the transverse direction may be picked up first, leaving the adjacent jobs in the longitudinal direction commingled.
The greatest problem here is that the user has to look through the stacked jobs at the printer to find his/her job.
A printer mounted with the sorter shown in
FIG. 12
requires a certain strength to bear the weight of the mounted sorter
103
as well as the total weight of the discharged sheets on a small area of the top of the sheet discharger
102
. Thus, the printer
100
would cost high to ensure this strength as well as to provide the switching mechanism for conveying sheets in vertical and horizontal directions.
The mechanism for switching among the sheet-discharging ports A through N complicates the configuration of the discharger, increases the cost of the controller and requires a large power source, resulting in an increase of the cost of the sorter
103
itself. Moreover, since the number of the discharging ports is limited due to the mounting-type structure, the discharging ports are likely to become full unless the users come quickly enough to remove their jobs.
Thus, post-printing processor has been considered to have no merit or achievement of being developed at a great cost as an optional device, since this would further raise the price. As a result, despite of their convenience, the above-described post-printing processors have never been popular.
In sum, the conventional post-printing processors are associated with the following problems. First problem is that both of the alternative-direction stacking technique and the simple sorter configuration technique increase the installation cost borne by the user due to the indispensable device structure.
Second problem is that in the case of the alternative-direction stacking technique, the user has to actually look through the jobs discharged from the printer to find his/her job. In the case of the simple sorter configuration technique, the limited number of discharging ports become full in short time, which will interfere with the sorting function.
Thus, the present invention has an objective of providing a post-printing processor which solves the above-described conventional problems, and reduces the installation cost borne by the user and facilitates locating of the desired printed job.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is a post-printing processor for a printer, which can process a plurality of print jobs. In view of the above-described problems, the post-printing processor specifically comprises: spiral shape sheet-holding members rotatably arranged to face a sheet-discharging port of the printer such that the center axes of the spiral shape sheet-holding members are generally perpendicular to a sheet conveying plane of the sheet-discharging port; and a rotating mechanism for retaining the rotating positions of the spiral shape sheet-holding members such that openings of the gaps of the spiral shape sheet-holding members face the sheet-discharging port, and for driving the spiral shape sheet-holding members to make one or more full-turns after every single print job is completed.
According to this structure, a sheet sent out from the sheet-discharging port of the printer is inserted into the spiral shape sheet-holding members which are arranged to face the sheet-discharging port. Since the positions of the spiral shape sheet-holding members are retained such that the openings of their gaps face t
Bower Kenneth W
Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP.
Walsh Donald P.
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