Sheet feeding or delivering – Feeding – Separators
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-12
2002-06-04
Skaggs, H. Grant (Department: 3651)
Sheet feeding or delivering
Feeding
Separators
C271S090000, C271S098000, C271S107000, C271S188000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06398207
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to an electronic reprographic printing system, and more particularly concerns feeder apparatus process for improving feeding of compilations of recording sheets that often accompanies this general method of reproduction and printing.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Cross reference is made to the following applications filed concurrently herewith: U.S. application Ser. No. 09/591,820 entitled “A Sheet Feeding Apparatus Having An Air Plenum With A Corrugated Surface”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,188, U.S. application Ser. No. 09/591,778 entitled “A Reversing Shuttle Feeder”, and U.S. application Ser. No. 09/591,909 entitled “A Sheet Feeding Apparatus Having An Air Plenum With A Leaky Seal”.
In the process of electrophotographic reproduction, a light image of an original to be copied or printed is typically recorded in the form of a latent electrostatic image upon a photosensitive member, with a subsequent rendering of the latent image visible by the application of electroscopic marking particles, commonly referred to as toner. The visual toner image can be either fixed directly upon the photosensitive member or transferred from the member to another support medium, such as a sheet of plain paper. To render this toner image permanent, the image must be “fixed” or “fused” to the paper, generally by the application of heat and pressure.
With the advent of high speed xerography reproduction machines wherein copiers or printers can produced at a rate in excess of three thousand copies per hour, the need for sheet handling system to, for example, feed paper or other media through each process station in a rapid succession in a reliable and dependable manner in order to utilize the full capabilities of the reproduction machine. These sheet handling systems must operate flawlessly to virtually eliminate risk of damaging the recording sheets and generate minimum machine shutdowns due to misfeeds or multifeeds. It is in the initial separation of the individual sheets from the media stack where the greatest number of problems occur which, in some cases, can be due to up curl and downcurl in sheets which generally occur randomly in the document stack.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
There is provided a sheet feeding apparatus for feeding a compilation of sheets in a process direction to a process station, comprising: a sheet tray for holding said compilation of sheets; an air plenum, positioned above said compilation of sheets, said plenum including a corrugated surface having a first set of ribs at a first height and a second set of ribs at a second height; and a blower for generating a vacuum force in said air plenum to drive one of said compilation of sheets into contact with said corrugated surface.
An object of the present invention is a sheet feeder apparatus. In this apparatus, air is used to help sheet separation, fluff sheet up, acquire sheet from the media tray and remove extra sheets away from the sheet being fed.
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Jenkins Larry L.
Taylor Thomas N.
Yang Ming
Bean II Lloyd F.
Skaggs H. Grant
Xerox Corporation
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