Sheet-material associating – Associating or disassociating – Sheet associating
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-18
2001-09-18
Skaggs, H. Grant (Department: 3651)
Sheet-material associating
Associating or disassociating
Sheet associating
C270S058080, C270S058270, C399S404000, C399S410000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06290220
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet treating apparatus, and more particularly, it relates to a sheet treating apparatus used with an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a laser beam printer and the like and having a first treating means (referred to as “treating tray” hereinafter) for effecting treatment such as stapling or sorting sheets discharged from the image forming apparatus and a second treating means (referred to as “stack tray” hereinafter).
2. Related Background Art
In the past, various techniques regarding a combination of a treating tray for stapling a sheet bundle if desired and a stack tray for receiving each sheet bundle and for containing the sheet bundle have been proposed as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2-144370.
FIG. 27
is a sectional view showing an example of such a technique.
In
FIG. 27
, the reference numeral
501
denotes a treating tray; and
502
denotes a stack tray. Around the treating tray
501
, there are provided a stapler
503
for effecting stapling, and a jogger
504
for effecting alignment of sheets while shifting frontward and rearward.
With the above-mentioned arrangement, a sheet bundle aligned on the treating tray (staple tray) and stapled is discharged onto the stack tray
502
by a pair of bundle discharge rollers
505
,
506
. In order to sort the sheet bundles discharged onto the stack tray
502
, the stack tray
502
can be shifted frontward and rearward (in a direction of the width of the sheet) for each sheet bundle and can be shifted upward and downward to align the surface of the sheet bundle with the bundle discharge roller pair, so that the stack tray
502
is lowered while sorting the sheets frontward and rearwawrd.
Both the treating tray
501
and the stack tray
502
are inclined so that downstream (left) ends thereof are located higher than upstream ends thereof, and trailing ends of the sheets on the stack tray
502
are regulated by a rear end wall
507
.
Incidentally, the reference numerals used in the conventional technique shown in
FIG. 27
do not relate to the reference numerals used in the present invention.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional technique, as the sheet bundles are successively discharged, when a larger number of sheets (about 1000 sheets or more) are stacked on the stack tray
502
, lower sheets are contacted with the rear end wall
507
with great pressure due to the weight of the upper sheets. In this condition, when the stack tray
502
tries to be shifted frontward and rearward, rear ends of the lower sheets will be damaged or folded by significantly rubbing against the rear end wall
507
.
Also, as the stack tray
502
has to be shifted frontward and rearward while resting a large number of sheets thereon, a large motor is required for shifting the stack tray
502
and a secure shifting mechanism is required.
Further, when the stack tray
502
is shifted in a condition that non-stapled sheets are stacked on the tray, if the stacking condition is unstable due to curl in the sheets or the like, the shifting movement of the is tray may cause misalignment of the sheets.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention aimns to eliminate the above-mentioned conventional drawbacks, and an object of the present invention is to provide a sheet treating apparatus including, sheet discharging means for discharging a sheet, first stacking means for receiving the sheets discharged by the sheet discharging means, aligning means for aligning a sheet bundle on the first stacking means by a pinching movement effected by a first and a second aligning members shiftable independently in a direction perpendicular to a sheet discharging direction, transferring means for transferring the sheet bundle on the first stacking means to second stacking means, and wherein, in the first stacking means, alignment positions of the respective sheet bundles are offset by shifting the aligning positions by a predetermined amount to first and second aligning positions alternately by means of the first and second aligning members, and further wherein the first and second aligning positions of the first stacking means are opposite directions transverse to the sheet discharging direction with respect to the position of the sheet discharged.
The sheet treating apparatus may include a plurality of driving means for driving the first and second aligning members independently, and controlling means for controlling the driving means, and wherein the sheet bundle may be aligned by using a reference position obtained by shifting one of the first and second aligning members by a predetermined amount with respect to an end of the sheet discharged, and then the next sheet bundle may be aligned by using a reference position obtained by shifting the other aligning member by a predetermined amount from the other end of the sheet, and such sheet bundle aligning operations may be effected alternately for successive sheet bundles.
With the arrangement as mentioned above, the sheets discharged on the first stacking means are aligned by the first and second aligning members shiftable independently, and the alignment positions of the first and second aligning members are alternately shifted by the predetermined amount frontward forwardly and rearward in the direction perpendicular to the sheet discharging direction whenever the sheet bundle is aligned on the first stacking means. On the second stacking means to which the sheet bundle aligned on the first stacking means is transferred by the transferring means, the sheet bundles are stacked in the alternately offset condition, thereby eliminating an offset operation of the second stacking means for offsetting the sheet bundles.
As mentioned above, according to the present invention, since the sheet bundle transferred from the first stacking means to the second stacking means is previously offset, the sheet offsetting in the second stacking means can be eliminated or omitted, and thus, the trailing end(s) of the sheet(s) can be prevented from being damaged or(and) folded by rubbing the trailing end against the second stacking means when the sheets are offset on the second stacking means, and a driving source for the second stacking means can be made compact.
Further, when the offsetting operation is effected, since the sheet shifting amount on the first stacking means is minimized to ensure the required maximum offset amount for each sheet bundle, a driving means for shifting the aligning members can be made compact and the sheet can be discharged even from a high speed image forming apparatus.
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patent: 5895036 (1999-04-01), Asao
patent: 5897250 (1999-04-01), Hirai et al.
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patent: 0 346 851 (1989-12-01), None
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Hayashi Ken-ichi
Takehara Yoshifumi
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Skaggs H. Grant
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