JPH06100232A - Copying device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Purpose] Refeed non-sorted copies to the sorter,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a copying apparatus that can be easily sorted. In a copying apparatus equipped with a sorter 2, a sheet placed on a paper discharge section 8 of the sorter 2 is carried in and a sorting section 2
A copying apparatus comprising: supplying means 81, 82, 9 for supplying the sheet to the sheet and a control means for controlling the sorting section 2 to sort the supplied sheet.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an improvement of a copying machine having a sorter.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Some copying machines are equipped with a sorter that automatically sorts copies. When such a sorter is used, when copying several pages of originals and distributing them to several people, a copy for one person will be discharged onto one sort bin, which is very convenient.

FIG. 4 is a general external view of a copying machine having a sorter. As shown in the figure, an ADF (automatic document feeder) 102 is provided on the upper surface of the copying machine main body 101, and a sorter section 103 for sorting copies is provided on the side of the copying machine main body 101. It is provided. Further, the sorter unit 103 is provided with a large number of sort bins in which the discharge tray 104 is arranged at the uppermost stage and below the sort tray 103 are arranged in this order.

Here, for example, when three originals C, B, and A are set in order from the bottom on the original placing table of the ADF of the copying apparatus, and three copies are to be copied, sorting is performed. Is forgotten and it is assumed that the copy was made in non-sort mode. In such a case, on the sort bin,
All copy papers C, C, C, B, B, B, A, A, and A are ejected in order from the bottom. Then, no copy paper is discharged onto the following sort bins.

[0005]

In this way, when the setting of the sort mode is forgotten when the copy is made and the copy is made in the non-sort mode, after the copy is finished, Manual work is required to sort each copy into several copies. This sorting operation becomes extremely troublesome when the number of originals or the number of copies becomes large.

When copying a book or the like in order from the side with the smallest number of pages, the reverse order is from the copy paper with the side with the largest number of pages on the sort bin. Therefore, even in such a case, the troublesome manual work of changing the page order of the copy paper after the copying is finished is required. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-68366 discloses a copying apparatus having a function of rearranging the page numbers of copy sheets in order during a copying operation. According to this copying apparatus, even when a plurality of originals are not set in order of page numbers, copy sheets can be discharged onto the sort bin in order of page numbers, which is very convenient. The method is to read the page number of the original document, provide an intermediate storage bin inside the apparatus, temporarily store the copy paper therein, and then discharge the stored copy paper for each page number onto the final sort bin. ing.

However, when using this type of copying apparatus, it is necessary to number the originals as a premise, and in the case where a copy is made in the non-sort mode, it is still necessary. Since all the copy sheets are ejected onto one sort bin, it is necessary to carry out the sorting work after the copying is completed. Further, it is completely impossible to rearrange the page order of all copy sheets that have been forgotten to be sorted by another copying apparatus by this type of copying apparatus. Further, the provision of the intermediate storage bin leads to an increase in the size of the device and an increase in the installation area thereof is against the size reduction and space saving.

The present invention has been made in view of the above situation, in which a non-sorted copy is re-fed to a sorter,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a copying apparatus that can be easily sorted.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention, in a copying machine equipped with a sorter, carries in a sheet placed on a sheet discharge section of the sorter and supplies it to a sorting section. It is characterized in that a supply means and a control means for controlling the supplied sheets to be sorted by the sorting section are provided.

[0010]

According to the above construction, the paper placed on the paper output section of the sorter is carried in by the supply means and supplied to the sorting section. Further, the sorting unit is controlled by the control unit to sort the supplied sheets. As a result, the sheets placed on the sheet discharge section of the sorter are sorted.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a front sectional view showing a schematic structure of a sorter section of a copying apparatus according to the present invention. As shown in the figure, a sorter unit 2 is arranged on the side of the copying apparatus main body 1, and on the side of the sorter unit 2, a sheet discharge tray 8 and a plurality of sheets below it (only three sheets are shown in the figure). Sort bins of ...
... are arranged vertically.

In the sorter unit 2, in the non-sort mode, after the copy paper discharged from the copying apparatus main body 1 in the direction of the arrow P is sequentially received by the transfer roller 3, the transfer belt 6 is provided.
The sheet is conveyed by the conveying roller 4 and the conveying roller 5 which are connected with each other, and further discharged by the sheet discharging roller 7 onto the sheet discharging tray 8. Further, a re-feeding switching device 9 (the function of which will be described later) is arranged above the conveyance line formed by the conveyance rollers 3 to 5. As shown in the figure, the re-feeding switching device 9 is composed of a switching guide 91, a conveyance roller 92, and a curved conveyance guide 93. Further, a paper detection sensor is provided at a lower position of the conveyance guide 93. PS is provided.

A compression spring 81 is provided on the upper surface of the discharge tray 8 near the position where the sorter 2 is attached.
A re-feeding roller 82 is provided above the compression spring 81. The compression spring 81 is controlled to expand and contract in the vertical direction by a solenoid (not shown) or the like. Now, if the setting of the sorting mode is forgotten and the copy is made in the non-sort mode, all the copy sheets are discharged onto the discharge tray 8. In this state, when the "resort mode" is selected and the print button is pressed, the compression spring 81 provided on the paper discharge tray 8 extends, and the copy paper is pressed by the re-feed roller 82. continue,
The sheet re-feeding roller 82 rotates in the direction of the arrow X, and the uppermost one copy sheet is fed into the sorter unit 2 again. Further, the paper discharge roller 7 and the transport roller 5 rotate in the opposite direction to the previous one in the paper discharge state, and the fed copy paper is transported to the refeed switching device 9.

In the refeed switching device 9, the transport roller 9
By the rotation of 2, the copy paper is conveyed along the switching guide 91 to the upper left in the figure, and is further conveyed by the curved conveyance guide 93 to the conveyance roller 4. At this time, the paper detection sensor PS detects the passage of the copy paper being conveyed at that position. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation for re-sorting that is performed subsequent to the re-feeding operation for the sorter unit 2. Also, the operation for re-sorting is shown as a three-stage state diagram in the order of (a), (b), and (c). That is, when the paper detection sensor PS detects that the copy paper has passed the lower position on the transport guide 93 in the above-described re-feeding operation of the copy paper (see FIG. 1), subsequently, ( As shown in a), the transport roller 5 descends and moves to a position aligned with the paper discharge roller 10 for discharging to the sort bin. Then, the copy paper is conveyed in the arrow Y direction by the conveyance rollers 4 and 5, and is further ejected onto the sort bin by the ejection roller 10. In this case, the copy paper is discharged onto the sort bin in the state of being face down.

After that, the transport roller 5 moves up again and the sheet of FIG.
Return to the state indicated by. Then, by the same operation as described above, the next copy sheet is re-fed into the sorter unit 2 and, as shown in (b), the transport roller 5 is lowered to a position aligned with the discharge roller 11. The copy paper is discharged onto the sort bin. After that, in the same manner, the transport roller 5 again rises and returns to the state shown in FIG. 1, and similarly, the next copy sheet is discharged onto the sort bin.

From the above description, for example, when three copies of three originals set in the order C, B, A from the bottom on the original placing table are to be copied three by three, forgetting to sort them, Copying is done in non-sort mode, and the output tray 8
If all the copy sheets are ejected above, select "Resort Mode" and press the print button.
On the sort bin, the copies are ejected from the bottom in the order of A, B, and C, face down. Similarly, for the sort bins and sort bins, copies are ejected face down from the bottom in the order of A, B, and C.

It should be noted that the above description is for a case where three copies of three originals are made, but of course, any combination of the number of originals and the number of copies can be freely made, and any combination thereof is possible. It goes without saying that the present copying machine can deal with combinations as well. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an outline of the re-sorting operation of the copying apparatus according to the present invention. Also, it is assumed that m originals are copied in the non-sort mode for n copies. Here, m and n may be manually input, or may be stored as a copy just before. First, it is confirmed whether or not the "resort mode" is selected (S1). If the "resort mode" is selected (Yes in S1), it is further confirmed whether or not the print button is turned on. Is performed (S2). When the print button is turned on (Yes in S2), the copy paper on the discharge tray 8 is pressed against the re-feeding roller 82 by the compression spring 81 to be in the re-feeding state (S3). Next, as a moving position (expressed as an L value) of the transport roller 5, a reference position (that is,
The conveyance roller 5 is moved to L = 0) (S4). Then, the re-feed roller 82, the transport roller 5, and the transport roller 92.
Thus, the copy paper is re-fed to the detection position of the paper detection sensor PS (S5). Note that here, the re-feed roller 8
2 is stopped when the copy paper is fed into the sorter unit 2.

Next, a process of lowering the moving position of the carrying roller 5 step by step, that is, a process of "L ← L + 1" is performed (S6). Then, the position of the transport roller 5 is moved according to the set L value (S7). Further, copy paper is discharged onto each sort bin by the transport rollers 4 and 5 and the discharge roller 10 (S8). After that, the transport roller 5
Is again moved to the reference position (L = 0) (S9).

The above steps S5 to S9 are repeated n times, which is the number of copies, for one copy sheet. And
When it is confirmed that L = n (Yes in S10), "K ← K + 1 (where K represents the number of originals) to perform the re-sorting operation for the next copy sheet. Processing is performed, and the processing of S4 to S11 is repeated until the value of m, which is the number of documents, is reached. And K
= M is confirmed (Y in S12
In the case of es), the above-mentioned re-sorting operation is ended.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, even if a copy is made in the non-sort mode, the re-sorting can be easily performed without the troublesome sorting work. Further, copy paper that has been forgotten to be sorted by another copying machine can be easily re-sorted by using this copying machine, which is very convenient.

Furthermore, since the re-sorting can be performed by a simple modification of the sorter section and the sheet discharge section, there is a secondary effect that the size of the apparatus is not increased.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front sectional view showing a schematic structure of a sorter section of a copying apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation for re-sorting performed subsequent to the re-feeding operation for the sorter unit 2 shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an outline of a re-sorting operation of the copying apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a general external view of a copying apparatus having a sorter.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Copying Machine Main Body 2 Sorter Section 8 Paper Ejection Tray 9 Refeeding Switching Device 81 Compression Spring 82 Refeeding Roller, Sort Bin

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a copying machine equipped with a sorter, a sheet is placed on a sheet discharge section of the sorter, is fed into the sorting section, and is supplied to the sorting section, and the fed sheet is sorted by the sorting section. A copying machine, characterized in that it is provided with control means for controlling.