JPH0692058A - Sorter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To realize more preciser and smoother shifting of a bin at the fastening of recording papers with a stapling device by a method wherein the bin, in which the recording papers are delivered by a sorter, is shifted. CONSTITUTION:A plurality of bins 51a and 51b are provided so as to be disposed in a vertical array to a sorter main body, which has a sorter frame body and a recording paper distributing means. Further in a sorter, in which fastening operation is performed by a stapling device at the sides of the bins, front end guide members, back end guide members, a shifting means and a spring means are provided under the condition that a gap is formed between the front end guide member and the tip of the bin in order to move a plurality of the bins 51a and 51b nearly perpendicular to the direction of the delivery of respective recording papers to the sorter main body.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a sorter sheet discharge bin which is connected to an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a printer and conveys and sorts recording sheets discharged from the apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, as shown in FIG. 2, a recording sheet P, which is a recording sheet coupled with an image forming apparatus 100 or the like and discharged from the apparatus 100, is conveyed by a conveying section 11 in the sorter 10. The sorter by means and for example a switching gate
A plurality of bins 51 provided in 10 are sequentially transported and accommodated and sorted into a designated number of copies.

In the fixed bin sorter, as a method of distributing the recording paper P to each bin, a method of distributing the recording paper P to each bin by switching the switching gate and a method of distributing the recording paper P to each bin by a distributor (indexer). There are two methods of distributing the current, and the method using the distributor is superior in terms of cost and has become the mainstream recently. A stapler device 102 that moves up and down the side of the bottle is provided.

After the recording paper P is distributed to the respective bins by using the distributor, a stapler device 102 which moves vertically along the sides of the bins arranged in parallel at the upper and lower positions is provided, and the recordings accumulated in the respective bins are provided. The paper P is bound. At that time, the stapler device
Various methods are used, such as a method of moving the 102 in the bin direction for each binding operation, a method of vertically moving the stapler device 102 and rotating the bin to bind.

[0005]

When the stapler device 102 is moved with respect to the bin direction as described above, the stapler device 102 is arranged along the bins arranged in the vertical position of the sorter.
A device for moving up and down and a moving device for moving in the direction of each bin are required. Therefore, the moving device for vertical movement and lateral movement must be provided on the side of the sorter, and the size of the entire sorter becomes large, which requires a large installation space, and the moving device becomes complicated. I can't.

In the system in which the stapler device 102 is moved only up and down and the bin is rotated, a pivot shaft is provided in a part of the bin for pivoting the bin, and the bin is centered around the pivot shaft. In general, the number of bins is set to be close to 20 bins, and a rotating mechanism for rotating the bins in the direction of the stapler device 102 together with the loaded recording sheets is required. Therefore, the size of the sorter is increased and the installation area is increased by the area corresponding to the rotating mechanism. Further, since the bin is rotated, a plurality of recording papers P stacked on the bin are disturbed by the rotating action and become uneven.

Therefore, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the stapler device 102 is moved only up and down, and a moving device is provided in the stapler device 102 for parallelly moving only the bin for binding operation to a predetermined position. Means have been proposed for moving the bottle in the device to the stapler device 102 in a sliding manner. However, the bottle is once molded with a large resin molded product, and there is a problem that the sliding operation becomes unsuccessful because some bending and deformation occur at the installation position.

An object of the present invention is to allow the bottle to smoothly slide with respect to the stapler device 102 even if the bottle is curved or deformed.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 1 is provided with a plurality of bins arranged in parallel in a vertical direction on a sorter body having a sorter frame and recording paper distributing means. Further, in a sorter bound by a stapler device at a side portion of the bin, the bins are arranged so that the plurality of bins can move in a direction substantially perpendicular to a discharge direction of recording paper with respect to the sorter body. A front end guide member and a rear end guide member provided in the vicinity of the front end and the rear end, a moving means and a spring means, and the front end guide member has a gap with respect to the front end of the bottle. .

According to a second aspect of the invention, the tip portion of the bottle is
The sorter according to claim 1, wherein the sorter is a U-shaped guide member having a gap.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the rear end of the bottle has a vertical portion with respect to the bottle surface, and the vertical portion and the lower surface of the bottle are closely contacted and guided. .

According to a fourth aspect of the invention, the tip of the bottle is
It is characterized in that it is a U-shaped guide member having a gap.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A sorter according to the present invention, as shown in FIG.
The structure is such that the distributor 21 is supported between the rows of the bottles 51 so as to be reciprocally movable up and down.

That is, the bottles 51 are arranged on the housing 10c of the sorter 10 in order from the top by means (not shown).
... A receiving member 511 that receives the rear ends of the bins 51a, 51b, 51c so as to be attached in a line at equal intervals such as 51n.
a, 511b, 511c ... 511n, and U-shaped guide grooves 512a, 5
12b, 512c, ...
The transfer belt 12 is provided on the transfer belt pulleys 13a and 13c.
It is suspended as shown in b, and is rotated clockwise when driven. The recording sheet P, which is a recording sheet on which an image is formed by the image forming apparatus 100, is ejected from the sheet ejection port 100g of the image forming apparatus, and immediately inserted into the sheet receiving port 10g of the sorter 10. Will be guided by the conveyance roller 14 and the guide plate 16 and conveyed to the right downward traveling portion of the conveyance belt 12.

The distributor 21 has an inlet 23 with a wide opening at the top.
It has a recording paper receiving guide member 23a having a recording sheet, and is integrally attached to the distributor frame 22. A discharge port 23b is provided at the other end of the reception port 23, and a pair of discharge rollers are vertically contacted in the direction of an arrow by a driving means (not shown) so as to be adjacent to the discharge port 23b. The recording paper P is discharged onto the bin in the arrow direction by the discharge port 23b.

In FIG. 1, one timing belt 28 is provided at the front and the other at the bottom at both ends in the longitudinal direction of the distributor frame 22.
Both ends of b are fixed as shown. The distributor frame 22 is just suspended from above and below by a timing belt 28b. A timing belt 28a is suspended between the timing gear 29a attached to the shaft of the stepping motor 10m, which is a drive motor, and the rotation timing gear 29b integrally with the timing gear 29c of the drive gear of the timing belt 28b. The rotary shaft of the timing gear 29b (29c) extends to the timing gear 29c of the timing belt 28b on the opposite side so that the front and rear timing belts 28b can be integrally driven.

The distributor 21 is placed at the position corresponding to each bin.
A positioning sensor (not shown) is provided so as to be able to stop, and the stepping motor 10m is driven by the information of the positioning sensor to stop the distributor 21 at a predetermined position for each bin 51. It has become.

The timing belt 28b is also suspended on a timing gear 29d above the sorter, and the timing gear 29d is coaxially connected to the wire winding pulley 27. The wire 24 wound around the wire take-up pulley 27 passes through the pulleys 27a, 27b and the wire receiver 26, and its tip is attached to one end of the wire spring 25, and the other end of the wire spring 25 is attached to the rotation shaft of the discharge roller 30. It is caught. The wire spring 25 is a spring for applying an appropriate tension to the wire 24.

The other end of the wire spring 25 is the discharge roller 30.
It does not make any sense to be hooked on the rotating shaft of, and it is merely that there was a good shaft for spring hooking there, that is, the other end of the wire spring 25 is hooked on the distributor frame 22. Means that.

In this way, the distributor 21 drives the drive motor 10
When driven vertically by m, the wire take-up pulley 27 having the same diameter as the timing gear 29d that is rotated by the vertical drive of the distributor 21 is rotated.
Is also wound or unwound around the wire take-up pulley 27 while maintaining an appropriate tension. That is, by driving the distributor 21 in the vertical direction, the tension with respect to the wire 24 is properly maintained regardless of the position of the bin 51 of the distributor 21.

Further, in FIG. 1, the distributor of the conveyor belt 12
At the traveling side of 21, the conveyor belt pulley 13 of the conveyor belt 12 is
A pressing roller unit that presses one of the substantially central portions between the pulley shafts a and 13b from the inside of the conveyor belt 12 with a light load.
40 will be described.

The pressing roller unit 40 is a pressing roller.
41 is supported by a U-shaped plate 42, and the sorter frame
The support shaft of the U-shaped plate 42 is inserted into the base 44 attached to the 10f with the pressing spring 43 interposed therebetween. Although not shown, the rotating shaft of the pressing roller 41 is structured to be kept parallel to the rotating shafts of the conveyor belt pulleys 13a and 13b.

Next, referring to FIG. 3, FIG. 3 shows a specific mounting structure of the bin 51 described in FIGS. 1 and 2 to the sorter 10. FIG. 3 shows the bin shown in FIG.
The inner bins 51a and 51b of the unit 51 are shown in an enlarged manner. First, the rear ends of the bottles 51a and 51b are fixed to the frame bodies 111 and 111a provided on both sides of the sorter 10, and the walls 5111 and the bottom portion 5112 formed at the rear ends of the bin 51a are closely attached to each other. Further, a receiving plate 5111a that is received so as to be slidable in the direction perpendicular to the paper discharge direction of the recording paper P, and a receiving member 511a formed by the receiving plate 5111b are provided. 3 and 5
The guide pin 5113 shown in FIG. 3 is provided so as to project from the wall portion 5111 of the bottle 51a, and is slidably fitted to the guide 5114 formed on the receiving member 511a. On the other hand, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 3, the tip of the bin 51a is fitted in a U-shaped guide groove 512a of the tip receiving member 513. The groove 512a has a thickness and a length of the tip of the bin 51a. On the other hand, it is formed to have a wide width, and a play width is provided as shown in the figure. Similarly to the above-mentioned bin 51a, the bins 51b arranged below are in close contact with the respective surfaces of the wall portion 5115 and the bottom portion 5116 formed at the rear end, and slide in the direction perpendicular to the paper discharge direction of the recording paper P. There is provided a receiving plate 5115a for receiving the receiving member and a receiving member 511b formed by the receiving plate 5116a. And the bottle 51b is also the bottle 5
As in the case of 1a, the wall portion 5115 is provided with the guide pin 5117, and the receiving member 5
It is slidably fitted to a guide 5118 formed on 11b. On the other hand, similarly to the bottle 51a, the tip of the bottle 51b is formed in a U-shaped guide groove 5 provided below the guide groove 512a as shown in FIG.
It is fitted to 12b. The guide groove 512b is also formed wider than the thickness and length of the tip of the bottle 51b, and is provided with a play width as shown in the drawing.

FIG. 4 is a structural view of the bin 51a as seen from above. The bin 51a has the receiving portion 511a and the tip receiving member 513 as described above.
Is supported by the guide groove 512a. Although not particularly described in FIG. 3, the guide groove 512a is shown as having a configuration in which the tip of the bottle 51a is held at two places, but it may be two or more places or a wide one in terms of performance, and is not particularly limited. Not a thing. In the present invention, a plurality of recording papers P loaded in the bin 51a
There is provided a moving device 103 for moving the bin 51a in order to perform a binding operation with the stapler device 102 provided on the side of the bin 51a. The moving device 103 is operated by a rotating member 104 that is rotated by a driving means (not shown), and the connecting frame 1
Recording paper with a pull-out arm 106 provided at the tip of 05, a protrusion 521 formed on the side of the bin 51a as shown in FIGS. 5 (a) and 5 (b), and a recording paper pressing arm 522 provided on the protrusion. A pressing member 523 is pivotally stopped so that the recording paper pressing arm 522 can be rotated by a spring 524.
Are provided so as to be separated from the recording paper P. Further, a projection 525 is provided on a part of the recording paper pressing member 523.

As shown in FIG. 1, the recording paper P is ejected in the page order by the distributor 21 to the bin 51a constructed as described above, and the ejection is completed. Next, after the paper is discharged, the long hole 52 of the bin 51a is
The paper aligning member 527 provided so as to penetrate 8 is operated to align the recording paper P to the side of the bin 51a as shown in FIG.

Next, since the stapler device 102 performs a binding operation on a plurality of recording sheets P, the rotating member 104 of the moving device 103 and the connecting portion 105 pull out the arm 106 the recording sheet pressing member 523.
As shown in FIG. 5B, the protrusion 525 is locked, and the rotating member 104 is rotated to move the protrusion 525 to the left with respect to FIG. At that time, the recording paper pressing member 523 is resisted against the spring 524.
Is rotated and the upper end of the recording paper P is pressed by the tip of the recording paper pressing arm 522 as shown in the figure to hold the recording paper P in the bin 51a. Further, by rotating the rotating member 104 to move it to the left, the bin 51a moves together with the recording paper P toward the stapler device 102. As shown in FIGS. 4, 5A, and 5B, one end of a spring 526 is provided on the bin 51a, and the other end of the spring 526 is fixed to the main body of the sorter 10, and the pin 51a is located on the left side. Spring 52 when moving to
It moves against the elasticity of 6. Further, as shown in FIG. 4, the spring 526 is provided so as to be inclined by a θ angle with respect to the moving direction, and is arranged so as to slightly press the bin 51a toward the receiving member 511a. The rear end of the bin 51a thus arranged is the receiving plate 511 provided on the receiving member 511a by the spring 526.
It is in a state of being lightly pressed by a and 511b, and
When it is pulled out by the wall portion 5111 and the bottom portion 51 on the receiving plates 511a and 511b.
12 moves in close contact with the weight of the bin 51a, and moves the recording paper P accurately to the position of the stapler device 102. Therefore, the stapler device 102 can perform a binding operation at a predetermined position on the recording paper P.

On the other hand, the tip of the bottle 51a has a U-shaped guide groove 51.
Although it is inserted in 2a, it is formed wider than the thickness and length of the tip of the bottle 51a as described above, so that it can be prevented from moving within the guide groove 512a when it is moved due to some deformation or bending. Never.

After the stapling device 102 completes the binding operation on the recording paper P, the pull-out arm 106 is separated from the protrusion 525, and the bin 51a is automatically returned to the original position by the restoring force of the spring 526. After the binding operation of the bin 51a is completed, the stapler device 102 moves to the next bin 51b portion and binds the recording paper P by the same operation as described above.

[0029]

As described above, according to the present invention, a plurality of bins for ejecting the recording paper P provided in the sorter 10 are provided, and the bins are moved to the stapler device 102 provided at the side of the bins to move the recording paper. When carrying out the binding operation of P, when the bin is moved by the bin moving device, the rear end of the bin is guided so as not to be separated from the guide member, and the guide means at the tip is formed into a wide U-shaped groove. Since it is formed so that it can be moved smoothly even if the tip of the bottle is slightly deformed or curved, it is possible to prevent a failure such as the stapler device 102 not performing the binding operation because the bin cannot move smoothly. it can. Further, the moving position of the bin is always accurate, and the binding position of the recording paper P can be accurately performed.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 is a central cross-sectional view of a sorter according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a combined state of an image forming apparatus and a sorter.

FIG. 3 is a front view showing the discharge bin in an enlarged manner.

FIG. 4 is a plan view showing a discharge bin and a stapler device.

FIG. 5 is a side view showing a moving state of a paper discharge bin.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Sorter 10m Drive motor 12 Conveyor belt 13a, 13b Drive belt pulley 21 Distributor 22 Distributor frame 23a Distributor inlet 23b Distributor outlet 24 Wire 25 Wire spring 26 Wire receiver 27 Wire take-up pulley 28a, 28b Timing belt 29a, 29b, 29c, 29d Timing gear 30 Discharge roller 40 Pressing roller unit 41 Pressing roller 42 U-shaped plate 43 Pressing spring 44 units 51a, 51b, 51c ... 51n Bins 5111, 5115 Walls 5112, 5116 Bottom 5111a, 5111b , 5115a, 5116a Support plate 511a, 511b Support member 513 Tip support member 512a Guide groove 102 Stapler device 526 Spring 100 Image forming device P Recording sheet

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Hisao Hosoya 2970 Ishikawa-cho, Hachioji, Tokyo Konica stock company (72) Inventor Akihiko Nishiki 2970 Ishikawa-cho, Hachioji, Tokyo Konica stock company (72) Inventor Keisuke Tanaka 2970 Ishikawa-cho, Hachioji City, Tokyo Konica Stock Company

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A sorter in which a plurality of bins are provided side by side in a vertical direction on a sorter body having a sorter frame and recording paper distributing means, and a binding operation is performed by a stapler device at a side portion of the bin, A leading end guide member and a trailing end guide member provided in the vicinity of the leading end and the trailing end of the bin so that the plurality of bins can move in a direction substantially perpendicular to the discharge direction of the recording paper with respect to the sorter body. And a moving means and a spring means, and the tip guide member has a gap with respect to the tip of the bottle. 2. The sorter according to claim 1, wherein a tip portion of the bottle is a U-shaped guide member having a gap. 3. The bottle according to claim 1, wherein the rear end of the bottle has a vertical portion with respect to the bottle surface, and the vertical portion and the lower surface of the bottle are closely contacted and guided. Sorter. 4. The sorter according to claim 1, wherein the front end of the bottle is arranged at an upper position with respect to the rear end.