JPH0754199Y2 - Collator such as copier - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial field of application] The present invention relates to a collating device such as a copying machine provided with a pressing mechanism for increasing the holding force of a sheet for transporting a sheet.

[Conventional technology]

For a device that collects paper that is continuously discharged from a copying machine, a printer, a plotter, etc. (hereinafter simply referred to as a copying machine), the paper is conveyed from above to below toward each bin tray provided in multiple stages. A conveyor belt is provided. A means for holding the paper is also provided on the conveyor belt.

For example, the collating device described in JP-A-61-62070 is
As shown in FIG. 4, a collating device 20 is placed on the paper discharge side of the main body of the copying machine 30, and the collating device 20 is composed of a horizontal conveying means 21, a vertical conveying means 22, a plurality of bin trays 27 and the like. Has been done. Then, the paper a that is continuously discharged from the paper discharge side of the main body of the copying machine 30 is transported downward by the vertical transport means 22 through the horizontal transport means 21 and is sequentially gathered to each bin tray 27. Here, the vertical conveying means 22 includes a conveying belt 23 that holds the sheet a and conveys it downward, a deflection cam 24 that changes the direction of the sheet a to a predetermined bin tray 27, and a switching means that guides the sheet a to the predetermined bin tray 27. It consists of 25 mag. And
Behind the transport belt 23, a suction fan 26 that suctions the paper a toward the transport belt 23 is provided.

[Problems to be solved by the device]

However, in the above-described conventional vertical sheet conveying means in the collating device, the sheet holding force of the conveying belt is not sufficient, and the posture of the sheet is not sufficient at the upper and lower positions of the conveying belt where the suction force by the suction fan is weak. There is a problem of being disturbed or falling.

In order to solve such a problem, the present applicant has devised a collating device provided with a vertical conveying means having a strong paper holding force, and previously filed a utility model registration application as Japanese Patent Application No. 62-105415. An example of the vertical conveying means in the invention of this prior application will be described with reference to FIG. 3. The conveying belt 5 wound around the upper roll 2 and the lower roll 3 and the smooth belt pulled out from the winding roll 4 by the vertical movement of the indexer 9. The copy sheet a is sandwiched between the sheet and the sheet 6 and conveyed, and the sheets are sequentially collected in the bin trays 10. At this time, the pressing mechanism 12 is provided on the back surface of the conveyor belt 5, and the spring 14 presses the roller 13 against the back surface of the conveyor belt 5, thereby increasing the holding force of the paper a by the conveyor belt 5 and the smooth belt 6.

However, even in the device of the above-mentioned prior invention, the pressing mechanism 12 can be installed in only about two places in the height direction due to the structural problem of the device. Therefore, when the size of the paper a is small,
The effect of increasing the holding force by the pressing mechanism 12 may not be achieved.

In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to further enhance the holding force of a sheet by a conveyor belt in vertically conveying the sheet in a collating device.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

A collating device such as a copying machine according to the present invention is a collating device such as a copying machine that sequentially conveys paper by sandwiching it between facing belts, and transporting the paper sequentially to a plurality of bin trays. When a roller made of an elastic material is rotatably attached to the tip of a swingable support at a position facing the, and the support is leveled, the roller is pressed against the back surface of the belt so that the paper A pressing mechanism that increases the holding force is configured, and when the distance between the rotation center of the roller and the swing center of the support body is horizontal and the back surface of the belt is pressed, the roller is pressed. Is set to elastically deform.

[Action]

The collating device of the present invention enhances the sheet holding force of the belt by pressing the belt from the back side by the pressing mechanism provided on the back surface of the belt that nips and conveys the sheet. At this time, the roller pressed against the back surface of the belt is a roller made of an elastic body such as soft or semi-hard polyurethane foam or soft rubber, and the roller is rotatably attached to the tip of a swingable support. Since the distance between the rotation center of the roller and the swing center of the support is set so that the roller elastically deforms when the pressing mechanism is horizontal and the back surface of the belt is pressed, the pressing mechanism When is pressed, the pressing surface on the back surface of the belt is widened, and the sheet holding force is further increased. Further, by rotating the support, the pressing mechanism is released, and it becomes possible to easily remove the paper or the like having the paper jam.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, the features of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a front view showing a main part of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, parts corresponding to the members shown in FIG. 3 are designated by the same reference numerals. The collating device 1 is placed adjacent to the copying machine 11. The sheets a continuously discharged from the main body of the copying machine 11 are sandwiched between the conveyor belt 5 and the smooth belt 6 and conveyed, and are sequentially gathered in the respective bin trays 10. At this time, the conveyor belt 5 is pressed from the back surface by the pressing mechanism 7, and the holding force of the paper a by the conveyor belt 5 and the smooth belt 6 is strengthened.

In this embodiment, a roller made of flexible polyurethane foam is used as the roller 8 of the pressing mechanism 7. When the roller 8 is made of such an elastic material, when the roller 8 is pressed against the back surface of the conveyor belt 5, the contact portion of the roller 8 is elastically compressed and deformed, and the pressing surface of the roller 8 is widened. As a result, the conveyor belt 5 and the smooth belt 6
The holding force of the sheet a due to is further strengthened.

2A and 2B are views showing the structure of the pressing mechanism 7, where FIG. 2A is a front view and FIG. 2B is a plan view. The supporting mechanism of the roller 8 may have the same structure as that of the device of the invention of the prior application shown in FIG. However, in this embodiment, since the roller 8 is made of an elastic material, like the support mechanism of the prior application,
The structure may not be such that the roller 8 is biased by using a spring.
That is, in this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2, the roller 8 is rotatably attached to the tip of the bracket 71 via the pin 72, and the base of the bracket 71 is attached to the retract shaft 73. Then, by rotating the retract shaft 73 by a mechanism (not shown), the bracket
The pressing mechanism 7 can be switched between the pressed state and the released state by rotating 71 as indicated by arrow A.

Here, the distance L between the center of the roller 8 and the center of the retract shaft 73 is the second when the pressing mechanism 7 is horizontal and the back surface of the conveyor belt 5 is pressed as shown in FIG.
The roller 8 is elastically deformed as shown by the broken line in FIG. 7A, and the deformation amount d at this time is set to about several mm. Since the roller 8 is an elastic body, when the bracket 71 is rotated upward to release the pressing force, the roller 8 separates from the conveyor belt 5 while rotating while elastically deforming. In addition, when the bracket 71 is rotated from the upper side to the lower side to change the released state to the pressed state, the roller 8 moves the conveyor belt 5
After the contact with, the elastic member is rotated and elastically deformed, and the pressed state shown in FIG. 1 is obtained.

Although the roller 8 is made of soft polyurethane foam in the above embodiment, the roller 8 may be made of other material such as soft rubber as long as it is an elastic body.

Further, the supporting mechanism of the roller 8 can have various structures other than the structure of the above-mentioned embodiment.

[Effect of device]

As described above, in this embodiment, on the back surface of the belt that vertically conveys the paper toward the bin trays provided in a plurality of stages, the roller is rotatably attached to the tip of the swingable support. A pressing mechanism is provided, and the material of this roller is an elastic body, and the distance between the center of rotation of the roller and the center of swing of the support is set so that the pressing mechanism is horizontal and the back surface of the belt is pressed. Since the roller is set to elastically deform when this is done, when the pressing mechanism is in the pressed state, the pressing area when the belt is pressed by the roller is increased, and the sheet holding force of the belt is increased. Therefore, the posture of the sheet held by the belt is not disturbed or dropped, and the sheet can be stably conveyed. Further, by rotating the pressing mechanism in the vertical direction, the pressing mechanism is released, and it becomes possible to easily remove the paper or the like having the paper jam. As described above, since the pressing state and the releasing state can be switched by simply rotating the pressing mechanism, the switching between the pressing state and the releasing state can be performed very easily.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing a main part of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
(A) and (b) are a front view and a plan view showing the structure of the pressing mechanism of the apparatus of the embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a front view showing a configuration example of the collating device of the prior invention. On the other hand, FIG. 4 is a front view showing a configuration example of a conventional collating device. 1: Collating device, 2: Upper roll 3: Lower roll, 4: Winding roll 5: Conveyor belt, 6: Smoothing belt 7: Pressing mechanism, 8: Roller 9: Indexer, 10: Bin tray 11: Copier, 12 : Pressing mechanism 13: Roller, 14: Spring 20: Collector, 21: Horizontal conveying means 22: Vertical conveying means, 23: Conveying belt 24: Deflecting cam, 25: Switching means 26: Suction fan, 27: Bin tray 30: Copier, 71: Bracket 72: Pin, 73: Retract shaft a: Paper

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A collating device such as a copying machine that sequentially collates sheets into a plurality of bin trays while conveying the sheets by sandwiching them between facing belts, and swings the sheets to a position facing the bin trays with the belts sandwiched therebetween. A pressing mechanism that rotatably attaches a roller made of an elastic material to the tip of a movable support body and presses the roller against the back surface of the belt when the support body is horizontal to increase the sheet holding force. The roller is elastically deformed when the distance between the center of rotation of the roller and the center of swing of the support is set so that the pressing mechanism is horizontal and the back surface of the belt is pressed. A collating device such as a copying machine characterized by being set to.