JPH101237A - Paper separation device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Problem] To provide a paper separating apparatus capable of reliably separating a plurality of set paper sheets one by one and sending them out. SOLUTION: A belt conveying means 16 which comes into contact with and feeds a lowermost sheet of stacked sheets 3, and a stopper means 4 which determines the leading end position of the stacked sheets and moves upward to allow feeding of the sheets. And The tensioner 16b of the belt conveying means 16 moves in the vertical direction to discriminate the leading end of the sheet 3 and to easily separate the sheets one by one.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a paper feeding apparatus provided in a copying machine, a printing machine, and the like, and more particularly, to a paper separating apparatus capable of separating stacked paper and feeding the stacked sheets to a copying machine, a printing machine, and the like one by one. Related to the device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In copying machines and printing machines, originals and copying paper are
The sheets are supplied to the machine in a stacked state, and are fed one by one by a sheet separating device. The apparatus for this purpose has a feeding unit that comes in contact with and feeds the lowermost sheet of the stacked sheets, and a shutter-shaped stopper unit that determines the position of the leading end of the stacked sheets. Then, the stopper means rises and only the lowermost sheet is sent out, and is supplied to a copying machine or a printing machine by the feeding means.

However, in the above-mentioned paper separating apparatus,
Since the stopper means only moves up and down, if the negative pressure between the sheets is large, the set sheets cannot be completely separated. For this reason, in the above-described configuration, there is a problem that the second and subsequent sheets are fed along with the bottom sheet, and a paper jam is likely to occur.

Therefore, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-127708 discloses that
An attempt is made to improve the separation performance by utilizing the movement of the stopper means. That is, the stopper means is inclined in the sheet feeding direction, the leading end of the sheet is inclined in accordance with the inclination, and the stopper means moves up and down to exert a separating effect. However, this method resembles the principle of corner claw separation and cannot completely separate paper.

On the other hand, Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 63-136633 discloses an ADF (original feeding device) commonly called an FRR system.
Has been proposed. This has a transport belt for mounting and transporting a plurality of stacked papers (documents), and a reverse roll provided at the leading end of the document on the transport belt and rotating in a direction opposite to the transport belt, This is a type in which the leading edge of documents stacked by the reverse roll is processed. In the above-described conventional technology, a delay mechanism for driving the reverse roll and the transport belt is provided, and the transport belt is rotated after an appropriate delay time has elapsed from the start of the rotation of the reverse roll, so that only one sheet of the original is rotated. We make sure that they can be sent.

[0006]

However, also in this case, the sheet cannot be completely judged. Generally, when the negative pressure between the sheets is large, the sheets come into close contact with each other. Therefore, for example, when three sheets enter between the conveyance belt of the ADF and the reverse roll, the coefficient of friction between the middle sheet and the lowermost sheet is the difference between the middle sheet and the upper sheet. If the coefficient of friction is smaller, the middle sheet is separated and only the bottom sheet is sent.
The middle sheet is fed over the lower sheet, resulting in multi-feed. Which of the friction coefficients is larger is completely random, and the possibility of multi-feed is large.

The present invention has been conceived in view of the above facts, and a sheet separating apparatus capable of reliably separating and sending a plurality of set sheets one by one even if the negative pressure between the sheets is large. It is intended to provide.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a sheet separating apparatus according to the present invention comprises: a conveying means for contacting and feeding the lowermost sheet of the stacked sheets; And stopper means for determining the position of the leading end and moving upward to allow the paper to be fed out, wherein the transport means is movable vertically.

Also, a structure in which a friction material is attached to a side of the stopper means which comes into contact with the leading end of the stacked paper,
The transport means may be a belt transport means, and the vertical movement may be performed by a tensioner of the belt transport means.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, a paper separating apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an overall schematic diagram of a sheet-through type scanner using the paper separating apparatus of the present invention. In FIG. 1, a sheet stacking table 2 is provided on the right side of the outer cover 1, and stacked sheets 3 are placed thereon. The original is used as the sheet 3 here. The leading end of the sheet 3 comes into contact with the stopper means 4 to determine the position of the sheet. Above the paper 3, there is an opposing plate 5, which lightly presses the uppermost paper of the stacked paper 3.

On the leading end side of the sheet mounting table 2, there is a conveying means 6. The transport means 6 is composed of a feed roller, and feeds out a sheet in contact with the lowermost sheet of the stacked sheets 3. The sheet 3 set on the sheet stacking table 2 is conveyed to the left in the figure by being sandwiched between the conveying means 6 and the facing plate 5. Normally, since the stopper means 4 is lowered, the sheet 3 is stopped in a state where the leading end of the sheet 3 comes into contact with the stopper means 4 and is positioned.

When the paper 3 is fed, the stopper means 4 rises. Then, the plurality of lowermost sheets 3 are sent out by the conveying means 6 and enter the nip point between the separation roller 7 and the sheet supply roller 8, and only one sheet is separated from the plurality of sheets 3. .

[0013] The single sheet of paper 3 is sent to the next pair of transport rollers 9. Then, the sheet is nipped by the roller pair 9 and heads toward the transport roller pair 10. At this time,
The paper 3 advances while being irradiated with light from the light source 11. Then, the reflected light from the paper 3 enters the image processing unit 14 via the mirror 12 and the optical system 13, and forms an image on a photoconductor (not shown). The sheet 3 that has been read in this way is guided by the guide plate 15, reaches the pair of transport rollers 10, and is discharged out of the scanner.

The paper separating apparatus shown in FIG. 1 is of the type called the FR system. In the ADF of the FR system, an arbitrary torque is applied to the separation roller 7, and when two sheets enter the separation unit (the portion sandwiched between the separation roller 7 and the sheet feeding roller 8) at the same time, The paper (upper paper in FIG. 1) on the separation roller 7 side is prevented from entering by the torque (separation torque) applied to the separation roller 7, and only the lowermost sheet can advance.

However, if the negative pressure between the sheets is high when the sheets are set, the sheets are more closely adhered to each other, and as a result, three or more sheets may enter the separation nip. Come out.

In the case of the FR system, when the paper is
When more than one sheet enters, whether or not the middle sheet is multi-fed is determined only by the magnitude relation of the friction coefficient with the upper and lower sheets as described above, so that the possibility of multi-feed becomes very high. Therefore, it is necessary to minimize the adhesion (negative pressure) between the sheets when they are set.

In the ADF and the paper feeding device, the state of the leading edge of the set paper often affects the separation performance. For this reason, when setting sheets, the user is instructed to insert a “separation” (an operation of expanding the sheets so that the sheets are not in close contact with each other).

Therefore, in the paper separating apparatus of the present invention, the conveying means 6 is made movable in the vertical direction in the figure. Then, the sheet 3 is set, and the conveying means 6 is moved up and down before sending it out. By this operation, the leading end of the sheet 3 rubs against the stopper means 4, and as a result, the leading end of the sheet 3 is blown, so that the separating operation by the separating roller 7 can be reliably performed.

FIG. 2 shows a second embodiment of the present invention.
2 shows a portion corresponding to the portion A surrounded by a virtual line in FIG. In this embodiment, a pickup belt 16a and a tensioner 1
6b is adopted. Although the transporting means 6 in the embodiment of FIG. 1 is a roller, in the case of a roller, the contact area with the paper 3 is small, and there is a possibility that the paper may slip and cause poor paper feeding. However, by using the belt conveying means 16, the contact area with the sheet is increased, and the sheet can be fed reliably.

In this embodiment, the leading end side of the belt conveying means 16 projects forward (to the left in the figure) from the stopper means 4, and sandwiches the paper between the separating roller 7 instead of the sheet feeding roller 8. , Can be sent out. Further, the tensioner 16b at the center is installed so as to be able to swing up and down, and a friction member 17 such as a rubber pad is affixed to the surface of the stopper means 4 which is in contact with the paper 3.

Before the sheet 3 is set and the separating operation is started, the tensioner 16b is moved up and down. By this operation,
The leading end of the paper 3 rubs against the friction member 17, and as a result, the leading end of the paper 3 is torn as shown in FIG. 3, so that the next separating operation can be performed reliably.

The radius r2 of the tensioner 16b is set to be larger than the radius r1 of the pickup belt 16ac so that the tensioner 16b exerts the function of adjusting the tension of the pickup belt 16a. With such a setting, the belt tension can always be kept constant even when the tensioner 16b moves up and down.

In the above description, the tensioner 16b is swung up and down. Alternatively, a swinging roller separate from the tensioner may be provided to swing up and down. However, in this case, it is desirable that the tensioner also moves in conjunction with the swing roller so that the tension is always appropriately maintained.

The above configuration can be realized by changing a part of the conventional sheet separating apparatus. Therefore, the performance can be improved with a slight increase in cost.

[0025]

According to the present invention as described above,
Transport means for contacting and feeding the lowermost sheet of the stacked sheets, and stopper means for determining the leading end position of the stacked sheets and moving upward to allow the sheet to be fed; However, since it is configured to be movable in the vertical direction, it is possible to reliably separate the sheets one by one only by adding a slight improvement to the conventional sheet separating apparatus.

Further, if a friction material is stuck on the side of the stopper which comes into contact with the leading end of the sheet, the sheet can be more reliably separated. If the transport means is a belt transport means, the paper can be reliably fed, and if the vertical movement is performed by the tensioner of the belt transport means, the configuration is simple and the apparatus is not enlarged. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an entire sheet-through type scanner using a sheet separating apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a view showing the configuration of a second embodiment of the paper separating apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the embodiment of FIG. 2;

[Explanation of symbols]

 3 Paper 4 Stopper 6 Conveyor 16 Belt Conveyor 17 Friction Material

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Agency reference number FI Technical display location G03G 15/00 516 G03G 15/00 516

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A transporting means for contacting and feeding a lowermost sheet of stacked sheets, and a stopper means for determining a leading end position of the stacked sheets and moving upward to permit feeding of the sheets. A sheet separating apparatus, wherein the transport means is movable in a vertical direction. 2. A sheet separating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a friction material is attached to a side of said stopper means which comes into contact with a front end of said stacked sheets. 3. The paper separating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said conveying means is a belt conveying means, and said vertical movement is performed by a tensioner of said belt conveying means.