EP0722839A2 - Tintenstrahldrucker mit grossvolumigem Hilfseingabefach - Google Patents

Tintenstrahldrucker mit grossvolumigem Hilfseingabefach Download PDF

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Publication number
EP0722839A2
EP0722839A2 EP95120395A EP95120395A EP0722839A2 EP 0722839 A2 EP0722839 A2 EP 0722839A2 EP 95120395 A EP95120395 A EP 95120395A EP 95120395 A EP95120395 A EP 95120395A EP 0722839 A2 EP0722839 A2 EP 0722839A2
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
media
printer
paper
tray
sheets
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
EP95120395A
Other languages
English (en)
French (fr)
Other versions
EP0722839A3 (de
Inventor
Michael Gustafson
David C. Burney
Nicholas B. Bergander
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
HP Inc
Original Assignee
Hewlett Packard Co
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Priority claimed from US08/373,829 external-priority patent/US5620269A/en
Application filed by Hewlett Packard Co filed Critical Hewlett Packard Co
Publication of EP0722839A2 publication Critical patent/EP0722839A2/de
Publication of EP0722839A3 publication Critical patent/EP0722839A3/de
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J29/00—Details of, or accessories for, typewriters or selective printing mechanisms not otherwise provided for
    • B41J29/02—Framework
    • B41J29/026—Stackable
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J11/00—Devices or arrangements  of selective printing mechanisms, e.g. ink-jet printers or thermal printers, for supporting or handling copy material in sheet or web form
    • B41J11/58—Supply holders for sheets or fan-folded webs, e.g. shelves, tables, scrolls, pile holders

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to computer driven printers and, more particularly, to an accessory unit which holds a high volume of paper or other print media for increasing the capacity of print media supply for an inkjet printer.
  • print media instead of the term print media, the term paper will be used herein and is intended to encompass all forms of print media including paper, transparencies, vellum, etc.
  • One example of prior art printer with which the present invention is useful is the Hewlett Packard inkjet color printer Model 1600C which has standard vertically spaced paper input and output trays on the front of the printer as shown and claimed in co-pending application Serial No. 08/055,650 filed April 30, 1993 and assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
  • the standard paper input tray shipped with the printer has a capacity of about 180 sheets of paper resulting in frequent print stoppage for replenishment of the paper supply in the input tray during high volume printing. It is desired to reduce the amount of printer downtime due to reloading of the input tray.
  • Ordinary paper trays comprise rectangular bins having vertical walls with multiple springs and pressure plates to urge the stack of paper upwardly against drive rollers to permit reliable paper feeding.
  • Another type of tray particularly useful with the present invention, has a slanted wall at the paper output end which is designed to permit the surface tension of the paper in the tray to be broken with the paper being physically stacked in the tray at an angle as disclosed in United States Patent No. 5,377,969 dated January 3, 1995 to Steinhilber.
  • Trays of this type employ an articulated paper pusher arm mounted in either the paper tray or the printer housing which urges the top sheet of paper in the tray toward the printer paper feed mechanism.
  • inkjet printers apply wet ink to the paper or other print medium which is preheated before application of the ink to prevent or at least minimize shrink banding of the paper.
  • the HP 1600C color inkjet printer referred to above incorporates a paper pre-heater in the path of movement of the paper from the standard input tray, the pre-heater being located immediately before the paper reaches the print zone.
  • a primary objective of the present invention is to provide an accessory unit which holds a high volume of paper and a method of supplying paper from the high volume supply unit to the paper transport path in a printer such as an inkjet printer.
  • a further objective of the present invention is to efficiently guide and transport paper from a relatively large capacity (as compared with the standard input tray) auxiliary paper input tray to the print zone of known printers without substantial modification of the printer design.
  • Another objective of the present invention is to use a portion of the known printer's paper transport and guide means in the paper transport path which extends from an existing manual single sheet paper feed input slot to the print zone to guide the paper to the print zone.
  • the present invention provides a high volume auxiliary media input unit for introducing media sheets into an inkjet printer which has a primary input tray on one side of the inkjet printer and a secondary single sheet media input slot, comprising:
  • the present invention further provides an inkjet printer system comprising:
  • the present invention also provides a method of supplying paper to a paper transport path of a printer comprising the steps of:
  • Figure 1 is an exploded perspective view of a high volume paper supply unit which includes paper transport apparatus for feeding print media to the transport path in an ink jet printer which extends from an individual sheet reception slot and in which the printer is supportable on the apparatus.
  • Figure 2 is a rear perspective view showing pivotally mounted housing and convex media guides which define a paper path therebetween shown in their open or inoperative positions.
  • Figure 3 is a cross-sectional side elevation view of the apparatus.
  • Figure 4 is a front perspective view of an inkjet printer positioned on and aligned with a high volume auxiliary paper supply unit having its high volume tray accessible from the front side of the printer.
  • Figure 5 is a rear perspective view of the printer cover showing a conventional rear cover panel being removed.
  • Figure 6 is similar to Fig. 2 and shows a rear perspective view of the printer positioned on the paper supply unit with a new rear cover panel installed and engagement of an alignment stop on the paper supply unit with edges of a rear side printer cover opening.
  • the paper supply unit of the present invention comprises a generally rectangular tray cabinet 10 having forwardly and rearwardly extending narrow sections 12, 14.
  • Cabinet 10 also has vertically extending front, rear and side walls 16, 18, 20a, 20b, 20c and a substantially flat upper wall 24 which provides a flat surface for supporting a printer P (shown in phantom) thereon.
  • the front side of the cabinet has an opening 26 which receives a print media tray 30 moveable into and out of the cabinet along a path which extends generally from the front or first side of the cabinet toward the rear or second side of the cabinet as shown.
  • Apertures 27, one of which is seen in Fig. 1, are provided in each of the walls 20c of cabinet 10 and are aligned with similarly sized paper viewing apertures 28 (Fig. 3) in the vertically upstanding sidewalls of paper tray 30, described below, when the tray is in its operative position in cabinet 10.
  • the tray 30 itself forms no part of the present invention
  • the tray has a handle 31 and an upwardly inclined rear wall 32 against which the uppermost sheet of paper is pushed by a power-driven roller 34 mounted on the end of an articulating arm 36 which is in turn pivotally attached to the underside of the upper wall 24 of the cabinet.
  • Powered rotation of the roller 34 urges the uppermost sheet of paper against the angularly disposed rear wall 32 of the tray such that the paper enters a paper path PP, indicated by the dashed line and to be described below, for transport to the printer.
  • the articulating arm 36 is designed such that angular passive sheet separation is achieved when the roller drive force on the top sheet of the paper is greater than the frictional resistance force imposed by the angular wall 32. Trays of this type reliably can hold various paper weights in quantities ranging from 500 to 1000 sheets or more depending on configuration.
  • a convex print media guide 40 Contained within the tray cabinet 10 and pivotally affixed thereto at either side wall 20a of the rearwardly extending narrow section 14 is a convex print media guide 40 moveable between an operative position shown in solid lines in Figures 2 and 3 and an open or access position shown in solid lines in Figure 1 in which the convex guide 40 is pivotally moved to a position in which it extends generally horizontally, i.e., generally in the direction of movement of the print media tray 30.
  • the pivot connections of the guide 40 to the cabinet side walls 20a afford movement of the guide about a first axis 42 proximate the second or rear side of the cabinet.
  • a print media guide housing 50 which is also pivotally affixed to the side walls 20a of the narrow section 14 at the rear of the cabinet 20 for movement about a second pivot axis 52 between the open position shown in Figures 1 and 2 to the closed position seen in Figure 3.
  • the print media guide housing 50 is a molded plastic member having a rear wall 53, a pair of side walls 54, 56 and a plurality of spaced paper guide rails 57 which together provide a concave print media guide surface 58 thereon which, in operative position, is spaced from the convex print media guide 40 such that the convex print media guide and concave housing surface when in operative position, together define the curved print media path PP therebetween. Paper or other print media moving through the paper path is PP discharged in a generally horizontal direction at the discharge end DE of the print path.
  • the housing 50 when in closed position, substantially encloses the print media guide 40 which is nested therein.
  • one or more spring biased pinch rollers 76 mounted for rotation about a common axis on the print media guide housing 50 such that the leading edge of a sheet of paper moved from the stack is acquired by the opposed pickup drive and pinch rollers 70, 76 for continuation of its movement along the paper path PP.
  • an electrical resistance pre-heater 80 is mounted near the discharge end DE of the paper path, preferably on the convex print media guide 40 adjacent the motor and drive roller enclosure 72 as shown.
  • the pre-heater 80 could be mounted on the concave inner wall of the print media guide housing 50.
  • indexing means 90 are provided on the cabinet upper surface which may take the form of upwardly extending posts received in positioning holes in the bottom of the printer or indentations in the top surface of the paper supply unit at the locations at which the support feet of the printer are to be located.
  • the apparatus is dimensioned to discharge paper or other print media horizontally into the lower portion of auxiliary sheet paper path APP of the printer indicated by a dashed line through an aperture A in the rear wall of the printer specially provided for this purpose.
  • the printer receives a continuous supply of paper from a paper tray mounted on the front of the printer but the printer also has an auxiliary input slot AS at the top of the printer for receiving individual sheets hand-fed to the printer downwardly in a generally vertical direction.
  • the auxiliary paper slot AS is used, the sheets automatically move downwardly through the printer auxiliary paper path APP which changes direction to a generally horizontal orientation at the location shown.
  • the discharge end DE of the paper path of the print media transport apparatus of the present invention introduces paper into the auxiliary paper path APP at the location shown in the transition from its vertical to generally horizontal direction. This additionally presents paper for same side printing from either paper tray to avoid confusing the user in loading paper.
  • Additional indexing means 90 in the form of vertically oriented pins extending upwardly from the upper wall support surface 22 of the cabinet into receptacles in the underside of the printer may also be provided for proper orientation of the printer relative to the print media transport apparatus.
  • the type and configuration of the electrical resistance paper pre-heater 80 can vary but, in general, the pre-heater will comprise a serpentine electrically conductive strip bonded to a flexible plastic substrate which, together with electrical connection leads 82 for the motor 71 and heater 80, can be easily mounted on the convex print media guide 40.
  • An upstanding rigid flange 100 is rigidly affixed in the location best seen in Fig. 1 to the cabinet 20 to provide side-to side alignment between the printer chassis and the sheet feeder. Flange 100 also constitutes a stop against which the convex print media guide 40 and motor housing abuts when in its operative position. A horizontally extending tab or tabs 102 on the flange 100 also provide a stop surface against which the print media guide housing 50 side walls abut when in operative position.
  • the invention involves a method of supplying paper from the high volume supply unit to a paper transport path of a printer which has the usual cover having a rear section 110, a single sheet paper supply slot 120, and a printer paper tray 130 accessible from a front side of the printer.
  • the printer is positioned on the high capacity paper supply unit with its conventional paper supply tray 130 and the high capacity unit's supply tray 30 each accessible from the same direction, namely from the front side of the printer P.
  • Individual sheets of paper are then moved from a stack of paper in the high capacity paper supply tray generally horizontally beneath the printer toward the rear side and the sheets of paper are then introduced into the paper transport path in the printer below the single sheet paper supply slot 120 and upstream of the print mechanism.
  • Figure 5 shows a printer having a rear cover section 110 and a removable rear panel 140 which forms the single sheet feeder slot 120 at the top and which provides maintenance access to the paper transport path.
  • This conventional panel 140 is removed and replaced with a new rear panel 150 (Fig. 6) which also forms the single sheet feeder slot 120 at the top thereof and which is shorter in vertical length to leave an uncovered aperture 160 in the rear printer cover section 110 which receives the paper guide 40 and guide housing 50 of the high capacity paper supply unit.
  • the printer P is manually and accurately positioned on the high capacity paper supply unit by aligning the front corners of the printer with those of the supply unit and engaging a an edge of the uncovered aperture with the stop flange 100 on the paper supply unit as the indexing means 90 are simultaneously positioned. This macro positioning is easily achieved by the user while enabling micro adjustment built into the transport mechanism to accurately align paper from the supply unit in the printer paper path to avoid paper skew in the printer.

Landscapes

  • Sheets, Magazines, And Separation Thereof (AREA)
  • Handling Of Cut Paper (AREA)
EP95120395A 1995-01-17 1995-12-22 Tintenstrahldrucker mit grossvolumigem Hilfseingabefach Withdrawn EP0722839A3 (de)

Applications Claiming Priority (4)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US373829 1995-01-17
US08/373,829 US5620269A (en) 1995-01-17 1995-01-17 Print media transport apparatus for moving print media through a printer from a high volume input tray accessory
US39803395A 1995-03-03 1995-03-03
US398033 1999-09-17

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
EP0722839A2 true EP0722839A2 (de) 1996-07-24
EP0722839A3 EP0722839A3 (de) 1998-01-07

Family

ID=27006325

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
EP95120395A Withdrawn EP0722839A3 (de) 1995-01-17 1995-12-22 Tintenstrahldrucker mit grossvolumigem Hilfseingabefach

Country Status (1)

Country Link
EP (1) EP0722839A3 (de)

Cited By (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2005070686A1 (en) * 2004-01-21 2005-08-04 Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd Network inkjet printer unit having multiple media input trays
EP2610065A1 (de) * 2011-12-27 2013-07-03 Kyocera Document Solutions Inc. Bilderzeugungsvorrichtung
CN104191837A (zh) * 2014-08-04 2014-12-10 新会江裕信息产业有限公司 票据打印机的接口导向架结构
EP3351396A3 (de) * 2016-12-27 2018-09-26 Seiko Epson Corporation Drucksystem und erweiterungseinheit

Citations (7)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4733310A (en) * 1986-05-23 1988-03-22 Ziyad, Inc. Paper sheet and envelope feeder apparatus
EP0287915A2 (de) * 1987-04-16 1988-10-26 Oki Electric Industry Company, Limited Papiertransporteinrichtung und Papierkassette dafür
US4842261A (en) * 1983-04-13 1989-06-27 Gradco Systems, Inc. Printer feeder
US4958823A (en) * 1987-12-19 1990-09-25 Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. Paper feeding stand
EP0404096A1 (de) * 1985-03-09 1990-12-27 Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. Papiereinführvorrichtung für Drucker
US5150166A (en) * 1989-10-18 1992-09-22 Minolta Camera Co., Ltd. Image forming system including attachable sheet supplying units for transporting sheets directly to an image forming part
EP0622225A2 (de) * 1993-04-30 1994-11-02 Hewlett-Packard Company Duale Papierführung für einen Tintenstrahldrucker

Patent Citations (7)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4842261A (en) * 1983-04-13 1989-06-27 Gradco Systems, Inc. Printer feeder
EP0404096A1 (de) * 1985-03-09 1990-12-27 Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. Papiereinführvorrichtung für Drucker
US4733310A (en) * 1986-05-23 1988-03-22 Ziyad, Inc. Paper sheet and envelope feeder apparatus
EP0287915A2 (de) * 1987-04-16 1988-10-26 Oki Electric Industry Company, Limited Papiertransporteinrichtung und Papierkassette dafür
US4958823A (en) * 1987-12-19 1990-09-25 Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. Paper feeding stand
US5150166A (en) * 1989-10-18 1992-09-22 Minolta Camera Co., Ltd. Image forming system including attachable sheet supplying units for transporting sheets directly to an image forming part
EP0622225A2 (de) * 1993-04-30 1994-11-02 Hewlett-Packard Company Duale Papierführung für einen Tintenstrahldrucker

Non-Patent Citations (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Title
T. C. AKINS ET AL.: "compact printer with automatic paper feed" IBM TECHNICAL DISCLOSURE BULLETIN, vol. 27, no. 7b, December 1984, pages 4292-4293, XP002031266 *

Cited By (9)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2005070686A1 (en) * 2004-01-21 2005-08-04 Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd Network inkjet printer unit having multiple media input trays
JP2007518602A (ja) * 2004-01-21 2007-07-12 シルバーブルック リサーチ ピーティワイ リミテッド 複数の媒体入力トレイを有するネットワークインクジェットプリンタユニット
US7543808B2 (en) 2004-01-21 2009-06-09 Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd Network inkjet printer unit having multiple media input trays
AU2004314467B2 (en) * 2004-01-21 2009-10-29 Memjet Technology Limited Network inkjet printer unit having multiple media input trays
US7874665B2 (en) 2004-01-21 2011-01-25 Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd Printer having nested media trays
EP2610065A1 (de) * 2011-12-27 2013-07-03 Kyocera Document Solutions Inc. Bilderzeugungsvorrichtung
US8903268B2 (en) 2011-12-27 2014-12-02 Kyocera Document Solutions, Inc. Image forming apparatus
CN104191837A (zh) * 2014-08-04 2014-12-10 新会江裕信息产业有限公司 票据打印机的接口导向架结构
EP3351396A3 (de) * 2016-12-27 2018-09-26 Seiko Epson Corporation Drucksystem und erweiterungseinheit

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
EP0722839A3 (de) 1998-01-07

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