JP2001341929A - Sheet sorting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent choking of a sheet delivery opening with a delivered sheet and to prevent deviation of a paper sheet, already delivered on a paper delivery tray, by a roller for preventing the block of a delivery opening. SOLUTION: This sheet sorting device 100 comprises a paper delivery roller 2 consisting of a pair of upper and lower roller members 2a and 2b and movable to first and second positions in a direction extending orthogonally to the conveying direction of a paper sheet 4 with the paper sheet 4 held between the two roller members 2a and 2b, a paper delivery roller moving mechanism 30 to selectively move the paper delivery roller 2 to the first and second positions, and a paper delivery tray 5 on which the paper sheets 4 delivered in the first and second positions are placed. The sheet sorting device is constituted that a roller 13 for preventing the block of the delivery opening is situated on a driven spindle 22 so as to prevent the block of a sheet delivery opening by the rear end part of the paper sheets 4 passing through the paper delivery roller 2. In the device, even when the paper delivery roller 2 is moved between the first and second positions, the roller 13 always stays at a definite position.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a sheet for sorting recording paper (sheets) on which an image is recorded by an image forming apparatus such as an electrophotographic copying machine or a printer into a desired number of sheets on a discharge tray. The present invention relates to a sorting device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a sheet sorting apparatus for sorting sheets discharged from an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a printer on a paper discharge tray for each set number of sheets, a driving roller member and a driven roller member which rotates while being in pressure contact with the driving roller member are provided. There is known a mechanism provided with a mechanism for simultaneously moving a paper discharge roller composed of a paper discharge roller in a direction perpendicular to the paper discharge direction and reciprocating between a first position and a second position. This type of sheet sorting apparatus first discharges a set number of sheets from the image forming apparatus onto a discharge tray with a discharge roller positioned at a first position. The next sheet is held by the discharge roller, and the discharge roller is moved to the second position as it is to discharge the sheet, and the sheet is discharged so as to partially overlap the sheet bundle already discharged. I do. Thereafter, the sheet discharge roller is returned to the first position, the sheet is held again, and the sheet is moved to the second position and discharged. By repeating this operation for the set number of sheets, sheets are sorted for each desired number of sheets.

[0003]

In the above-described sheet sorting apparatus, the sheet discharge port may be blocked by the curled portion on the rear end side of the sheet that has passed between the driving roller member and the driven roller member. is there. In this case, the leading end of the sheet discharged from the image forming apparatus hits the trailing end of the preceding sheet, which causes a stack failure and a paper jam. In order to prevent such a problem, a support shaft of a driven roller member of the paper discharge roller (the driven roller member is often arranged below the drive roller member) is used.
In some cases, a roller made of an elastic material such as a foaming material (hereinafter, referred to as a roller for blocking an exhaust port) is attached. However, by holding the ejected sheet by the ejection roller and moving the ejection roller in a direction perpendicular to the transport direction,
In a sheet sorting apparatus that performs sorting alternately for each predetermined number of sheets, the discharge opening blocking roller also moves in a direction perpendicular to the transport direction together with the discharge roller. At that time, the discharge port closing prevention roller may shift the rear end of the sheet already discharged on the discharge tray. The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem of the related art, and an object of the present invention is to prevent a sheet discharge port from being blocked by a curled portion on a rear end side of a discharged sheet. Another object of the present invention is to provide a sheet sorting apparatus which can prevent the sheet already discharged to the sheet discharge tray from being displaced by a discharge opening blocking roller.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, a sheet to be discharged is placed in a first position.
A sheet stacking device for alternately sorting a predetermined number of sheets into a sheet bundle and a second sheet bundle, wherein the first position corresponding to the first sheet bundle is held when the sheets are conveyed while the sheets are held and discharged. And a discharge roller comprising a pair of upper and lower roller members movable in a direction orthogonal to the sheet conveyance direction between a second position corresponding to the second sheet bundle and the second position. A sheet discharge roller moving means for selectively moving the sheet between the first position and the second position; and a sheet discharge tray on which the discharged sheets are placed. In order to prevent the sheet discharge port from being blocked by the curled portion on the rear end side of the passed sheet, a discharge port blocking prevention roller is provided on the support shaft of the roller member below the discharge roller. Become In the sheet sorting apparatus, even if the discharge roller moves between the first position and the second position, the discharge port closing prevention roller is configured to always remain at a fixed position, so that the discharge roller is already discharged. The sheet discharged to the paper tray is prevented from being shifted by the discharge opening blocking roller. Claim 2
In the sheet sorting apparatus according to the first aspect, the roller cannot move relative to the support shaft of the roller member below the discharge roller in the circumferential direction, but relatively moves in the axial direction. It is characterized by being possible. According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the sheet sorting apparatus of the second aspect, the support shaft has a convex portion extending in an axial direction on an outer peripheral portion thereof, and the roller has the convex portion on an inner peripheral portion thereof. It is characterized in that it has a recess that slidably fits.

[0005]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below. 1 is an overall perspective view showing an internal configuration of a sheet sorting apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a side sectional view of the sheet sorting apparatus shown in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a main part of the sheet sorting apparatus shown in FIG. FIG. The sheet sorting apparatus 100 is installed so as to be connected to a left side of a main body of an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a printer. As shown in FIG.
Sheets (sheets) 4 from the image forming apparatus main body are introduced from below, discharged from above, and stacked on a discharge tray 5. That is, the sheet introducing section is provided with a conveying roller 20 in which a pair of roller members 20a and 20b are pressed against each other, and the sheet 4 sent from the image forming apparatus main body is conveyed upward by the conveying roller 20. The sheet is discharged onto a sheet discharge tray 5 by a sheet discharge roller 2 provided in a sheet discharge section. The paper discharge roller 2 is disposed symmetrically at the center of the sheet discharge part. Each paper discharge roller 2 includes a drive roller member 2a and a driven roller member 2b provided in pressure contact with the lower surface thereof. The drive roller member 2a is fixed to a drive support shaft 21 extending in the horizontal direction. The driven roller member 2 b is fixed to a driven support shaft 22 provided below and parallel to the drive shaft 21. Drive shaft 2
1 and one end of the driven support shaft 22, as shown in FIG.
A discharge roller moving mechanism 30 that moves the discharge roller 2 between a first position and a second position is connected. The discharge roller moving mechanism 30 includes a motor 6 as a driving source, gears 7 and 8 for transmitting a driving force of the motor 6,
A link member 9 for converting the rotational movement of the gear 8 into a movement in the axial direction of the driving support shaft 21 and the driven support shaft 22, that is, in a direction perpendicular to the sheet conveying direction;
And a connecting member 10 rotatably supporting the two shafts to simultaneously move the two shafts, and connecting the driving force of the motor 6 to the connecting member 1 via the gears 7 and 8 and the link member 9.
By transmitting the signal to 0, the driving support shaft 21 and the driven support shaft 22 are reciprocated at the same time. That is, by simultaneously moving the driving support shaft 21 and the driven support shaft 22,
By moving two sets of left and right discharge rollers 2 simultaneously in the axial direction,
It can be moved to the first position or the second position. Above the end of the driving support shaft 21, sensors 11 and 12 for detecting the movement position of the paper discharge roller 2 based on the end position of the driving support shaft 21 are provided. When the sheet sorting apparatus 100 performs sorting, the sheet 4 discharged from the image forming apparatus is transported upward by the transport roller 20 in a state where the paper discharge roller 2 is positioned at the first position. To discharge onto the discharge tray 5. By discharging the set number of sheets, the first sheet bundle including the set number of sheets is discharged to the discharge tray 5.
Loaded on top.

With respect to the next sheet 4, it is detected by the filler 3 and a sensor (not shown) that the trailing end 4a of the sheet 4 has come off the conveying roller 20, and the rotation of the sheet discharging roller 2 is stopped at that time. I do. Then, while holding the sheet 4 in the discharge roller 2, the discharge roller moving mechanism 30
Is driven to move the paper discharge roller 2 to the second position and discharge the paper. As a result, the sheets of the second sheet bundle are discharged so as to partially overlap the already discharged first sheet bundle. After that, the sheet discharge roller 2 is returned to the first position, and the sheet is held again.
Move to position and eject. By repeating this operation for the set number of sheets, the second sheet consisting of the set number of sheets is
Are stacked on the paper discharge tray 5 such that the sheet bundle of FIG. By repeating the above operation a required number of times, a required number of sheet bundles sorted for each desired number of sheets are formed on the discharge tray 5. As the sheets 4 are stacked on the discharge tray 5, the discharge rollers 2
The sheet discharge port may be blocked by a curled portion on the rear end side of the sheet 4 that has passed through the sheet. In such a case, the leading edge of the next sheet hits the trailing edge of the previously discharged sheet, causing stacking failure or paper jam. Therefore, a pair of left and right discharge opening blocking rollers 13 are attached to the driven support shaft 22 outside the left and right driven roller members 2b. The discharge opening blocking roller 13 is made of an elastic material such as sponge, and protrudes toward the paper discharge tray 5 from an end fence 15 that abuts and aligns the rear edges of the sheets 4 stacked on the paper discharge tray 5. ing. Driven spindle 2
A guide member 23 having a plurality of protrusions extending in the axial direction is provided on the outer peripheral portion of the portion where the above-described discharge port closing prevention roller 13 is attached, and is fixed to the driven support shaft 22. On the other hand, the discharge port closing prevention roller 13 has a concave portion on its inner peripheral portion which fits in a slidable manner in the axial direction with the convex portion of the guide member 23. This makes it possible to prevent the discharge opening blocking roller 13
Cannot move (rotate) relative to each other in the circumferential direction relative to the driven support shaft 22, but can move relative to each other in the axial direction. The axial movement of the driven support shaft 22 is restricted by the ribs 14 integrally formed on the resin frame 16 of the sheet sorting device 100 with respect to each of the discharge port closing prevention rollers 13. The length of the guide member 23 is set so that the guide member 23 does not come off from the discharge port closing prevention rollers 13 even when the driven support shaft 22 moves.

With the above construction, even if the paper discharge roller 2 moves between the first position and the second position, the discharge opening blocking roller 13 always rotates at a fixed position. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the sheet bundle discharged and sorted on the discharge tray 5 from being displaced by the discharge port closing prevention roller 13. In this embodiment, the driven support shaft 22 of the discharge port closing prevention roller 13 is used.
A guide member 23 having a plurality of convex portions extending in the axial direction is externally fixed to the driven support shaft 22 in order to regulate the relative movement in the circumferential direction with respect to and to allow the relative movement in the axial direction. A convex portion extending in the axial direction may be directly formed on the outer peripheral portion of the shaft 22. Further, in the above-described embodiment, the case where the paper discharge roller having the driven roller member disposed below the driving roller member is described as an example, but the driving roller member is disposed below the driven roller member. It is a matter of course that the present invention can be applied to a sheet sorting apparatus having a paper discharge roller. In this case, a discharge port blocking prevention roller is attached to a driving support shaft serving as a lower support shaft.

[0008]

As described above, according to the sheet sorting apparatus of the present invention, even when the discharge roller moves between the first position and the second position, the discharge roller passes between the roller members of the discharge roller. In order to prevent the sheet exit from being blocked by the curled portion on the rear end of the sheet, the roller provided on the support shaft of the roller member below the ejection roller always rotates at a fixed position. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent the sheet bundle discharged and sorted on the paper discharge tray from being shifted by the rollers.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall perspective view showing an internal configuration of a sheet sorting apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side sectional view of the sheet sorting apparatus shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a main part of the sheet sorting apparatus shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 100: sheet sorting device 4: sheet 5: paper discharge tray 2: paper discharge roller 2a: drive roller member 2b: driven roller member 21: drive support shaft 22: driven support shaft 23: guide member 30: paper discharge roller moving mechanism

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A sheet sorting apparatus for alternately sorting discharged sheets into a sheet bundle of a predetermined number of sheets, comprising a pair of upper and lower roller members, wherein said sheet is held between both roller members. A discharge roller movable to a first position and a second position in a direction orthogonal to the sheet conveying direction;
A sheet discharge roller moving means for selectively moving the sheet discharged between the first position and the second position; and a sheet discharge tray on which the sheets discharged at the first position and the second position are placed. In order to prevent the sheet discharge port from being blocked by the rear end portion of the sheet that has passed between the roller members of the paper roller, a discharge port blocking prevention roller is provided on the support shaft of the roller member below the discharge roller. In the sheet sorting apparatus provided with the above, even if the discharge roller is moved between the first position and the second position, the discharge port closing prevention roller is configured to always remain at a fixed position. Characteristic sheet sorting device. 2. The discharge port closing prevention roller is restricted in relative movement in a circumferential direction with respect to a support shaft of a roller member below the discharge roller, and is relatively movable in an axial direction. The sheet sorting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: 3. The support shaft has a convex portion extending in the axial direction on an outer peripheral portion thereof, and the discharge port closing prevention roller has a concave portion on the inner peripheral portion thereof slidably fitted with the convex portion. The sheet sorting apparatus according to claim 2, wherein: