JP2012006754A - Creasing device, paper post-processing device, apparatus and system for forming image - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To crease paper with high quality and stability without strictly managing paper conveying and to prevent variation in conveyance quantity or skewing of paper.SOLUTION: There is provided a creasing device, including a creasing means which creases paper by interposing between a projection material and a recess material fitted to the projection material and the creasing means is moved in accordance with a position of creasing paper. Accordingly, creasing is applied on the correction position after the skew correction by a paper butting plate and correcting tip end of the paper without a repeated conveying.

Description

  The present invention relates to a creasing device, a paper post-processing device, an image forming apparatus, and an image forming system that creases a sheet.

  In general, when a large number of sheets are folded together after image formation, sufficient creases may not be formed or images may be peeled off by folds. Therefore, a crease device that already creases the crease-applying position of each sheet that has been conveyed before folding is already known.

  In addition, as a creasing device, for the purpose of stably providing a crease line to the recording material, the recording material is pressed by a pressing member that presses a portion sandwiching a predetermined line of the recording material, and is placed at a standby position with respect to the insertion groove. There is one in which a certain creasing member is inserted to a crease-applying position (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  However, in the above-described conventional crease device, even if correction of paper skew (paper is conveyed obliquely) using the abutting plate, it is necessary to further convey the paper from there to the crease-applying portion. For this reason, it has been necessary to manage the paper transport severely, such as variations in the transport amount due to slip in the paper transport, and possible paper skew during transport. In addition, when trying to increase the accuracy of paper conveyance in this way, there is a concern that the cost may increase.

  If the carry amount is too small or too large, the positions of the leading edge and the trailing edge are shifted when the sheet is folded. In addition, when the fold is inclined, the folded paper is also inclined, so that the leading edge and the trailing edge are inclined. As described above, there is a problem in that the quality of the crease is not stable when the conveyance amount varies or the sheet skew occurs.

  Further, the above-mentioned Patent Document 1 attempts to stably provide a crease line by pressing a sheet when a crease is applied, and avoids the above-described problems caused by variations in the amount of sheet transport and sheet skew. It was not something that was taken into consideration.

  The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and it is not necessary to strictly control the sheet conveyance, and it is possible to prevent a variation in the conveyance amount and a sheet skew, and to perform crease formation with high quality and stability. An object of the present invention is to provide a crease device, a sheet post-processing device, an image forming device, and an image forming system.

  In order to achieve this object, a crease device according to the present invention is a crease device that creases a conveyed paper, and sandwiches the paper by a convex member and a concave material fitted to the convex member. And a crease unit for crease and a moving unit for moving the crease unit according to the crease application position of the sheet.

  As described above, according to the present invention, it is not necessary to strictly manage paper conveyance, and it is possible to prevent variations in conveyance amount and paper skew. For this reason, crease addition can be performed stably with high quality.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the paper post-processing apparatus by embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which simplifies and shows operation | movement of the paper processing apparatus F1 by this embodiment. It is a figure which simplifies and shows operation | movement of the paper processing apparatus F1 by this embodiment. It is a figure which simplifies and shows operation | movement of the paper processing apparatus F1 by this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example when a crease | fold giving position has shifted | deviated. It is a figure which shows the example at the time of a crease | folding angle | corner shifting | deviating. It is a figure which shows the paper correction operation example by the conventional apparatus. It is a figure which shows the example of a paper correction | amendment by a conventional apparatus, and a crease | fold giving operation | movement. It is a figure which shows the example of a paper correction | amendment by a conventional apparatus, and a crease | fold giving operation | movement. It is a figure which shows the example of a paper correction | amendment by a conventional apparatus, and a crease | fold giving operation | movement. It is a figure which shows the result by which the crease | fold addition was performed in the state in which the skew generate | occur | produced. It is a figure which shows the example of a paper correction | amendment by this embodiment, and a crease | fold giving operation | movement. It is a figure which shows the example of a paper correction | amendment by this embodiment, and a crease | fold giving operation | movement. It is a figure which shows the example of a paper correction | amendment by this embodiment, and a crease | fold giving operation | movement. It is a figure which shows the state in which paper correction | amendment and crease addition were performed appropriately. It is a figure which shows the structural example of the creasing apparatus C1 of this embodiment. It is a figure which deletes and shows a part of structure of the creasing apparatus C1 of this embodiment. It is a perspective view which shows the structural example of the creasing means C of this embodiment. It is a perspective view which shows the structural example of the creasing means C of this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of adjustment operation | movement by the adjustment type | formula conveyance belt B1 of this embodiment. It is a perspective view which shows the structure which moves the creasing means C of this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the structure around the worm gear 20 and the sensor 22. FIG. It is a figure which shows the structure around the worm gear 20 and the encoder 25. FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the operation example of the crease provision apparatus C1 by this embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the operation example of the crease provision apparatus C1 by this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of position adjustment by the crease | fold giving apparatus C1 of this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of position adjustment by the crease | fold giving apparatus C1 of this embodiment.

  Next, an embodiment to which a creasing apparatus, a sheet post-processing apparatus, an image forming apparatus, and an image forming system according to the present invention are applied will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

First, an outline of the present embodiment will be described.
The present embodiment has the following characteristics in the series of operations from the receipt of a sheet by the crease device to the discharge after the crease is given, particularly at the timing of the sheet conveyance and the crease imparting operation.

  First, before accepting the paper, the crease unit is moved to the crease forming position. Thereafter, the sheet is received and the sheet correction operation is started. When the sheet is conveyed to the abutting plate, skew correction and position correction are performed. After completion of the sheet correction operation, the crease is given at that position without needing to carry it again. A series of systems from receiving the paper to discharging it is a feature.

Next, the configuration of the present embodiment will be described in detail.
FIG. 1 shows an example of the overall configuration of a sheet post-processing apparatus according to this embodiment.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the sheet post-processing apparatus according to this embodiment includes a crease device C1 and a sheet processing apparatus F1 connected to the downstream side thereof. The following description will be made assuming that the sheet post-processing apparatus according to the present embodiment is attached to the image forming apparatus.

  The paper discharged from the image forming apparatus passes through the crease device C1 and is guided to a paper processing device F1 having a built-in folding device. When the sheet processing apparatus F1 performs the folding process on the sheet, the crease device C1 applies a crease to the sheet in advance for the position where the sheet is folded.

  In the crease device of FIG. 1, the sheet is conveyed to a position where the crease is performed by the sheet conveyance rollers R <b> 1 and R <b> 2 that can hold the sheet at the time of crease. After the conveyance stops, the crease convex blade (convex member) 7 installed on the upper surface of the conveyance surface descends, and the paper is sandwiched between the concave blade (concave material) 9 installed on the lower surface of the paper, thereby A crease is made. The creased sheet is conveyed to the sheet processing apparatus F1 by the conveying roller R3.

Each creased sheet is aligned in the sheet processing apparatus F1, and is subjected to the middle folding process at the position of the sheet fold by the middle folding apparatus built in the sheet processing apparatus F1.
Hereinafter, the operation of the sheet processing apparatus F1 will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 to 4 showing the simplified configuration of the sheet processing apparatus F1 shown in FIG.

  When the folding process is performed, the sheet is conveyed to the sheet processing apparatus F1, the branch claw 50 is set at a position 50a as shown in FIG. 2A, and the sheet is guided to the conveyance path of the conveying unit 53. . Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 2B, the paper is transported and stacked on the folding processing unit D by the transporting means 53 and 54. The stacked sheets are conveyed to the folding position by the rear end fence 60, pushed out to the folding roller 55 by the folding means 61 as shown in FIG. 3 (a), and discharged to the stacking tray T1 as shown in FIG. 3 (b). Paper.

  When the folding process is not performed, the branching claw 50 is set at a position 50b as shown in FIG. 4A, and is discharged onto the stacking tray T2 by the conveying means 52 as shown in FIG. 4B.

  The position where the crease is given varies greatly depending on the size of the paper or the folding method (such as middle folding or Z-folding). Further, when folding a sheet, the position and angle of the fold are important because the sheet is folded following the fold.

  As shown in FIG. 5, if the crease enters a position shifted by X from the target crease position, the end face of the paper will be shifted by 2X twice after the paper is folded. The same applies to the angle. As shown in FIG. 6, when the fold is inclined by Y ° from the target position, the sheet after folding does not have the end face of the paper parallel, and is inclined twice by 2Y °. End up. The position of the fold is given to the target position and needs to be parallel to the leading edge of the paper.

In the conventional apparatus, as shown in FIG. 7, after the paper skew (skew during the paper conveyance) is corrected when the paper is received, the paper is conveyed to the crease position as shown in FIG. 8 (FIG. 8 (1)). ), A crease is given (FIG. 8 (2)).
However, in such a conventional apparatus, since the skew is corrected and then transported and then the crease operation is performed, the skew is generated again as shown in FIG. 9, and the crease is given with the sheet inclined as shown in FIG. There was a risk of being. Thus, when the crease is given in the oblique state of the paper, the front edge of the paper and the crease are not parallel as shown in FIG.
In addition, since the skew direction of the paper is not constant, there is a possibility that variations occur in one JOB. Thus, if there is variation in the inclination of the folds, the end faces of the sheets will not be aligned during the folding process. Furthermore, it is necessary to stop the conveyance twice in the apparatus (when skew correction and crease are given), which is disadvantageous in terms of productivity.

On the other hand, in the crease forming apparatus of the present embodiment, in order to make the leading end of the sheet parallel to the fold, the skew of the sheet is corrected immediately before the crease is applied, and the crease is applied without the need for transporting the sheet after the correction. Thus, the position and angle of the fold can be obtained with high accuracy.
Hereinafter, the features of the present embodiment will be schematically described with reference to FIGS.

  First, as shown in FIG. 12, the paper is conveyed to the abutting plate 13 in order to correct the skew at the time of reception. At this time, the crease unit moves in accordance with the paper size information (crease application position) sent from the image forming apparatus.

  After receiving the sheet, the sheet is conveyed and bent while the leading end of the sheet is in contact with the abutting plate as shown in FIG. By being pressed against the abutting plate, the leading edge of the paper follows the abutting plate 13 and the skew and the leading edge position are corrected.

  After that, as shown in FIG. 14, the skew correction roller SR1 located immediately above the front end of the paper is pressed to grip the front end of the paper. Since the sheet is still bent, the conveying force of the upstream conveying rollers R1, R2, and R3 is released to release the sheet deflection, and the skew of the entire sheet is corrected. By performing the correction, the leading edge of the sheet and the crease are parallel to each other, and a highly accurate crease is possible. Therefore, the crease parallel to the leading edge of the sheet can be made as shown in FIG. Further, since the skew correction and the creasing operation are performed by one conveyance stop, the processing can be performed without lowering the productivity than the conventional method described above.

16 and 17 are diagrams showing the internal configuration of the creasing apparatus C1 of the present embodiment.
The crease device C1 includes two functional units, a paper skew correction unit S1 and a crease unit C. Further, it further includes a creasing means moving device, which is also a feature of the present embodiment, and a conveying path having an adjustable conveying belt B1. These contents and details will be described later.

18 and 19 are diagrams showing the basic configuration of the crease means C. FIG. Reference numeral 1 is a driving means for the creasing means, and operates in conjunction with the cam 2 and the cam 3. The cam followers 4 and 5 operate in accordance with the operation of the cams 2 and 3, and the cam followers 4 and 5 are attached to a convex blade support member 6 that is integral with the convex blade 7. For this reason, the operation of the cams 2 and 3 can be transmitted to the convex blade 7. The cams 2 and 3 have a function of pushing up the convex blade support member 6. When a crease is applied, the convex blade 7 pressed by the load setting spring 12 is fitted with the concave blade 9 to sandwich the paper, thereby enabling a crease operation.
The creasing operation is performed by a series of operations as described above.

Next, operations of the crease moving device and the adjustable conveyance belt B1 will be described.
Since the crease device C1 conveys between the convex blade 7 and the concave blade 9 in the crease unit C, the crease unit C is also part of the sheet conveyance path. If the crease means C is moved away from the transport path, the sheet will fall off the transport path. Therefore, if the fixed guide plate is used, the crease means C cannot be moved.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 20, by using the conveyor belts 14a and 14b, one side of the rotating shaft is fixed and the other side can be translated.
That is, the conveyor belt 14 is configured so that the belt tension is maintained by the three rotation shafts of the fixed shaft 15, the adjustment shaft 16, and the moving shaft 17, and the paper is transported by the rotation of the three rotation shafts. Then, as shown in FIG. 20, according to the movement of the crease unit C, the moving shaft 17 moves on the sheet conveyance path so that the conveyance surface can be secured as much as possible in a range where it does not collide with the crease unit C. The adjusting shaft 16 moves so as to keep the belt tension at the position of the moving shaft 17 and the fixed shaft 15.

  In this way, by arranging the adjustment shaft 16 that is movable between the two shafts of the moving shaft 17 and the fixed shaft 15, it is possible to adjust the belt length in the transport path while maintaining the belt tension. To do.

  Further, by arranging the transport belts of such a mechanism in pairs in front and rear in the transport direction of the crease unit C, the crease unit C can be moved not only to a fixed place but also to an arbitrary position, and a transport path is secured. Is possible.

  As a guide member for moving the creasing means C, two slide rails 18a and 18b are arranged in parallel as shown in FIG. The creasing means C is placed on the slide rails 18a and 18b and moved in the front-rear direction parallel to the paper transport direction. The slide rail can withstand high loads and is suitable as a guide member with little loss during linear movement.

The crease C is moved by using the worm gear 20.
The movement of the crease C is performed by using the home position detection function and the position fine adjustment function. As shown in FIG. 22, when the filler 23 is detected by the sensor 22 (photo interrupter in the example of FIG. 22) attached to the creasing means C, the positioning operation is performed by successive sensors such as the home position. However, since there is variation due to the crease C and assembly, the position adjustment function is finely adjusted using an encoder 25 attached to the tip of the worm gear 20 as shown in FIG.

  Further, since the worm gear 20 has a function (self-locking mechanism) that can be moved only from the worm side, the position of the worm gear 20 does not change even if it is deliberately pressed from the impact or the user side during the folding operation.

  Next, the crease applying operation by the crease forming apparatus C1 of the present embodiment described above will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. As a specific example, FIG. 26 shows a position adjustment in the case where a line is placed in the center of A4 vertical paper, and FIG. 27 shows a case in which a position adjustment is made when a line is placed in the center of A3 vertical paper.

  First, when the crease device C1 performs a crease operation (step ST1), the crease device C1 obtains paper information based on input from the user or automatic detection of the image formation device (step ST2). Then, the crease unit C is moved to the crease application position based on the sheet information acquired from the image forming apparatus (step ST3).

  FIG. 26 is a view when the creasing means C is on the downstream side (A4 middle folding position) of the machine. At this time, the center of the convex blade 7 that gives the crease is arranged at a position of 148.5 mm from the abutting plate 13. The sensor 22 is arranged with this position as the home position of the apparatus. In accordance with the movement of the creasing means C, the adjustment-type transport belt UNIT of the transport path also performs an operation of extending the upstream side UNITB2 and contracting the downstream side UNITB1.

FIG. 27 is a view when the creasing means is on the upstream side (A3 middle folding position) of the machine. At this time, the center of the convex blade 7 that gives the crease is located at a position of 210.0 mm from the abutting plate, and therefore needs to move 61.5 mm upstream from the position of A4 in FIG.
When moving, the drive means 19 operates the necessary pulses and rotates the worm gear 20 so that the crease means moves to the target position. The amount of movement is controlled using the encoder 25.

  After the crease C and the adjustable conveying belt UNIT are moved in this way, when the sheet is conveyed from the image forming apparatus, skew correction using the abutting plate 13 is performed as described above (step ST4). .

  When the skew correction and the crease applying position are adjusted in this way, the crease unit C performs a crease operation for fitting the convex blade 7 and the concave blade 9 to sandwich the paper (step ST5).

  When the second crease imparting operation is set by the received signal from the image forming apparatus, the crease C and the adjustable transport belt UNIT are moved so as to match the second crease imparting position as described above. (Step ST11), and the crease unit C performs a crease operation at that position (step ST12).

When the second crease applying operation is completed in this way, the crease device C1 discharges the paper to the paper processing device F1 which is a downstream machine (step ST13).
If the second crease applying operation is not set (step ST6; No), the crease forming device C1 is a downstream sheet processing device upon completion of the first crease applying operation in step ST5 described above. The sheet is discharged to F1 (step ST7).

The effect by this embodiment mentioned above is demonstrated.
In the conventional crease device, since the crease is given after the conveyance, the position and the angle of the crease are affected by the conveyance because the crease is easily affected by a skew during the conveyance and a variation in the conveyance amount.

  On the other hand, in the present embodiment, a function for correcting the skew generated during the conveyance of the paper and the error in the conveyance amount is provided so that the crease operation can be performed immediately after the correction.

First, as preparation for receiving the crease device C1, information on the crease position is received from the image forming device, and the crease unit C is moved to a target position in advance.
Next, the paper is transported to a butting plate having functions of paper skew correction and tip position correction. Press the leading edge of the paper against the abutting plate to bend the paper. After that, by canceling the conveyance force of the rollers used for conveyance, it is possible to remove the skew during the conveyance of the paper and correct the front end position of the paper.
After the skew / position correction of the paper is finished, the crease is given by the crease forming means C that has been moved to the crease giving position in advance. When the crease application operation is completed, the sheet is conveyed toward the downstream machine, and 1 JOB is completed.

  Since the sheet correction operation (skew correction, leading edge position correction) and the crease marking system according to the present embodiment as described above can crease the sheet without correcting it after the sheet correction, the position of the crease And the angle can be kept high quality.

  As described above, in the above-described embodiment, the crease device that creases the conveyed paper includes a crease unit that has a convex member that folds the paper and a concave member that receives the convex member. The crease applying means can be moved in accordance with the crease applying position.

In this way, by making it possible to move the crease location while keeping the paper stop position constant within the crease device, it is possible to eliminate variations in the transport amount of each paper and to skew the paper when creases are applied. Can be eliminated.
That is, it is possible to stabilize the position and angle of the fold in one JOB without being affected by skew (skew during paper conveyance) and variations in the conveyance amount that occur during conveyance.

  In addition, since the paper correction operation (skew correction, leading edge position correction) by the abutment plate is performed immediately before the crease is given, the paper is re-conveyed according to the paper size and the crease application position after the conveyance to the abutment plate. Can be made unnecessary.

  In addition, the abutting plate receives the abutting of the sheet at a predetermined position in the sheet conveyance direction regardless of the position of the crease applied to the sheet. As described above, since the position of the abutting plate is constant, the conveyance amount of the sheet can be made constant regardless of the position where the crease is given.

  Further, the length of the conveying belt in the conveying path can be adjusted according to the movement of the crease unit, and the conveying belt can be moved in synchronization with the movement of the crease unit, so that the crease unit corresponds to the crease application position. C can be moved freely.

  Further, the crease device C1 receives the crease application position information such as the paper size and the fold information sent from the image forming apparatus, and moves the crease unit C according to the received information. For this reason, the crease-applying position can be adjusted by a user-side operation.

  Further, since the crease unit can be moved in the front-rear direction parallel to the transport direction by the worm gear, the movement of the crease unit C can be reliably positioned.

  In addition, the sheet post-processing device including the crease device according to the present embodiment and the half-folding device that performs the folding process on the sheet with the crease attached thereto enables reliable and stable sheet folding processing.

In addition, according to the image forming apparatus including the sheet post-processing apparatus according to the present embodiment, it is possible to perform a reliable and stable folding process on the sheet after image formation according to the setting.
In addition, according to the image forming system in which a plurality of such image forming apparatuses are connected via a network, each image forming apparatus can reliably and stably form the sheet after image formation according to the setting from each image forming apparatus. A folding process can be performed.

  Each of the above-described embodiments is a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and the present invention is not limited to this, and various modifications can be made based on the technical idea of the present invention.

C1 creasing device C creasing means 7 convex blade 9 concave blade 13 abutting plate 14 conveyor belt 15 fixed shaft 16 adjusting shaft 17 moving shaft F1 paper processing device

JP 2009-166927 A

Claims (11)

A crease device that creases a conveyed sheet,
A creasing means for creasing the paper by sandwiching the paper by the convex member and the concave material fitted to the convex member;
A crease forming apparatus comprising: a moving unit configured to move the crease unit according to a crease applying position of the sheet. Abutting means for correcting skew by abutting the paper in the transport direction is provided.
2. The creasing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the moving unit moves the crease unit so as to apply a crease at a predetermined position of the paper abutted against the abutment unit.   3. The creasing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the abutting means receives the abutting of the sheet at a predetermined position in the sheet conveyance direction regardless of a crease applying position to the sheet. A transport belt for transporting paper by the belt while maintaining the belt tension by at least three rotating shafts;
Of the at least three rotating shafts, at least two rotating shafts are configured to be movable while maintaining a belt tension, and the at least two rotating shafts of the crease forming unit are moved according to the moving position of the moving unit. The creasing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the crease device is configured to adjust a belt length of the conveyance belt in the sheet conveyance path by movement. The conveyor belts are provided one by one as a pair on the front and rear in the sheet conveying direction of the crease unit,
5. The creasing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein a belt length of each of the conveying belts is adjusted according to a moving position of the creasing means by the moving means. Receiving means for receiving setting information of a crease position on the paper by the crease means;
The crease forming apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the moving unit moves the crease unit according to setting information of a crease applying position received by the receiving unit.   The crease device according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the crease unit is configured to be movable in a front-rear direction parallel to a paper conveyance direction.   The crease device according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the moving unit moves the crease unit in a front-rear direction parallel to a sheet conveyance direction by a worm gear. A creasing device according to any one of claims 1 to 8,
A sheet post-processing apparatus, comprising: a folding device that performs a folding process on a sheet that has been creased by the crease device.   An image forming apparatus comprising the sheet post-processing apparatus according to claim 9.   11. An image forming system comprising a plurality of image forming apparatuses according to claim 10 connected via a network.