JP2940409B2 - Stacker device and character reading device using the stacker device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a stacker on which forms conveyed from a hopper are stacked, and to a character reading device provided with the stacker.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In general, a character reading apparatus for recognizing and reading characters described in forms is loaded with a hopper section for loading and storing forms to be read, and forms that have been read. The stacker and the stacker are separately arranged, and a reading head that reads characters and the like written on a form is arranged in the middle of the transport path from the hopper to the stacker. The stacker unit further includes an accept stacker on which forms that have been read successfully completed are stacked, and a reject stacker on which forms that have not been successfully completed are loaded, and a form read by the read head. Classes are sorted to each stacker according to the reading result. The capacity of the stacker section depends on the capacity of the hopper section, and with the miniaturization of the apparatus, proposals have been made to reduce the size of the stacker section without reducing the capacity of the hopper section.

An example will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is a schematic configuration diagram of a conventional stacker. As shown in FIG. 3, a table 104 is arranged inside the box-shaped stacker unit 103 in which the read forms are stored. In this table 104, the reading is completed and the first
Are conveyed along the conveyance path 102a. The table 104 is attached to the other end of the parallel link 120 that is swingably supported about one end, and the table 104 moves up and down by swinging the parallel link 120. . The parallel link 120 also serves as a conveying means by a belt, and the forms which have been read and conveyed along the second conveying path 102b pass between the parallel links 120 and the bottom wall 105 of the stacker unit 103. To be loaded. Here, the forms conveyed from the hopper unit (not shown) and read by the reading head (not shown) are respectively supplied to the first conveyance path 102a and the second conveyance path 102b according to the reading result. It is sorted and transported by a select valve (not shown). When the amount of the forms loaded on the table 104 is large, the table 104 is lowered, and conversely,
When the amount of forms loaded on the bottom wall 105 is large, the parallel link 120 is driven so as to raise the table 104, and the capacity of the stacker unit 103 is used effectively (Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 57-73750).

[0004] In the above-described example, for example, a form that has been read normally is sent to the first transport path 102a, and a form that has not been read normally is transmitted to the second transport path 1a.
Assuming that the form is sent to 02b, the forms that have been read normally are stacked on the table 104, and the forms that have not been read normally are stacked on the bottom wall 105 of the stacker unit 103. That is, the table 104 serves as an accept stacker, and the bottom wall 105 of the stacker unit 103
Becomes a reject stacker.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional stacker, although the capacity of the stacker is effectively used, the size of the stacker can be reduced.
Since it is provided separately from the hopper, at least the same capacity as the hopper is required. That is, the combined capacity of the hopper and the stacker required twice the capacity of the hopper. Moreover, before reading the forms, the stackers do not yet contain the forms, but after reading the forms, the hopper becomes empty, and there is still room for improvement in consideration of the effective use of space. there were.

Therefore, the present invention makes more efficient use of the space occupied by the forms loaded on the hopper and the space occupied by the forms loaded on the stacker, and makes the stacker device smaller in size with respect to the capacity of the hopper. And a character reading device.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a stacker according to the present invention has two stackers on which sheets that have been conveyed and sorted one by one from a hopper section through a predetermined path are stacked. In the stacker device, the two stackers are arranged one above the other, and the lower one of the two stackers is placed above the hopper when the maximum amount of documents is stored in the hopper. movably provided in a range including the contained paper sheet space occupied in the vertical direction, to start reading the paper sheet
Before the maximum amount of forms is loaded on the hopper
At the top of the movement range, just above the topmost form
The position is lowered by the control of a control unit that lowers the lower stacker according to the number of sheets to be placed and distributed to the lower stacker.

The lower stacker reads a character written on a form, and sorts the form into those that have been normally read and those that have not been normally completed. May be used.

A character reading apparatus according to the present invention comprises a hopper section on which forms to be read are stacked, reading means for reading the forms conveyed from the hopper section, and forms which have been normally read by the reading means. In a character reading device having an accept stacker on which is stacked, and a reject stacker on which forms that have not been normally read by the reading means are stacked, the reject stacker is disposed above the accept stacker, and The accept stacker is provided above the hopper so as to be vertically movable within a range including a space occupied by the documents stored in the hopper when the maximum amount of documents is stored in the hopper. , Before starting to read forms,
Top form when the maximum amount of forms is loaded
Is located at the upper end of the movement range immediately above the class, and the position is lowered by control of the control unit that lowers the accept stacker according to the number of forms sorted to the accept stacker. is there.

In addition, a counter is provided for counting the number of documents that have been read normally by the reading means, and the control unit controls the accept stacker for each sheet counted by the counter. by the thickness of which corresponds to the paper sheet may be also of the Ru it is lowered.

[0011]

In the stacker device of the present invention configured as described above, when the forms conveyed from the hopper through a predetermined path are stacked on the lower stacker, the sheets are controlled accordingly .
The position of the lower stacker is lowered by control of the control unit .
That is, the position of the lower stacker is lowered by the height of the forms stacked on the lower stacker. The lower stacker is arranged above and below the hopper portion in a range including a space occupied by the forms stored in the hopper portion when the maximum amount of forms is stored in the hopper portion (used space of the hopper portion). Since the hopper is provided so as to be movable, the position of the lower stacker is lowered according to the space used by the hopper, which is reduced by the transfer of the forms from the hopper, and the space occupied by the forms stacked on the lower stacker And the space used by the hopper is effectively used.

The character reading apparatus of the present invention has an accept stacker on which forms that have been read normally are placed, and a reject stacker that has forms that have not been read normally. Normally, the number of forms for which reading has not been completed normally is extremely small, so the loading capacity of the accept stacker is larger than the loading capacity of the reject stacker. Then, the stacker of the present invention is applied to this accept stacker,
While the stacker is a reject stacker,
By using the acceptor as the acceptor , the space occupied by the documents loaded on the acceptor having a large carrying capacity and the space used by the hopper are effectively used, and a smaller character reading device is realized. In this case, the lowering of the accepting stacker is controlled by a counter that counts the number of readings that have been completed normally, and an accepting stacker that lowers the accepting stacker by a thickness corresponding to one sheet every time the counter counts. With the provision of the control unit, the reading can be performed using the reading result of the reading unit.

[0013]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an embodiment of a character reading apparatus according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the character reading apparatus according to the present embodiment is an optical character reading apparatus, and includes a hopper unit 1 in which forms P to be read are loaded and stored, and a form conveyed from the hopper unit 1. An optical read head 6 that reads a form P by recognizing a character or the like of a class P;
A stacker unit 3 on which forms P read by the reading head 6 are stacked, and a transport path 2 for transporting the forms P from the hopper unit 1 to the stacker unit 3 are provided.

The hopper 1 is located at the lower end of the character reading device. The bottommost form among the forms P stacked on the hopper 1 is sent out to the transport path 2 by the pickup roller 11. . The hopper unit 1 is provided with a separation unit (not shown) similar to that used in a conventional automatic paper feeding mechanism or the like, so that the sheets P are transported to the transport path 2 one by one. Has become.

The stacker unit 3 is located above the hopper unit 1, and further has an accept stacker 4 on which forms P that have been normally read by the reading head 6 are stacked.
And a reject stacker 5 on which forms P whose reading by the reading head 6 has not been completed normally are stacked. The distribution of the forms P to the respective stackers 4 and 5 is performed by the select valve 7. Select valve 7
Is the transport path 2 of the form P read by the read head 6
Is switched to a first branch 2a leading to the accept stacker 4 and a second branch 2b leading to the reject stacker 5 in accordance with the reading result, and is generally used in this type of character reading device. Is what it is. The control of the select valve 7 is performed based on an output from the character recognition result identification unit 8 for identifying whether or not the characters of the form P are normally recognized by the reading head 6.

The accept stacker 4 is disposed below the reject stacker 5 and is provided so as to be movable in the vertical direction. The moving amount of the accept stacker 4 is substantially equal to the height of the forms P when the maximum amount of forms P is loaded on the hopper 1. The upper end position of the moving range of the accept stacker 4 is the uppermost form P when the maximum amount of form P is stacked on the hopper 1.
Just before the start of reading of the form P, the accept stacker 4 is located at the upper end of its moving range (the state shown in FIG. 1). The position of the accept stacker 4 is controlled by a command from the accept stacker control unit 10 in accordance with the result of reading the forms P by the read head 6. That is, based on the output from the character recognition result identification unit 8, count data from the counter 9 that counts only when reading is normally completed is input to the accept stacker control unit 10, and the count data is input to the accept stacker control unit 10. The accept stacker 4 is lowered based on the counted data.

Next, the operation of the character reading apparatus according to the present embodiment will be described.

When the forms P are loaded on the hopper 1 and the character reading device is operated, the forms P loaded on the hopper 1 are
Are sent out to the transport path 2 one by one from the lowest position by the pickup roller 11. The form P sent to the conveyance path 2 is conveyed to the stacker unit 3 while characters and the like are recognized by the reading head 6 during conveyance. At this time, the recognition result of the read head 6 is output to the character recognition result identification unit 8, and when the form P is normally read, the form P is output to the first character recognition unit 8. The select valve 7 is controlled so as to pass through the branch path 2a, and the forms P that have been normally read are stacked on the accept stacker 4. On the other hand, if the forms P have not been read normally, the forms P are stored in the second stack.
The selector valve 7 is controlled to pass through the branch path 2b, and the forms P that could not be read normally are stacked on the reject stacker 5.

On the other hand, the result from the character recognition result discriminating section 8 is also output to the counter 9, and the counter 9 outputs the number of the normally read forms P to the accept stacker control section 10 as count data. The accept stacker control unit 10 lowers the accept stacker 4 by a predetermined amount every time the count data is input from the counter 9. The predetermined amount is an amount corresponding to the thickness of one form P, and the accept stacker 4 moves the position of the form P by one sheet every time one form P is stacked. It will fall by the minute. Then, the forms P that are normally read are stacked one after another at the uppermost position of the forms P stacked on the accept stacker 4.

FIG. 2 shows a state in which a certain number of forms P are read. As shown in FIG. 2, when a certain number of forms P are read, the accept stacker 4 takes up the space occupied by the forms P initially loaded on the hopper 1 (the space used by the hopper 1). It descends as it decreases. That is, the moving range of the accept stacker 4 includes the space used by the hopper 1, and the moving range of the accept stacker 4 is higher than the form P when the maximum amount of the forms P is loaded on the hopper 1. Therefore, the height from the hopper 1 to the uppermost form P loaded on the accept stacker 4 is constant during the operation of the character reading device, and the accept stacker 4
The space occupied by the forms P loaded on the hopper 1 and the space used by the hopper 1 are effectively used. Further, as described above, the moving range of the accept stacker 4 is made substantially equal to the height of the forms P when the maximum amount of forms P are loaded on the hopper 1, so that the loading capacity of the hopper 1 and the accept stacker 4 are almost equal to each other, and by sharing most of them, the space occupied by the forms P stacked on the accept stacker 4 can be made to substantially coincide with the space used by the hopper 1.

Normally, in this type of character reading apparatus, the number of forms P that cannot be read normally is extremely small compared to the number of forms P that can be read normally. May be less. For example, if about 10% of the forms P that cannot be normally read out of the read forms P are generated, the load capacity of the reject stacker 5 is initially set to the hopper unit 1 even if the generation rate is allowed. It is sufficient if the capacity of the forms P loaded on the sheet is about 20%.

Therefore, the combined capacity of the hopper 1 and the stacker 3 can be made substantially equal to the sum of the capacity of the hopper 1 and the capacity of the reject stacker 5,
The capacity can be about 1.2 times the loading capacity of the hopper 1. Even if the percentage of forms P that cannot be read normally reaches nearly 50%, the combined capacity of the hopper 1 and the stacker 3 is about 1.5 times the loading capacity of the hopper 1. As a result, the combined capacity of the hopper unit 1 and the stacker unit 3 can be reduced while the loading capacity of the hopper unit 1 is the same as that of the related art, and a smaller size can be achieved without reducing the loading capacity of the hopper unit 1. A character reading device is realized. On the contrary, the size is the same as before,
The loading capacity of the hopper 1 can be further increased.

Further, since the position of the accept stacker 4 is lowered according to the number of forms P loaded on the accept stacker 4, even if a large number of forms P are loaded on the accept stacker 4, the form First branch 2 by P
The discharge port of “a” to the accept stacker 4 is not blocked. In addition, since the head of the forms P from the discharge port is kept substantially constant, the forms P discharged from the discharge port are surely stacked on the accept stacker 4. Further, since the accepting stacker 4 is lowered based on the result of reading by the reading head 6, the control of the accepting stacker 4 is accurately performed with a simple configuration.

In the present embodiment, an example is shown in which the accept stacker 4 is lowered in accordance with the number of forms P that have been read normally and counted by the counter 9, but this is not always necessary. The accept stacker 4 may be lowered according to the number of the forms P sent from the unit 1. The control of the accept stacker 4 in this case is as follows.
A sensor (not shown) for detecting the form P may be provided in the transport path 2, and the detection may be performed based on the detection result or based on the recognition result of the reading head 6. As described above, even if the accept stacker 4 is lowered according to the number of the forms P sent from the hopper 1, the accept stacker 4 is lowered according to the decrease amount of the forms P on the hopper 1. The accept stacker 4 does not collide with the forms P on the hopper 1. However, when the number of forms P that have not been read normally is large, the head from the first branch path 2a gradually increases, and the forms P may not be accurately loaded on the accept stacker 4. Therefore, it is preferable to lower the accept stacker 4 in accordance with the number of forms P that have been read normally.

Further, although this embodiment shows an example applied to character reader stacker, the stacker apparatus of the present invention,
The present invention can also be applied to other devices that handle forms, such as a recording device. However , in the recording apparatus, there is no need to sort the forms for which recording has been completed, so that a configuration corresponding to the reject stacker shown in the above-described embodiment is not required. Therefore, Ru can share most of the space occupied by the stacker and use the space of the hopper.

[0027]

Since the present invention is configured as described above, the following effects can be obtained.

According to the stacker device of the present invention, the lower one of the two stackers arranged above the hopper is
In a range including the space occupied by the stowed paper sheet to the hopper provided movably in the vertical direction when the maximum amount of paper sheet is accommodated in the hopper, the control of the control unit, depending on the number of sheets are stacked By lowering the position, the space occupied by the documents stacked on the lower stacker and the space used by the hopper can be effectively used. As a result, if this stacker device is applied to a device that handles forms, the size of the device can be reduced without reducing the capacity of the forms stored in the hopper. Conversely, it is also possible to increase the capacity of the documents stored in the hopper without increasing the size of the apparatus.

A character reading apparatus according to the present invention applies the above-mentioned stacker device of the present invention to a stacker section, and lowers a stacker.
Since the accept stacker is used, the space occupied by the documents stacked on the accept stacker having a large loading capacity and the space used by the hopper can be effectively used. As a result, the size of the character reader can be reduced without reducing the capacity of the forms stored in the hopper, or the forms stored in the hopper can be reduced without increasing the size of the character reader. Capacity can be increased.

In this case, there are provided a counter for counting the number of those which have been read normally, and an accepting stacker control unit for lowering the accepting stacker by a thickness corresponding to one sheet every time the counter counts. Thus, the descending control of the accept stacker can be performed using the reading result by the reading means, and the accept stacker can be accurately controlled with a simple configuration.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an embodiment of a character reading device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a state in which a certain number of forms have been read by the character reading apparatus shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a schematic configuration diagram of a conventional stacker.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Hopper part 2 Transport path 2a 1st branch path 2b 2nd branch path 3 Stacker part 4 Accept stacker 5 Reject stacker 6 Read head 7 Select valve 8 Character recognition result identification part 9 Counter 10 Accept stacker control part 11 Pickup roller P Forms

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) B65H 31/00-31/40

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A stacker apparatus having two stackers on which sheets sorted and conveyed one by one from a hopper section through a predetermined path are stacked, wherein the two stackers are arranged vertically, and The lower stacker of the stacker moves vertically above the hopper section within a range including the space occupied by the forms stored in the hopper section when the maximum amount of forms is stored in the hopper section. Provided as possible, forms
Before starting scanning, the maximum amount of forms
Immediately above the topmost form when loading
A stacker device located at the upper end of the moving range of the stacker, the position of which is lowered by control of a control unit that lowers the lower stacker in accordance with the number of sheets sorted to the lower stacker. 2. The accepting stacker of a character reading device, wherein the lower stacker reads a character written on a form, and sorts the form into a normally read one and a non-normally read one. The stacker device according to claim 1, which is used as a stacker. 3. A hopper section on which forms to be read are stacked, reading means for reading the forms conveyed from the hopper section, and an accept stacker on which the forms normally read by the reading means are stacked. And a reject stacker on which forms not normally read by the reading unit are stacked. The reject stacker is disposed above the accept stacker, and the accept stacker is Above the section, when the maximum amount of forms is stored in the hopper section, the hopper section is provided so as to be movable vertically in a range including the space occupied by the forms stored in the hopper section , and reads the forms. start
Before the operation, the maximum amount of forms is loaded in the hopper
At the top of the moving range, just above the topmost form
A character reading device, wherein the position is lowered by control of a control unit that lowers the accept stacker according to the number of sheets that are located and sorted to the accept stacker. 4. A counter for counting the number of forms normally read by the reading means, and the control unit controls the accept stacker for each count by the counter. 4. The character reading device according to claim 3, wherein the character reading device is lowered by a thickness corresponding to a form.