JP3053021B2 - Image forming device - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having a cover which can be opened and closed on an image forming apparatus main body.

2. Description of the Related Art An image forming apparatus main body such as a copying machine or a printer mounted on a dedicated cabinet having a multi-stage paper tray,
An image forming apparatus with a multi-stage tray capable of forming an image on paper on an arbitrary tray is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. Sho 62-194634. In this image forming apparatus, the side wall of the cabinet extends to the lower part of the main body of the image forming apparatus to form a cover integral with the side wall of the main body. There is provided a feeding means for feeding the paper taken out of the printer to the image forming apparatus main body, and the cover is attached to the cabinet and the image forming apparatus main body so as to be freely opened and closed.

In this apparatus, as described above, in addition to the feeding means for feeding the paper from the tray of the cabinet to the image forming apparatus main body, the return feeding means for returning the single-sided copied paper to the tray is provided by the feeding means. Is provided on the side different from the side of
It is configured such that double-sided copying or multiple copying for copying another image can be selected. Further, in this apparatus, as described above, the cover is openable and closable, and the paper path of the preceding feeding means and the returning feeding means is opened, thereby causing a feeding failure such as a paper jam, that is, a jam. In this case, the paper is easily removed.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention Since the cover of such a known image forming apparatus with a multi-stage tray can be opened, it is easy to remove paper in the case of a jam. However, only the cover is opened, and the feeding roller as a sheet feeding member and the guide plate as a sheet feeding passage forming member are provided on the cabinet or the main body of the image forming apparatus. These rollers and guide plates may interfere with removal,
Further, if a paper jam occurs between a pair of rollers, a pair of guide plates, or the like, it becomes difficult to remove the jam, and so there is still room for improvement in removing the jammed paper.

As a sheet feeding device different from the above-mentioned devices, there is known a sorter which has a multi-stage substantially horizontal shelf and feeds a sheet to these shelves from above through a vertical feeding passage. This sorter is provided with a cover that can be opened and closed on the side surface, so that jammed paper can be easily removed when a jam occurs. That is, in this sorter, a pair of feeding rollers as a pair of feeding members for feeding the sheet with the sheet interposed therebetween, and a pair of guide plates as a pair of sheet path forming members for securing the sheet path therebetween. One of the feeding means is attached to the cover side, and the other feeding means is attached to the main body. Therefore, when the cover is opened, the paired feeding means is opened, and the removal of the paper in this portion is facilitated.

However, even in the case of such a sorter, each time the cover is opened and closed, the pressing force between the feeding rollers as the feeding member and the gap between the passage gaps of the guide plate as the sheet passage forming member change, and this causes jam. This caused a frequent jam. For this reason, it is necessary to readjust the pressing force and the interval every time the cover is opened and closed, and there is a disadvantage that maintaining the normal feeding is troublesome.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a multi-stage image forming apparatus that can maintain normal paper feeding without re-adjustment even if the cover is repeatedly opened and closed, and can easily remove jammed paper even if a jam occurs. An object of the present invention is to provide a forming apparatus.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the object, according to the present invention, there is provided a recording unit for recording on a sheet, and a plurality of recording units arranged vertically below the recording unit for storing the sheet. A paper tray, a paper feeding means for feeding paper in the paper tray, and a paper path in a vertical direction extending over a plurality of paper trays, provided to pass the paper fed by the paper feeding means. An image forming apparatus comprising: a sheet feeding unit configured to convey a sheet in the sheet path; and a side cover that is provided to be openable and closable with respect to the image forming apparatus main body and covers at least one side of the image forming apparatus. The side cover is attached to the image forming apparatus main body so as to pivot about an axis on the back side of the image forming apparatus main body parallel to the sheet conveying direction to open the side of the image forming apparatus. A part of the paper passage is provided in the printer, and by opening the side cover, a portion of the paper passage extending over a plurality of paper trays is opened, and when the side cover is closed, the paper passes. The members that maintain the gap that can be
An image forming apparatus provided on the image forming apparatus main body side or the side cover side is provided.

Further, in the present invention, all the paper passages can be opened. Further, the feeding means may be constituted by a pair of rollers, and one of the rollers may be supported on the cover side. Then, one of the supported rollers supported on the cover side can be urged toward the image forming apparatus main body side,
By simply closing the cover, the conveying means in the paper path can be returned to the original state. Further, a part of the paper path on the cover side is urged toward the image forming apparatus main body side, and the paper path can be appropriately maintained when the cover is closed.

Embodiments Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. First, the entire image forming apparatus 1 with a multi-stage tray according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. Image forming apparatus 1 with multi-stage tray according to the present invention
Are paper trays 2, 3, 4, and 5 arranged in a number of stages.
, And an image forming apparatus main body 7 (a copying machine in the present embodiment) mounted thereon.

In the cabinet 6, each tray 2, 3, 4 and 5
1 and 2 have a so-called front loading configuration in which sheets of different sizes can be easily loaded from the near side. Further, the lowermost tray 5 is formed large so as to accommodate a large amount of sheets as compared with the other trays.
It is provided separately from the casters 9 of the entire cabinet. As shown in FIG. 2, the tray 4 is not a simple sheet storage tray but a sheet once fed to the main body of the image forming apparatus and one side of which is copied again. It consists of an intermediate tray used to form an image on one side and another on the same side.

At the lower part of the main body 7 of the image forming apparatus such as a copying machine mounted on the upper part of the cabinet 6, a cover 10 constituting the side wall of the cabinet 6 extends to the side wall of the main body 7. In this embodiment, the upper portion of the cover 10 extends to the lower side surface of the image forming apparatus main body 7 and extends over the entire sheet feeding path extending from the tray of the cabinet 6 to the image forming apparatus main body 7.
That is, between the cover 10 and the side surface 11 of the cabinet main body, there is formed a feeding passage 12 for feeding the paper taken out from the selected tray to the main body of the image forming apparatus. The cover 10 does not need to be continuous with the image forming apparatus main body 7 and may be formed so as to cover only the cabinet 6. In this case, the image forming apparatus main body 7 will also be provided with a cover.

A similar cover 13 is also provided on the opposite side surface, and a return feed path 14 for returning the single-sided copied paper from the image forming apparatus main body 7 again is provided between the cover 13 and the cabinet side surface. It is formed between them. These covers 10
And 13 are mounted so as to be pivotally supported on the rear side and open on the front side (see FIG. 1), so that paper jams can be easily removed. The cover and the sheet feeding means will be described later in more detail.

The image forming apparatus main body 7 is an ordinary copying machine in this embodiment. Inside the copying machine 7, an optical device 17 for scanning an image of a document placed on a platen 16, a photosensitive drum 18, a developing device 19, a cleaning device 20, and the like are arranged. Then, an electrostatic latent image is formed on the photosensitive drum 18 by the light beam from the optical device 17, and the electrostatic latent image is developed by the toner from the developing device 19 into a visible image.

The image developed with this toner is
In the transfer section 21 of FIG.
Is transferred to the paper sent by The paper is fed by the aligning device 26 so that the image on the photosensitive drum is transferred to an appropriate position, and when the image is transferred to the paper at the transfer unit, the sheet is transferred to the fixing device 24 by the transport device 23. Where the toner image is fixed on the paper. The sheet having the fixed image is normally discharged to the tray 25 through a discharge path. The toner remaining on the photosensitive drum is cleaned by a cleaning device 20 for forming the next image.

The copying machine 7 as the main body of the image forming apparatus includes a normal paper tray 27, and a manual feed tray 28 on a side surface of the main body so that special paper such as a postcard can be manually fed. Further, in the present invention, as described above, the cabinet 6 is provided with a number of paper trays 2 to 5 which are multi-tiered, and the user selects the tray appropriately and selects the required size or desired copy. Can be obtained. Therefore,
Sheets of different sizes are stored in the sheet trays 2, 3, 5, and 27, and sheets including the manual tray 28 are selected by pressing a button on the operation panel 29.

The selected sheet is fed from the selected tray toward the photosensitive drum by a feeding unit, and is aligned by the aligning device 22. When the manual tray 28 is selected, the normal operation of the feeding unit is stopped so that the feeding of the sheet from another tray is not performed. The paper is fed from the paper trays 2 to 5 of the cabinet 6 through a paper feeding passage 12, and the paper is fed to the passage 12 with a sheet interposed therebetween as a means for feeding the paper. A pair of path forming members, ie, guide plates, are provided to form a path through which a pair of feeding members, ie, rollers, and a sheet pass. These feeding means are also provided in the return path 14, and the sheet that has been subjected to single-sided copying and exited from the fixing device 24 is deflected by the deflecting member 30 and is fed to the return path 14. The return path 14 is provided with a sheet reversing deflecting device for selecting whether to store the sheet on the intermediate tray 4 in a state of being turned upside down with respect to the state of the transfer unit 21 or to store the sheet in the same direction. A member 31 is provided. This deflection member
When the sheet 31 is at the position shown in FIG. 2, the sheet moves down the return path 14 as it is, and is sent below the tray 5, and then the sheet is moved to the intermediate tray 4 by the reverse rotation of the roller pair adjacent to the deflecting member. The image is stored with the image side up as in the transfer unit 21, and in the next image formation, the image is formed on the back side (that is, duplex copying). When the deflecting member 31 changes the direction and sends the sheet sent through the return passage 14 to the intermediate tray 4 as it is, the sheet is stored with its image surface turned upside down. , Multiple copies).

The above is the description of the configuration and operation of the entire image forming apparatus 1 with the multi-stage tray according to one embodiment of the present invention. Hereinafter, the details of the feeding means, which is a feature of the present invention, will be described with reference to FIGS.

In the present invention, a paper feed mechanism 32 is provided on each of the paper feed sides of the trays 2 to 5. Each paper feed mechanism
Reference numeral 32 has a feed roller pair as a feed member on the sheet feed side of each tray of the cabinet 6 and a guide plate pair as a sheet passage forming member. One of the feed roller pair and the guide plate pair of each sheet feed mechanism 32 is attached to the cover 10 by the support member 33, and is attached to the other feed roller and the main body of the guide plate cabinet 6. As shown in detail in FIG. 3 and subsequent figures, the feed roller on the cover side is supported by a support member 33 so as to abut the feed roller on the cabinet body side. As shown, the support member 33 supports the feed roller and the guide plate on the cover side so as to be independently movable with respect to the cover, and both the feed roller and the guide plate are supported by the cover. As long as they can be moved independently of each other, they may be formed integrally with the guide plate.

Further, the guide plate on the cover 10 is spring-biased toward the guide plate on the main body side, and a projection is provided on either side of the guide plate for maintaining a gap through which the paper can pass between the cover and the front of the main body side. Have been. In the following description, this projection is described as being provided on the guide plate side on the cover side, but it is a matter of course that the same effect can be obtained by providing it on the guide plate side on the cabinet body side.

FIG. 3 shows a feeding means for feeding the paper from the trays 2 and 3 toward the feeding path 12. In this example, each paper tray is provided with a feed roller 35 for drawing out the paper, whereby the uppermost paper is fed one by one. The fed paper is fed to a pair of paper feed rollers 34.
And 36 are directed to the feed passage 12. The roller below the paper feed roller (roller 36) acts as a retard roller to prevent double or more sheets from being fed.
The paper fed one by one by the paper feed rollers 34 and 36
The light is deflected from a horizontal position to a vertical position by the deflection member 37.

The sheet exiting the deflecting member 37 is gripped by a pair of feeding rollers 38 and 39 acting as a feeding member in the present invention, and is fed as it is through the vertical feeding path 12.
In this embodiment, the feeding roller 38 is driven by a driving means such as a motor, and the other feeding roller 39 is used as a pinch roller for pressing the sheet between the rollers.

Next, for example, the sheet fed upward from the lower tray 3 in FIG. 3 is guided through a passage formed by a pair of guide plates 41 and 42 formed at the exit portion of the tray 2 on the upper side. You. If the side surface of the deflection member 37 is used as the guide plate 41, there is no need to prepare a guide plate as a separate component. Through this guide plate pair, the sheet reaches a second pair of feed rollers 38 and 39 as a feed member, and is fed further upward toward the aligning device 26 in FIG.

As described above, in the present invention, the paired feeding means of the sheet feeding mechanism 32 provided for each tray are provided separately on the cover 10 side and the cabinet body side. That is, for each tray, one roller 38 is mounted on the cabinet body side, and the other roller 39 is provided on the cover 10 side. Further, one guide plate 41 is attached to the cabinet body side, and the other guide plate 42 is attached to the cover 10 side. Therefore, when the cover 10 is pivoted, as shown in FIGS. 1, 5 and 6,
The cover 10 opens together with the roller 39 and the guide plate 42, and facilitates removal of a sheet sandwiched between the roller and the guide plate pair. In this example, unlike the cover described in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. Sho 62-194634, a hinge point of the cover is provided on the rear side of the apparatus to further facilitate removal of jammed paper. As shown in FIG. 1, the cover on the side of the return feeding passage 14 is provided.
Similarly, one feed roller and one guide plate are attached to 13, and the other roller and guide plate are separately attached to the cabinet body side.

In the present invention, the feed roller pairs 38 and 39 as the feed members of the respective feed mechanisms 32 are pressed against each other so as to feed the paper sandwiched therebetween. For this reason, the roller 39 on the cover 10 side is movably supported by the support member 33, and a spring (not shown) or the like is provided between the roller and the support member or the cover. Of the roller 38.

In the present invention, the guide plate 42 on the cover 10 side is urged by the spring 44 toward the guide plate 41 on the main body side of the cabinet 6. Then, in order to maintain a gap between the cover 10 and the side of the cabinet body through which a sheet as a sheet feeding passage can pass, a protrusion is provided on one of the guide plates 41 and 42.
46 are provided. The protrusions 46 are preferably provided at several places, so that the gap as the sheet feeding passage can be made uniform over a wide range. That is, when the cover 10 is closed, as shown in FIG.
As a result, the guide plate 42 is pushed against another guide plate, and is held in a state where a predetermined gap as a sheet feeding passage is maintained.

As shown in the figure, each paper feed mechanism 32 on the cover 10
A feed roller 39 as a feed member, a guide plate 42 as a passage forming member, and a spring 44 and a projection 46 for maintaining a gap between the feed passages are attached to the support member 33.
The feed roller 39 and the guide plate 42 are attached to the cover 10 so as to be movable toward the cabinet body. In the present invention, the support member 33 also supports the feed roller 39 and the guide plate 42 so as to be able to move up and down, and among the paper feed mechanism 32, in particular, the roller 39 and the guide plate The position 42 is arranged at an appropriate position for the roller 38 and the guide plate 41 on the other side.

As described above, in order to enable the support member 33 to move, the support member 33 has the mounting arm 47 extending toward the cover 10, and is connected to the pin via a long hole 49 formed in the frame 48 of the cover 10. Have been. When the support member 33 is formed integrally with the guide plate 42, the arm 47 extends from the guide plate. Therefore, when the cover 10 is closed to the position shown in FIG. 3 and the projection 46 starts to abut on the guide plate 41 on the main body side, the arm 47 is moved to the elongated hole 49 of the frame 48 of the cover 10 so as to maintain a predetermined gap. To move the entire guide plate 42 toward the cover. Preferably, a plurality of arms 47 are provided so that the movement of the guide plate is smooth.

Further, the position of the guide plate 42, particularly the guide plate 41
And the position of the feed roller 39,
In particular, in order to ensure the position in the vertical direction with respect to the feeding roller 38 on the other side, the support member 33 is formed with a hook portion 55 that engages with the pin 45 of the cabinet body. Therefore, when the cover 10 is closed, the hook 55
The feed roller 39 is held at an appropriate position with respect to the feed roller 38 by engaging with the feed roller 45, and the guide plate 42 is held at an appropriate position with respect to the guide plate 41. The pin may be simply a projection, and the hook portion may be any engagement means as long as it engages with the projection means. Also, in the illustrated example, the pins are provided on the cabinet body side,
It may be provided on the cover side, that is, on the support member 33. In this case, the hook portion is provided on the cabinet body.

As described above, each horizontal tray 2 of the cabinet 6,
A deflecting member 37 for changing the posture of the paper from a horizontal posture to a vertical posture toward the feeding passage is provided in the feeding passage 12 extending from the third and fifth to the vertical cover 10 and the like. In the present invention, when viewed in cross section, the deflecting member 37 is formed in a triangular shape having an acute angle at the upper portion as shown in FIG. 3 and the like. It is preferable that the space between the paper feed roller 36 and the feed roller 39 is curved downward with a predetermined radius so that the paper from each tray can be smoothly changed from a horizontal posture to a vertical posture. . With this shape, the deflecting member 37 not only deflects the sheet from the tray from the horizontal position to the vertical position, but also forms a guide plate surface of a vertical feeding path for the sheet fed from the lower tray, and To ensure smooth feeding.

In the present invention, the above-mentioned deflection member 37 is pivotally supported by a shaft 50 at the lower end side. Therefore, when the cover 10 is opened, the upper portion pivots downward about the shaft 50 by its own weight (see FIG. 5). A stopper pin 51 is provided so that the deflected member 37 thus lowered does not drop below a certain range. Thus, when the opened cover 10 is closed, there is the convenience that the guide plate 42 can raise the deflecting member 37 and fix it in the operating position. in this case,
It is preferable that the deflecting member 37 is also provided with a projection 53 that comes into contact with the passage member 52 in order to maintain a predetermined gap for the sheet feeding passage. The projection 53 is also a deflecting member, like the projection 46.
It may be formed in the passage member 52 instead of the 37. Thus, when the cover 10 is opened, the deflecting member 37 can pivot, thereby opening the outlet of the tray, and the paper jammed in this portion can be easily removed. It is preferable that the deflecting member 37 be made of a transparent member because the jammed sheet can be visually observed when the cover is opened.

The image forming apparatus of the present invention has a plurality of vertically arranged paper trays below the recording unit, and the side of the image forming apparatus main body is provided with an axis on the back side of the apparatus main body. Since the side cover which is opened by pivoting around the center is provided, the paper path extending over these paper trays can be largely opened toward the user in front of the plurality of paper trays below the recording unit, This not only makes it very easy to remove jammed paper when a jam occurs,
Since the side cover is pivoted around the back side and opened to the user side, jam clearance can be easily performed in a small space, and the space required for the grounding area of the image forming apparatus can be reduced. When the paper is opened, the paper staying in the paper passage only falls down along the side surface of the image forming apparatus main body, so that there is no problem of falling to the back side of the image forming apparatus main body. After the jam is removed, when the side cover is closed, a member for maintaining a gap through which the sheet can pass is provided on the image forming apparatus main body side or the cover side. Properly maintained, proper paper feeding can be maintained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an image forming apparatus with a multi-stage tray according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is an operation explanatory view of the image forming apparatus with a multi-stage tray according to the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a multi-stage tray according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of the sheet feeding passage portion of the image forming apparatus with the cover closed in a closed state, FIG. 4 is an arrow view taken along line IV-IV of FIG. 3, and FIG. FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of a sheet feeding path portion of the image forming apparatus with a tray in a cover opened state, and FIG. 6 is a view taken along line VI-VI in FIG. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image forming apparatus with multi-stage tray 2, 3, 5, 27 ... Paper tray 4 ... Intermediate tray 6 ... Cabinet body 7 ... Image forming apparatus (copier) 10, 13 ... Cover 12 ...... Paper feeding passage, 14 ... Return feeding passage 16 ... Platen, 18 ... Photoconductor drum 19 ... Developing device, 20 ... Cleaning device 24 ... Fixing device, 32 ... Supply mechanism 33 ... ... Supporting members, 34, 36 ... Feed roller 35 ... Delivery roller 37 ... Deflection members 38, 39 ... Rollers 41, 42 as feeding members ... Guide plates 44 as passage forming members 44 ... 45: Pin (projection means) 46: Projection, 47: Arm 50: Pivot shaft, 51: Stopper 53: Projection, 55: Hook

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-63-208451 (JP, A) JP-A-3-120141 (JP, A) JP-A-2-163224 (JP, A) 194634 (JP, U) Fully open sho 61-176130 (JP, U) Fully open sho 63-52847 (JP, U) Fully open 1-76834 (JP, U) Fully open sho 62-47549 (JP, U) Actually open sho 59-40239 (JP, U) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G03G 15/00 B65H 3/44 B65H 5/06

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] A recording unit for performing recording on a sheet; a plurality of paper trays arranged vertically below the recording unit for accommodating sheets; and a paper supply for feeding the sheets in the sheet tray. A paper unit; a vertical paper path extending over a plurality of paper trays, provided to pass the paper supplied by the paper supply unit; and a feeding unit configured to convey the paper in the paper path. An image forming apparatus, comprising: a side cover that is provided to be openable and closable with respect to an image forming apparatus main body and covers at least one side of the image forming apparatus, wherein the side cover is an image that is parallel to a sheet conveying direction. The image forming apparatus is attached to the image forming apparatus main body so as to pivot around an axis on the back side of the forming apparatus main body to open a side surface of the image forming apparatus. The side cover is provided with a part of the paper path. By opening a bar, a portion of the paper path extending over a plurality of paper trays is opened, and a member that maintains a gap through which paper can pass when the side cover is closed is provided on the image forming apparatus main body side or An image forming apparatus provided on the side cover. 2. By opening the side cover,
2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein all portions of the paper path extending over a plurality of paper trays are opened. 3. An image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said feeding means comprises a pair of rollers, and one of said pair of rollers is supported by said side cover. 4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 3, wherein one of the pair of rollers supported by the side cover is urged toward the image forming apparatus main body. 5. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a part of the paper path on the side cover is urged toward the image forming apparatus main body.