JP3437267B2 - Image forming device - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

The present invention relates are those which relate to an image forming equipment having a plurality of output sheet sorting unit.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional image forming apparatus such as a copying machine having a plurality of output paper sorting units, when the output set number of copies is larger than the number of sortable sheets of the sorting unit, the number of sortable sheets is first set. Some printers output only the minutes, and then the user removes the output paper to automatically start the remaining number of copies and sort. By this method, it is possible to sort an arbitrary number of copies without being limited to the number of sortable copies of the sorting part.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional methods, the user needs to remove the output sheets that have been sorted. Therefore, as the number of output setting copies increases, There was a drawback that it was troublesome.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and a dividing and sorting means is provided in the sorting means,
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus having a function of storing a plurality of copies in one sorting unit without bothering the user, and capable of sorting more copies than the number of sorting units.

However, in order to use the dividing / sorting means, the number of sheets output to one sorting section needs to be a storable number, and if an output exceeding the storable number is made, a paper jam or the like occurs. In addition, according to the present invention, the number of output sheets of one sorting unit is calculated by the detection of the number of originals and the copy mode, and it is automatically determined whether or not the sorting unit is used. An object of the present invention is to provide means for preventing the above-mentioned problems from occurring by providing a function of making a judgment, and providing more efficient sorting work.

[0006]

[0007]

[0008]

An image forming apparatus according to the present invention is an image forming apparatus capable of discharging an image-formed output sheet to a tray, and a plurality of output sheet bundles are provided on the same tray for each bundle. Sorting means for sorting output sheets so that they are stored in a shifted state, and the number of sheets that can be stored in the tray is exceeded based on the number of output pages for one bundle, the output mode, and the number of sheets that can be stored in the tray. Or a control means for interrupting the image forming operation at the break of the bundle of output sheets in response to the determination that the number of storable sheets is exceeded by the determination means. Is. Further, the control means restarts the image forming operation in response to removal of the output sheet from the tray when the image forming operation is interrupted.

[0009]

[0010]

With the above configuration , based on the number of output pages for one bundle, the output mode, and the number of trays that can be stored,
Determine whether the number of trays that can be stored is exceeded,
In response to the determination that the sheet is over, the image forming operation is controlled at the break of the bundle of output sheets.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Each embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings: FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a copying machine of an embodiment of an image forming apparatus according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, 100 is a main body of an electrophotographic copying machine, 200 is a circulating automatic document feeder or feeder (hereinafter referred to as "RDF") for automatically feeding documents, and 250 is a sorting device. Sorter, these R
The DF 200 and the sorter 250 are configured to be used in combination with the main body 100 as desired.

Reference numeral 101 is a document table glass as a document placing table. Reference numeral 102 denotes an optical system as an image reading unit, which includes a document illumination lamp (exposure lamp) 103,
It is composed of a scanning mirror, a lens 143, a motor 104, and the like. The original is illuminated by the exposure lamp 103 while being scanned by the motor 104, and reflected light from the original is applied to the photosensitive drum 105 by the scanning mirror and the lens. To do.

Around the photosensitive drum 105, a primary charger 106, a blank exposure unit 107, a potential sensor 108, a developing device 109, a transfer charger 110, a separation charger 111, and a cleaning device 112. The image recording means is constituted by these photosensitive drums 105 and the like.

The photosensitive drum 105 is composed of the main motor 11
3 rotates in the direction of the arrow shown in FIG.
The optical system 1 is corona-charged by the secondary charger 106.
When the reflected light of the document is emitted from 02, an electrostatic latent image is formed. This electrostatic latent image is developed by the developing device 109 and visualized as a toner image.

On the other hand, from the upper cassette 114 or the lower cassette 115, the pickup rollers 116 are respectively provided.
Or 117 via each paper feed roller 118 or 119
Thus, after the transfer paper sent into the main body 100 is timed by the registration roller 120 so that the front end of the toner image and the front end of the transfer paper are aligned, the photosensitive drum 10
Then, the toner image is transferred by the transfer charger 110.

After this transfer, the transfer paper is separated from the photosensitive drum 106 by the separation charger 111, and the transfer belt 12
The sheet 1 is guided to a fixing device 122 (144 is a fixing roller thereof), fixed by pressure and heating, and then discharged by a discharge roller 123 to the outside of the main body 100. The surface of the photosensitive drum 105 is cleaned by the cleaning device 112.

Further, the main body 100 is equipped with a deck 124 capable of accommodating, for example, 4000 sheets of transfer paper.
The lifter 125 of the deck 124 ascends according to the amount of transfer paper so that the transfer paper always contacts the paper feed roller 126. In FIG. 1, 127 is a paper discharge flapper, which is a double-sided recording side or a multiplex recording side and a discharge side (sorter 25).
0) Switch the route. The transfer paper sent from the paper discharge roller 123 is switched to the double-sided recording side or the multiple recording side by the paper discharge flapper 127.

Further, reference numeral 128 denotes a lower conveyance path, which guides the transfer paper fed from the discharge roller 123 to the re-feed tray 130 by reversing the transfer paper via the reversing path 129. Reference numeral 131 denotes a multiple flapper that switches between double-sided recording and multiple recording paths. By tilting this flapper to the left, the transfer paper is directly guided to the lower transport path 128 without passing through the reverse path 129. A paper feed roller 132 feeds the transfer paper to the photoconductor drum 105 side through the path 133. Reference numeral 134 denotes a paper discharge roller which is arranged near the paper discharge flapper 127 and discharges the transfer paper switched to the discharge side by the paper discharge flapper 127 to the outside of the machine.

During double-sided recording (double-sided copying) or multiplex recording (multiplex copying), the paper discharge flapper 127 is raised and the copied transfer paper is turned upside down via the conveying paths 128 and 129 to re-feed the tray. Store in 130. At this time, the multiple flapper 131 is tilted to the right for double-sided recording, and the multiple flapper 131 is tilted to the left for multiple recording.

During the next reverse recording or multiple recording, the transfer sheets stored in the refeed tray 130 are loaded from the bottom one by one.
The sheets are guided one by one to a registration roller 120 of the main body via a path 133 by a sheet feeding roller 132. When reversing and ejecting the transfer paper from the main body, the paper ejection flapper 127 is raised and the multiple flapper 131 is tilted to the right, the copied transfer paper is conveyed to the conveyance path 129 side, and the rear end of the transfer paper is After passing through the first feed roller 140, the reversing roller 12
4 to the second feed roller side, and the discharge roller 1
By 34, the transfer paper is turned over and discharged to the outside of the machine.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 150 denotes a multi-purpose manual feeding section and 210 denotes a reservation tray.

Next, FIG. 2 shows an example of the configuration of the dividing / sorting means of this embodiment, and the dividing / sorting means in the sorter 250 in FIG. 1 will be described: The output bundle A is discharged to the sorter bin 251. At this time, the output bundle A is pressed and aligned with the reference bar 253 by the alignment bar 252 (FIG. (A)).
Then, the reference bar 253 is retracted, and the output bundle A is pushed out to the front side (Fig. (B)). Then, the reference bar 253 is pushed out with the alignment bar 252 as a reference, and the output bundle A is tilted (FIG. (C)). When copying is performed thereafter, the output paper is output at the position B and is sorted from the output bundle A (FIG. (D)).

FIG. 3 shows the feeder (RDF) 200 of FIG.
A configuration perspective view of a configuration example of the document sheet setting means in FIG. 3 is shown, and the document number detecting means based on the thickness detection will be described. That is, the potential sensor 202 installed at the end of the document table 201 of the feeder 200 detects the thickness of the document. The potential sensor detects a potential that changes according to the thickness of the document, and sets the number of documents based on the value of the potential and the thickness of one sheet used for the document.

The dividing / sorting means using partition paper assigns any one of the paper feed cassettes 114 and 115 or the paper feed deck 124 in FIG. 1 to feed the partition paper, and transfers the partition paper to the transfer and fixing. It can be realized by discharging the paper without going through the process. Then, the document number detecting means using the document number counting can be realized by accumulating and storing the counter value on the memory every time one document is circulated in the feeder 200.

Since the above-mentioned three means are publicly known techniques, detailed description thereof will be omitted here.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of the control system of the image forming apparatus (copying apparatus) of this embodiment. In FIG. 4, a control circuit (controller) 1004 is a CPU.
1004a, ROM 1004b, RAM 1004c, etc., and controls the copy sequence on the basis of a program stored in the ROM 1004b.

As described above, the operation section 600 includes a copy mode (single-sided / double-sided / multiplexed mode, copy magnification, cassette selection, etc.) selection key, a ten-key for setting the number of copies, a start key for instructing the start of copying operation, A key input unit such as a stop key for instructing to stop the copying operation, a reset key for returning the operation mode to the standard state, and a display unit such as an LED / liquid crystal for displaying the setting state of the operation mode are provided.

The thermistor 302 detects the surface temperature of the fixing roller 144 shown in FIG. 1, and the value A / D converted by the A / D converter 301 is input to the controller 1004. The controller 1004 controls the surface temperature of the fixing roller 144 to a predetermined value based on the detection value of the thermistor 302.

The high-voltage control unit 303 is a high-voltage unit 3 for applying a predetermined potential to the charging system such as the primary charger 106, the transfer charger 110, and the developing device 109 in FIG.
04 is controlled. Further, the motor control unit 305 controls the motors 30 such as various stepping motors and main drive motors.
6 drive is controlled.

The DC load control unit 307 controls driving of solenoids for the pickup roller 116 and the like, a clutch for the register roller 120 and the like, and a fan and the like in FIG. Further, reference numeral 308 denotes sensors for detecting paper jam of the transfer paper, which are input to the controller 1004.

The AC driver 1000 includes an AC load 309 such as the original illumination lamp 103 (FIG. 1) and the fixing heater 3.
The AC power supply to 10 is controlled. Further, it detects an abnormality in the document illumination lamp 103, the fixing heater 310, etc., and turns off the main switch 1001 having a shutoff function. Further, under the control of the controller 1004, the AC inputs before and after the main switch 1001 are switched, and the power supply 11
00 is input.

The power supply 1100 supplies DC power to the controller 1004 and the like, and the AC from the AC driver 1000 is supplied.
While the power is input, from the input power plug 311
The AC power source via the main switch 1001 and the door switch 1007 is input to the power source 1100.

The paper deck 124 is a sheet feeding device for increasing the number of transfer sheets to be stacked, the feeder 200 is an automatic document feeder for automatically setting a plurality of documents, and the sorter 250 is a transfer device for discharging. A sorting device for sorting paper.

(First Embodiment) Next, a first sorting method for outputting a plurality of copies in the above copying apparatus will be described.
An example will be described. The configuration of the first embodiment is
It has a document number detecting means and a sorter bin sorting means, and FIG. 5 shows a flow chart of its operation sequence. The operation will be described below with reference to FIG.

First, it is detected whether or not a document is set on the feeder 200 (step S2001). If it is set, the copy mode and the number of copies input by the user are set (step S2002). These pieces of information are stored in storage means such as RAM. Further, the number of documents detected by the document number detection unit is stored in the storage unit (step S2003).

From the number of originals, the number of copies, and the copy mode stored here, the number of sheets to be output to one sorter bin, that is, one sorting unit of the sorting means can be calculated.
Then, the number of sheets output to the one sorting unit is compared with the storable number (step S2004).

For example, the number of sorter bins is 20, the number of sheets that can be accommodated in one sorter bin is 50, and the number of documents is 2.
It is assumed that the number of copies is 0, the number of copies is 40, and the copy mode is one-sided-one-sided copy. When the first 20 sets are sorted, the number of sheets that can be stored in one bin is 20. Thereafter, when the remaining 20 sets are similarly sorted using the in-bin sorting means, the number of sheets accommodated in one bin is 40. Further, assuming that the number of originals is 25 and the number of copies is 60 with the same configuration, if all the sheets are output using the bin sorting means, the number of accommodated sheets per bin is 75. In the above case, the former falls within the storable number, and the latter exceeds the storable number.

The processing corresponding to each case is shown below:
In the former case, bin sorting is performed. After the copy start command from the user (step S2005), each original sheet is copied by the number of copies that can be sorted at one time, that is, the number of sorter bins (steps S2006 and S2).
007). After that, when the original is circulated once, since the set number of copies is not completed (step S2008), the position of the output paper in the bin is shifted by the in-bin sorting device and the output paper is sorted so as not to be confused with the next output paper. Then, the copying of the remaining number of copies is similarly started (step S2009),
After the output of the remaining 20 copies is completed, the copy is completed.

In the latter case, bin sorting is not performed. Copy start command from user (step S2
After 010, each original sheet is copied by the number of copies corresponding to the number of bins of the sorter (steps S2011 and S201).
2). Since the set number of copies has not been completed at that time, the copy is not ended (step S2013), and the operation is stopped until the output paper remaining in the bin is removed (step S2014). Then, after the output paper is removed, copying is restarted (step S2015).

(Second Embodiment) Next, a second embodiment will be described. The second embodiment has a document number counting means and a bin sorting means, and FIG. 6 is an operation sequence flowchart thereof. Compared with the first embodiment, since the original document number detecting means is not provided, the difference is that the number of original documents is detected by the original document number counting means. The same function is provided by using this document number counting means. Since the following operation is the same as that in the first embodiment, duplicated description will be omitted.

(Third Embodiment) This third embodiment is an example having a document number detecting means and a partition paper discharging means,
FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of the operation sequence. It differs from the second embodiment in that a partition paper discharging means is provided instead of the in-bin sorting means for moving the output paper. The same function is provided by using this partition paper discharging means. In other respects, the second embodiment is similar to the second embodiment, and a duplicate description will be omitted.

(Fourth Embodiment) This fourth embodiment is an example having a document number counting means and a partition paper discharging means, and FIG. 8 is a flowchart of its operation sequence.
Compared with the third embodiment, only step S2302 is different, and the other points are the same as those in the third embodiment, and thus the duplicate description will be omitted.

In any of the configurations of the above four embodiments, the number of originals can be detected, and by calculating the number of output sheets per bin from the number of sheets, the copy mode, and the number of copies, it can be determined whether or not bin sorting is possible. You can judge whether.

[0045]

As described above, according to the present invention ,
Based on the number of output pages for one bundle, the output mode, and the number of trays that can be stored, it is determined whether the number of trays that can be stored is exceeded. By controlling the image forming operation at the break, it is possible to sort as many copies as possible without causing any trouble.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional configuration diagram of an embodiment of a copying apparatus.

[Fig. 2] Example of configuration diagram of dividing and sorting means

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a configuration example of a document sheet setting unit.

FIG. 4 is a block configuration diagram of an example of a control system.

FIG. 5 is an operation sequence flowchart of the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an operation sequence flowchart of the second embodiment.

FIG. 7 is an operation sequence flowchart of the third embodiment.

FIG. 8 is an operation sequence flowchart of the fourth embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 Copying device (image forming device) 114/115 upper / lower cassette 124 Paper feed deck 200 feeders (RDF) 201 Platen 202 potential sensor (document number detecting means) 250 sorters 251 Sortabine 252 Alignment bar 253 Reference bar 1004 control circuit

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Yasuyuki Aiko 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (72) Inventor Satoshi Kuroyanagi 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon (56) References JP-A-4-242765 (JP, A) JP-A-62-185677 (JP, A) JP-A-61-112165 (JP, A) JP-A-2-86550 (JP, A) A) Actual Kaihei 1-103659 (JP, U) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G03G 15/00

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. An image forming apparatus capable of discharging an output sheet on which an image has been formed to a tray, wherein a plurality of output sheet bundles are stored in the same tray in such a manner that they are stored in a shifted state. Sorting means for performing sorting processing, determination means for determining in advance whether the number of storable sheets in the tray is exceeded based on the number of output pages for one bundle, output mode, and the number of storable sheets in the tray, and the determining means. An image forming apparatus comprising: a control unit that interrupts an image forming operation at a break of a bundle of output sheets when it is determined that the number of sheets that can be stored is exceeded. 2. The control means restarts the image forming operation in response to removal of the output paper from the tray when the image forming operation is interrupted.
1. The image forming apparatus according to 1 .