JP3656850B2 - Paper cassette - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a paper feed cassette, and more particularly to a paper feed cassette suitable for a recording apparatus that is required to be inserted and removed at an angle.

  2. Description of the Related Art In general, a recording apparatus such as an ink jet printer includes a sheet feeding tray that can simultaneously load a plurality of sheets, for example, up to about 20 sheets, as a sheet feeding apparatus for feeding sheets to a recording apparatus body. And those using a paper feed cassette capable of simultaneously loading a large number of sheets of 100 sheets or more. Here, the former paper feed tray is mainly used in a recording apparatus mainly intended for personal use, and the latter paper feed cassette is mainly used in a recording apparatus mainly intended for business use.

  That is, in the former paper feed tray, since the number of sheets that can be set (placed) at the same time is small, it is inconvenient if a large number of sheets are to be recorded. Because the main body can be made relatively small, it is suitable for personal use. On the other hand, in the case of a paper feed cassette, the size of the recording device main body becomes larger because the cassette main body exceeds the size of usable paper. However, since a large amount of paper can be set at the same time, Because it requires less set times, it is suitable for business use.

  As described above, since the conventional paper feed tray and paper feed cassette each have advantages and disadvantages, a large number of sheets can be set, and the recording apparatus main body can be miniaturized with a small size cassette. A paper cassette is desired.

  Therefore, it is possible to attach an extension bottom part for extending the mounting surface to the cassette body of the paper feed cassette so that the extension bottom part can be attached or removed according to the size of the paper to be used, or always attached. It may be possible to change the mounting position according to the paper size to be used.

  However, if there is a protruding member in the main body of the recording apparatus such that the rear end of the cassette body comes into contact with the recording apparatus body, the sheet feeding cassette cannot be inserted / removed in the horizontal direction. become. For this reason, when the extension bottom is attached to the cassette body as described above, it becomes difficult to insert and remove the paper feed cassette with the extension bottom attached, and the extension bottom must be attached and detached each time. In order to avoid this, the recording apparatus must be enlarged in the height direction.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and provides a paper feed cassette which can set a large size paper with a small cassette size and has an improved recording apparatus main body and improved detachability to the recording apparatus. The purpose is to do.

  A sheet feeding cassette according to the present invention is a sheet feeding cassette used in a recording apparatus having a protruding member that comes into contact with the cassette body when the sheet feeding cassette is inserted into and removed from the apparatus body, and has a placement surface on which a sheet is placed. An extension bottom that extends the mounting surface is rotatably mounted on the cassette body, and the extension bottom is maintained in a horizontal state when the cassette body is inclined with respect to the recording apparatus.

  Here, it is preferable to form a plurality of ribs for appearing when the extended bottom portion is attached to the extended position in the cassette body and guiding the paper. Moreover, it is preferable to form an inclined surface at the front end of the extended bottom.

  Further, it is preferable that the extended bottom portion has an engaging shaft that can be attached to and detached from the engaging groove of the cassette body, and the engaging groove of the cassette body is formed at a plurality of positions different in the length direction of the sheet.

  Furthermore, it is preferable that the extended bottom portion is provided with a trailing edge regulating member that regulates the trailing edge of the sheet. In this case, the rear end regulating member is mounted on the extended bottom portion so as to be movable in a stepless manner, and a large number of uneven projections are formed on the extended bottom portion, and the rear end regulating member is movable to the projected portion on the extended bottom portion. It is preferable to form an engaging portion that engages with the. At this time, it is preferable that the concavo-convex protrusion formed on the extended bottom is formed in a substantially semicircular cross section, and the engaging portion of the rear end regulating member is formed in a protrusion. Further, the projecting engaging portion of the rear end regulating member is formed in a substantially semicircular cross section, and the semicircular engaging portion has a radius larger than the radius of the approximately semicircular projecting portion of the extended bottom portion. It is preferable. Moreover, it is preferable that the engaging part of a rear-end regulation member has elasticity.

  According to the paper feed cassette of the present invention, a large size paper can be set with a small cassette size, and the paper feed cassette is slanted with the extension bottom portion attached, and the cassette main body and It can be inserted into and removed from the recording apparatus having the projecting member that comes into contact, and the operation of detaching the paper feed cassette is facilitated.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is an external perspective view showing an example of an ink jet recording apparatus equipped with a paper feed cassette according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is an external perspective view of a state in which the paper feed cassette of the recording apparatus is pulled out, and FIG. It is the external appearance perspective view seen from the back side.

  The ink jet recording apparatus includes a carriage that is movable in the main scanning direction inside the recording apparatus main body 1, a recording head that includes an ink jet head mounted on the carriage, an ink cartridge that supplies ink to the recording head, and the like. The sheet feeding cassette 3 capable of storing a plurality of sheets from the front side can be removably attached to the lower part of the apparatus main body 1 and can be removably mounted. Alternatively, the paper set on the manual feed tray 4 is taken in, a required image is recorded by the printing mechanism unit 2, and then discharged onto the paper discharge tray 5.

  Next, the paper feed cassette 3 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 4 is a schematic perspective view of the paper feed cassette, FIG. 5 is a schematic perspective view when the mounting surface of the paper feed cassette is lengthened, and FIG. 6 is a schematic perspective view of an extended bottom portion of the paper feed cassette.

  As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, the paper feed cassette 3 is a cassette body 11 having a placement surface 10 on which paper is placed, and is detachably attached to the cassette body 11, and a part of the placement surface 10. And an extended bottom portion 12 having a mounting surface 10 a that can be formed by extending the base plate 11. The extended bottom portion 12 can be rotatably mounted on the cassette body 11, and the cassette body 11 and the extended bottom portion 12 can be engaged with each other. The cassette length can be changed by selecting.

  That is, the cassette body 11 is provided with engagement grooves 13 (front side) and 14 (rear side) at a plurality of positions having different length directions, and the engagement grooves of the cassette body 11 are formed on both front sides of the extended bottom portion 12. An engagement shaft 15 that is detachably attachable to and rotatable at 13 and 14 is formed. Here, the engaging groove 13 on the front side of the cassette body 11 is the maximum that the mounting surface 10 can set including the mounting surface 10 a of the extended bottom 12 when the engaging shaft 15 of the extended bottom 12 is engaged. When the rear engaging groove 14 is engaged with the engaging shaft 15 of the extended bottom 12 at the position where the paper size is set to A4 size, the mounting surface 10 includes the mounting surface 10 a of the extended bottom 12. The maximum paper size that can be set is provided at the position where the A3 size is set.

  As a result, when the engaging shaft 15 of the extended bottom portion 12 is engaged with the engaging groove 13 on the front side of the cassette body 11, the sheet feeding cassette 3 can only set, for example, a maximum A4 size sheet. When the engaging shaft 15 of the extended bottom portion 12 is engaged with the engaging groove 14 on the rear side of the cassette body 11, the sheet cassette 3 becomes shorter than the sheet cassette length. However, it becomes possible to set a sheet up to A3 size, for example.

  In this case, on the surface of the cassette body 11 on which the extended bottom portion 12 is set, a plurality of guide ribs in the paper feeding direction that appears when the extended bottom portion 12 is set on the rear side in order to lengthen the placement surface 10. 16 is formed. This is especially true when a large size paper is set with the paper feed cassette 3 extracted from the recording apparatus main body 1 by about half, and the front end side of the paper is guided and smoothly placed on the placement surface 10a of the extended bottom portion 12. This is because the paper can be set on the paper. Further, by forming the front end side of the extended bottom portion 12 on the inclined surface 12a as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the paper to be set can be smoothly set not only for the large size but also for the small size. It can be guided on the mounting surface 10 a of the extended bottom 12.

Next, the engagement between the cassette body 11 and the extended bottom portion 12 will be described with reference to FIGS.
First, referring to FIG. 8, the extended bottom portion 12 is provided with an engagement shaft 15 having a substantially long hole shape in cross section, while the cassette body 11 is in a state where the extended bottom portion 12 is erected in a long hole-shaped groove portion 17. An engagement groove 13 (not shown in the figure because the engagement groove 14 is the same) is provided in a shape in which the insertion port 18 that allows the engagement shaft 15 to be inserted and removed is continuous.

  Here, as shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, the engaging grooves 13 and 14 of the cassette body 11 are formed with a groove portion 19 that engages with the insertion port 18 and the substantially upper half side of the engaging shaft 15 of the extended bottom 12, and The extended bottom portion 12 is divided into groove portions 20 that engage substantially the lower half side of the engaging shaft 15, and these groove portions 19 and 20 are formed at different positions in the axial direction of the engaging shaft 15 on the cassette body 11. When viewed from the axial direction, the engagement grooves 13 and 14 are formed. By dividing the engagement groove in this manner, the cassette body 11 can be easily formed.

  Therefore, referring to FIG. 11, in order to increase the length of the mounting surface of the sheet feeding cassette 3, the engaging shaft 15 of the extended bottom portion 12 is engaged with the engaging groove 13 on the front side of the cassette body 11. From the state, the rear side of the extended bottom 12 is lifted up as shown by the numeral 1 with an arrow, and is raised substantially vertically as shown by the broken line, and the extended bottom 12 is lifted up as shown by the numeral 2 with an arrow. After extracting the engagement shaft 15 from the engagement groove 13, the extension bottom portion 12 is moved as indicated by numeral 3 with an arrow, and the engagement shaft 15 is aligned with the engagement groove 14 of the cassette body 11, The extended bottom portion 12 is lowered as indicated by a circled numeral 4, the engagement shaft 15 is engaged with the engagement groove 14 of the cassette body 11, and then the extended bottom portion 12 is rotated as indicated by a circled numeral 5. As a result, the loading surface 10 of the sheet feeding cassette 3 as a whole of the extended bottom 12 The surface 10a is extended length equivalent, it becomes possible to set a large paper size. In order to shorten the length of the mounting surface of the paper feed cassette 3, the extended bottom portion 12 may be moved in the reverse order.

Next, the case where the paper feed cassette 3 is inserted into and removed from the recording apparatus main body 1 will be described with reference to FIGS.
In the recording apparatus main body 1, there is a protruding member 1a that contacts the rear end portion 11a of the cassette main body 11 when the paper feeding cassette 3 is linearly inserted and removed, as shown in FIG. Therefore, the paper feed cassette 3 cannot be inserted and removed in the horizontal direction as it is.

  Therefore, when the paper feeding cassette 3 is pulled out from the recording apparatus main body 1, as shown in FIG. 2B, the paper feeding cassette until the rear end portion 11a of the cassette main body 11 comes into contact with the protruding member 1a in the recording apparatus main body 1 is reached. After the 3 is pulled out, the front side of the paper feed cassette 3 is lifted upward as shown in FIG.

  In this case, in the paper feed cassette provided with the extended bottom portion 12 that allows the loading of the large size paper by setting the loading surface to the cassette body 11 like the paper feed cassette 3, the extended bottom portion If 12 is slidably provided on the cassette body 11, the rear end of the extended bottom 12 must move considerably downward when the sheet feeding cassette 3 is inclined as shown in phantom lines in FIG. As a result, it is necessary to increase the size of the recording apparatus main body 1 in the height direction, or it is necessary to remove the extended bottom portion 12 when inserting or removing the recording apparatus main body 1 or to remount it at a small size position.

Therefore, in the sheet feeding cassette 3, as described above, the extended bottom portion 12 is engaged with the cassette body 11 so as to be swingable (turnable).
Therefore, when the paper feed cassette 3 is pulled out from the state in which the paper feed cassette 3 is set in the recording apparatus main body 11 with the extended bottom 12 pulled out as shown in FIG. After the paper cassette 3 is pulled out until the rear end portion 11a of the cassette body 11 contacts the protruding member 1a in the recording apparatus body 1, the front side of the paper cassette 3 is moved as shown in FIG. When it is lifted upward and inclined, the extended bottom 12 rotates with respect to the cassette body 11 and is maintained in a horizontal state. Therefore, the paper feed cassette 3 can be pulled out as it is, and the paper feed cassette 3 is attached and detached. Easy to operate.

Next, the extended bottom portion 12 will be described with reference to FIG.
As shown in FIGS. 4 to 6, a guide groove 21 is formed in the central portion of the extended bottom portion 12 in the paper conveyance direction (longitudinal direction of the paper), and the rear end of the paper is regulated in the guide groove 21. An end fence 22 that is an end regulating member is movably mounted in a stepless manner.
On the bottom surface of the guide groove 21, as shown in FIG. 14, a large number of protrusions 23 having an uneven shape, here a substantially semicircular cross section, are formed. In addition, the protrusion 23 of the guide groove 21 can also be formed in a substantially trapezoidal cross section (or may be a substantially square or substantially triangular shape, for example) as shown in FIG.

  On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 16, the end fence 22 is provided with a substantially semi-circular cross-sectional protrusion 24 movably engageable with protrusions 23, 23... Provided. The radius R of the projection 24 of the end fence 22 is formed larger than the radius R ′ (see FIG. 14) of the projection 23 of the guide groove 21. Thus, when the end fence 22 is moved along the guide groove 21, the protrusion 24 is prevented from biting into the protrusions 23, 23 and being unable to move.

  Further, as shown in FIGS. 17 and 18, the end fence 22 is formed with a through hole 25 in the restriction wall portion 22 a that is in contact with the rear end of the sheet and positioned above the protrusion 24. The part 25 is given elasticity. Thus, when the end fence 22 is moved along the guide groove 21, the protrusion 24 slightly moves up and down when the protrusion 24 of the end fence 22 gets over the protrusion 23 of the guide groove 23 as shown in FIG. You can do it and you will feel a click.

  Thus, by providing the extended bottom 12 with the end fence 22 that regulates the rear end of the paper so as to be slidable, the paper size that can be set more efficiently can be changed. By providing the projections 23 and 24 between the end fence 22 and the guide groove 21 on the extended bottom 12, a click feeling can be obtained, and the end fence can be moved due to an impact when the paper feed cassette is mounted. Can be prevented.

  In the above embodiment, the sheet feeding cassette always has the extension bottom attached to the cassette body. However, in order to achieve the object of the present invention, it is necessary if the cassette body has a cassette body to which the extension bottom can be attached. It is enough. Further, the example in which the paper feed cassette according to the present invention is applied to the ink jet recording apparatus has been described. However, the present invention can be similarly applied to a paper feed cassette of a recording apparatus other than the ink jet recording apparatus.

1 is an external perspective view showing an example of an ink jet recording apparatus equipped with a paper feed cassette according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is an external perspective view of the recording apparatus in a state in which a paper feed cassette is pulled out. FIG. 2 is an external perspective view of the same recording apparatus as viewed from the back side. It is a schematic perspective view of the paper feed cassette. It is a schematic perspective view when the mounting surface of the paper feed cassette is lengthened. It is a schematic perspective view of the extended bottom part of the paper feed cassette. It is expansion explanatory drawing of the front-end part of the extension bottom part. It is explanatory drawing with which it uses for description of the engaging part of the cassette main body and extension bottom part of the paper feed cassette. It is a perspective view with which it uses for description of the engaging part with the extension bottom part of the cassette main body. It is explanatory drawing with which it uses for description of the engaging part with the extension bottom part of the cassette main body. It is explanatory drawing with which it uses for description of the size change procedure of the paper feed cassette. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining when the paper feeding cassette is pulled out from the recording apparatus main body with a small size. FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram for explaining a case where the paper cassette is enlarged in size and extracted from the recording apparatus main body. It is sectional drawing explaining the guide groove bottom face of the extension bottom part of the paper feed cassette. It is sectional drawing explaining the other example of the guide groove bottom face of the extension bottom part. It is a side view of the end fence of the extension bottom part. It is a sectional side view of the end fence. It is a front view of the end fence. It is sectional drawing explaining the relationship between the end fence and a guide groove bottom face.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Recording apparatus main body, 2 ... Printing mechanism part, 3 ... Paper feed cassette, 4 ... Manual feed tray, 5 ... Paper discharge tray, 11 ... Cassette main body, 12 ... Extension bottom part, 13, 14 ... Engagement groove, 15 ... Engagement 16: guide rib, 21 ... guide groove, 22 ... end fence, 23, 24 ... projection, 25 ... through hole.

Claims (9)

A paper feed cassette for use in a recording apparatus having a protruding member that comes into contact with the cassette body when the paper feed cassette is inserted into or removed from the apparatus body,
An extension bottom for extending the placement surface is rotatably mounted on a cassette body having a placement surface for placing paper, and the extension bottom when the cassette body is inclined with respect to the recording apparatus. A paper feed cassette that is maintained in a horizontal state.   2. The paper feed cassette according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of ribs are formed on the cassette body for guiding the paper that appears when the extended bottom portion is mounted at the extended position. cassette.   3. The paper feed cassette according to claim 1, wherein an inclined surface is formed at a front end portion of the extended bottom portion.   4. The sheet feeding cassette according to claim 1, wherein the extended bottom portion has an engaging shaft that can be attached to and detached from an engaging groove of the cassette body, and the engaging groove of the cassette body is provided with a length of the sheet. A paper feed cassette characterized by being formed at a plurality of positions having different vertical directions.   5. The paper feed cassette according to claim 1, wherein a rear end regulating member for regulating a rear end of the paper is provided on the extended bottom portion. 6.   6. The paper feed cassette according to claim 5, wherein the rear end regulating member is mounted on the extended bottom portion so as to be movable in a stepless manner, and a plurality of concave and convex protrusions are formed on the extended bottom portion. 2. A sheet feeding cassette according to claim 1, wherein an engaging portion is formed on the restricting member so as to be movably engaged with the protruding portion of the extended bottom portion.   7. The paper feed cassette according to claim 6, wherein the uneven protrusion formed on the extended bottom is formed in a substantially semicircular cross section, and the engaging portion of the rear end regulating member is formed in a protrusion. A paper cassette.   8. The paper feed cassette according to claim 7, wherein the protruding engagement portion of the rear end regulating member is formed in a substantially semicircular cross section, and the semicircular engagement portion is formed in a substantially semicircular shape of the extended bottom portion. A paper feed cassette having a radius larger than the radius of the protrusion. 9. The paper feed cassette according to claim 6, wherein the engaging portion of the rear end regulating member has elasticity.

Images