JP4845603B2 - Image forming system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a position adjustment structure between housings of an image forming system configured by integrally connecting an image forming apparatus, a paper feeding device, a paper discharge device and the like which are formed from different housings.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in an image forming system in which an image forming apparatus comprising a separate casing is connected to a paper feeding device, a paper discharging device, and the like to form a continuous paper conveyance processing path, a positioning pin provided on one device and the other device are connected to each other. After positioning the horizontal direction parallel to the contact surface between the devices and the housing installation surface (floor surface) by engaging the provided vertical slots, the height adjustment member provided at the bottom of the device is adjusted up and down Then, the height direction (vertical direction) between the apparatuses is adjusted and connected, or, as described in Patent Document 1, one end of the sheet feeding apparatus is fixed to the image forming apparatus, and the lower end of the other end is fixed. In general, the height of the sheet feeding device is adjusted by adjusting the screw leg (floor surface contact seat 115).

Japanese Patent Publication No.62-18454

  In the above system, the vertical position adjustment is performed by moving the individual height adjustment members up and down in a state where the horizontal position between the devices is constrained by the height adjustment member grounded with the positioning pin. For this reason, the apparatus housing rotates with the height adjustment member on the fixed side not moved up and down as a fulcrum, and a horizontal component force is generated at the engaging portion between the positioning pin and the elongated hole. The horizontal component force acts in the direction of moving the stationary device in the horizontal direction, and when the device weight is large, the device casing is deformed. Even a slight deformation of the housing causes errors in positioning of internal components such as an optical system, a developing system, and a conveyance system that require high accuracy, and causes print quality failure and paper running failure.

  An object of the present invention is to avoid the above-described problems and prevent deformation of the apparatus housing even when adjustment in the height direction between apparatuses is performed in a state where the height adjusting member is grounded.

  The purpose is to place a sliding member below the height adjustment member provided at the lower part of the housing of the paper feeding device or paper ejection device connected to the image forming apparatus, and with the height adjustment member grounded. This is achieved by allowing a casing such as the paper feeding device or the paper discharging device to move in parallel to the installation surface.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, an image forming apparatus formed from a separate housing, a paper feeding device that supplies printing paper to the image forming device, and a paper discharge that stores paper discharged after printing by the image forming device. A plurality of height adjusting members at different positions below at least one of the image forming apparatus, the sheet feeding apparatus, and the sheet discharging apparatus, and are connected integrally to each other to convey sheets. in an image forming system having a positioning member to each of the body, a sliding member provided on the lower side of the height adjusting member, the sliding member, said image forming apparatus and the sheet feeding apparatus and said sheet discharging device It slides only in the direction parallel to the installation plane, which is the installation surface, parallel to the connection surface of the housing of each device, and in the direction perpendicular to the connection surface. It is regulated .
According to a second aspect of the present invention, the slide member includes a height adjustment side slide member that contacts the height adjustment member and an installation plane side slide member that contacts the installation plane, and the height adjustment side slide. The member has a structure surrounding a side surface parallel to the connection surface of the installation plane side sliding member.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, a sliding member is provided below the height adjusting member provided at a lower portion of the housing of the paper feeding device and the paper discharging device connected to the image forming apparatus.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the sliding member has a sliding surface inside.

Claim 5, the friction coefficient of the contact surface of the sliding member and the sliding surface friction coefficient sliding member and the height adjustment members and were smaller than the coefficient of friction of the installation plane and the sliding member It is characterized by that.

According to the above mentioned as the present invention, to allow the horizontal movement of the housing of the equipment, the image forming apparatuses constituting the image forming system without deforming the housing, the sheet feeding device, each such sheet delivery The height of the housing can be easily adjusted, and an image forming system having stable printing quality and stable paper conveyance can be provided.

Embodiments of the present invention, the horizontal position height adjustment member lower sliding member that allows absorbing the minute movement in the horizontal direction with respect to the installation surface of the pressurizing e housing to the positioning member for the Me-decided between the housings Provide.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a front view of a cut sheet image forming system, and FIG. 2 is a bottom view. 3, 4 and 5 are schematic views of the positioning member. An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to an installation method of the image forming apparatus 1 and the paper discharge device 6 shown in FIG. First, the height adjusting member including the jack-up screw 10 provided at the lower part of the image forming apparatus 1 is extended downward and fixed to the installation surface (floor surface).

  Next, the paper discharge device 6 is positioned on the image forming device 1 by a positioning member including the long hole 13 of the image forming device 1 and the positioning pin 8 fixed to the paper discharge device 6. In this state, the height directions of the image forming apparatus 1 and the paper discharge apparatus 6 are not adjusted, so that the paper transport paths of the image forming apparatus 1 and the paper discharge apparatus 6 are not in proper positions, and correct paper transport is not possible. It is impossible and cannot be operated as an image forming system.

Below the four jack-up screw 10 provided on the different of the paper discharge apparatus 6 lower position, placing the sliding member 11 with a member a, b of the two-layer structure as shown in FIG. The sliding surface friction coefficient of the sliding member 11 is smaller than the friction coefficient between the sliding member 11 and the jack-up screw 10 and between the sliding member 11 and the installation surface. The jack-up screw 10 is grounded through the sliding member 11 and moved up and down to adjust the paper discharge device 6 to an appropriate height with respect to the image forming apparatus 1. Since the friction coefficient of the contact surface of the sliding member 11 is smaller than the friction coefficient between the jack-up screw 10 and the installation surface, the restraining force on the installation surface of the paper discharge device 6 is the contact surface of the sliding member having a two-layer structure. It is determined by the frictional force.

  In this state, even when the jack-up screws 10 provided at the lower part of the paper discharge device 6 are individually moved up and down, the lower part of the paper discharge device 6 is located with respect to the installation surface with the engaging portion of the positioning pin 8 and the hole 13 as a fulcrum. Since it is movable in the horizontal direction, the height can be adjusted while changing the position in the horizontal direction around the positioning pin 8. For this reason, an excessive load is not applied to the engaging portion of the positioning pin 8 and the hole 13 that position the positions of the image forming apparatus 1 and the paper discharge apparatus 6 during or after the position adjustment. Deformation can be prevented.

  The installation method of the paper discharge device 7 installed downstream of the paper discharge device 6 is performed in the same procedure by replacing the paper discharge device 6 with the paper discharge device 7 in the above description. Further, the installation method of the paper feeding device 5 connected upstream of the image forming apparatus 1 is the same.

  If the contact surface of the sliding member 11 having a double structure is made of a low coefficient of friction material such as POM (polyacetal resin) or PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene resin), it is effective in reducing the restraining force on the installation surface of the apparatus. is there. Further, by making the sliding member 11 have a multilayer structure of three or more layers, it is possible to alleviate the variation in frictional force due to the surface roughness of the contact surface and stabilize the sliding effect of the sliding member. .

Further, the sliding member 11 shown in FIG. 6 is an example in which the member on the side contacting the jackup screw 10 in the two-layer structure is configured in a U-shaped cross section so as to surround the two side surfaces of the member contacting the installation surface. Show. In this example, since the sliding direction of the sliding member is restricted only to the direction parallel to the connection surface of each device on the installation plane, each of the cases where the height is adjusted by moving the jackup screw 10 up and down. Since the device does not move away from and in a direction perpendicular to the connection surface of the device, it is possible to prevent a problem that the contact surface is separated during adjustment. As described above, the sliding member 11 is in a direction parallel to an installation plane that is a surface on which the image forming apparatus 1, the paper supply device 5, and the paper discharge device 6 are installed. The sliding member 11 of this example is configured to slide only in a direction parallel to the connection surface of the housing and to be restricted in a direction perpendicular to the connection surface. It comprises a height regulating side sliding member a that contacts a height adjusting member comprising a jack-up screw 10 and an installation plane side sliding member b that contacts the installation plane. The height adjustment side sliding member a is an installation plane. The side sliding member b has a structure surrounding a side surface parallel to the connection surface described above.

  In addition to this, a bearing metal, a ball bearing, a linear ball bearing, or the like can be used as the sliding member. However, the sliding member may be composed of a member capable of absorbing a minute horizontal displacement when the apparatus is installed.

It is a front view which shows the Example of this invention. It is a bottom view which shows the Example of this invention. It is the schematic of the positioning member of the housing | casing 1 and 5. FIG. It is the schematic of the positioning member of the housing | casing 1 and 6. FIG. It is the schematic of the positioning member of the housing | casing 6 and 7. FIG. It is the schematic which shows the sliding member of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image forming apparatus, 2 ... Printing mechanism part, 3 ... Fixing mechanism part, 4 ... Paper conveyance part, 5 ... Paper feeding apparatus, 6 ... Paper discharge apparatus, 7 ... Paper discharge apparatus, 8 ... Positioning pin, 10 ... Jack-up screw, 11 ... sliding member, a, b ... member, 12 ... positioning hole, 13 ... positioning slot, 14 ... positioning slot

Claims (5)

An image forming apparatus formed from a separate housing; a paper feeding apparatus that supplies printing paper to the image forming apparatus; and a paper discharge apparatus that stores paper discharged after printing by the image forming apparatus. A plurality of height adjusting members are provided at different positions below at least one casing of the apparatus, the sheet feeding apparatus, and the sheet discharging apparatus, and each casing that is integrally connected to each other has a positioning member. In an image forming system,
The provided a sliding member on the lower side of the height-adjusting member, the sliding member, a direction parallel to the image forming apparatus and the sheet feeding device and the sheet discharging device and the installation surface at which installation plane The image forming system is characterized in that it slides only in a direction parallel to the connection surface of the housing of each apparatus, and sliding is restricted in a direction perpendicular to the connection surface . The sliding member includes a height adjusting side sliding member that contacts the height adjusting member and an installation plane side sliding member that contacts the installation plane, and the height adjusting side sliding member is the installation side. The image forming system according to claim 1, wherein the image forming system has a structure surrounding a side surface parallel to the connection surface of the flat-side sliding member . 3. The sliding member is provided on a lower side of a height adjusting member provided at a lower portion of a casing of the paper feeding device and the paper discharging device connected to the image forming apparatus. Image forming system. The image forming system according to claim 1, wherein the sliding member has a sliding surface provided therein. The sliding surface friction coefficient of the sliding member is smaller than the friction coefficient of the contact surface of the sliding member and the height adjusting member and the friction coefficient of the sliding member and the installation plane. The image forming system according to claim 1.

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