JPH01176730A - Image formation apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To install a large-capacity paper feed cassette in a simple constitution by pushing up a paper push-up plate by a spring and a motor driven by a battery through reduction means when the height of paper in the large-capacity cassette becomes lower. CONSTITUTION:An arm 44 of an apparatus main body 1 is oscillated up and down, whereby paper in an installed large-capacity paper feed cassette 7 is taken out by a take-out roller 45 in the same manner as paper in a standard cassette. When the height of paper is decreased to a designated height, a driving motor 309 to which power is supplied from a battery (dry battery) 401 is driven to gradually raise a paper push-up plate 302 through reduction mechanisms 308, 307, 305 and a link lever 304 according to the amount of taken-out paper while push-up force of a spring is reduced. In this case, when the capacity of the battery 401 becomes less than a certain capacity, the effect is displayed on display means 404. Thus, the large-capacity paper feed cassette can be installed in the same manner as the standard cassette in a simple constitution.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as an electronic copying machine,
In particular, the present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that has an improved function of feeding paper into the main body of the apparatus.

(Prior Art) Normally, in a PPC copying machine, a device is used to feed paper into the main body of the device, which has built-in image forming process configuration means such as charging, development, transfer, cleaning, and fixing, depending on the size of the paper. At the same time, paper feed cassettes are installed in multiple stages above and below in each loading section of the main body of the device, and sheets of frequently used sizes are separately stored in a large capacity paper feed device, and this large capacity paper feed device is connected to the device. There are some that are attached to the main body.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) Conventionally, in particular, when a large-capacity paper feeder is attached to the main body of the apparatus, the large-capacity paper feeder itself has become large and can be installed in a wide area. Not only does it require more space, but the capacity of the drive system that pushes up the paper in an elevator style becomes larger, consumes more power, and is inevitably more expensive.Moreover, it requires connection of an external power source to a large-capacity paper feeder. There was also a problem that it was troublesome.

The present invention was made under the above circumstances.

The purpose is to provide a small and inexpensive image forming apparatus that has a simple configuration and can be equipped with a large capacity paper feed cassette.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides an apparatus incorporating image forming process constituent means such as charging, development, transfer, cleaning, and fixing. The main body is provided with a paper feeding means consisting of a standard cassette that accommodates a normal amount of paper and a large capacity cassette that accommodates a large capacity of paper, and the paper in the standard cassette and the large capacity cassette is loaded into each of the paper cassettes. The image forming apparatus is configured to take out sheets one by one by a paper take-out means including a take-out roller provided in a section, and the large-capacity cassette has a standard height of the paper stored in the large-capacity cassette. A built-in paper pushing means operates to push up the paper when the height becomes lower than the normal amount of paper stored in the cassette. It has a paper push-up plate that is pushed up by the drive force of a drive motor via a deceleration means along with the push-up force of This configuration includes display means.

(Function) That is, by having the above configuration, the present invention has the following features:
A large-capacity paper feed cassette can be downsized, and the capacity of the drive motor can be reduced.

In addition, since a battery is used as the drive source for the drive motor, there is no need to obtain power from an external source, so there is no need for connectors or connection cords, and there is no problem in attaching and detaching large capacity cassettes. Moreover, it becomes possible to easily check the capacity of the battery.

(Embodiment) The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to an illustrated embodiment.

FIG. 1 shows the overall appearance of an electronic copying machine as an image forming apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 shows its internal structure, where 1 is the main body of the apparatus. Inside this device body 1,
Image forming process configuration means 2 such as charging, developing, transferring, cleaning, and fixing are built-in.

On the upper side thereof, an automatic document supply/ejection unit device 4, which will be described later, is provided for setting a document on the document placement glass 3 and ejecting the document on the document placement glass 3. Furthermore, an operation panel 5 is provided on the front edge of the top surface.
is located.

On the right side of the apparatus main body 1 are a first paper feed cassette (hereinafter referred to as a standard cassette) 6 containing paper P such as plain paper to be supplied to the one image forming process configuration means 2; Two paper feed cassettes (hereinafter referred to as large capacity cassettes) 7 are removably inserted into two upper and lower stages, respectively, and a paper feed means 8 is installed. The paper storage height H2 of the lower large-capacity cassette 7 is higher than that of the upper standard cassette 6.
is higher than the paper storage height Hl (<<H-<H2), and on the left side thereof, a paper feed tray 9 for collecting fixed paper P is installed.

The apparatus main body 1 is composed of an upper unit 1a and a lower unit 1b, and as shown in FIG. A paper feed means 8 and a paper feed tray 9 each consisting of a large-capacity cassette 6 and a large-capacity cassette 7 are installed.

Further, in the image forming process configuration means 2, a drum-shaped photoreceptor 20 as an image bearing member is disposed approximately in the center of the upper unit la, and a drum-shaped photoreceptor 20 is arranged around the photoreceptor 20 along its rotation direction. A charging device 21, an erasing device 22, an exposure section 23a as an exposure device 23, a developing device 24. Transfer device 25. Stripping device 26, cleaning device 27, and static eliminator 28
etc. are arranged in order, while paper P is automatically fed from the paper feed means 8 along the inner bottom of the upper unit 1a, or a manual paper feed tray 3o which also serves as a cover for the standard cassette 6. The paper P manually fed from the image transfer section 3 between the photoreceptor 20 and the transfer device 25
1 and a pair of paper ejection rollers 3 provided on the left side of the apparatus main body 1.
A paper transport path 33 leading to the paper discharge tray 9 via the paper transport path 3 is formed, and the image transfer section 3 of this paper transport path
An aligning roller pair 34 is arranged upstream of the roller 1, and a fixing device 35 is arranged downstream thereof.

On the other hand, in the vicinity of the mounting portion of the standard cassette 6 constituting the paper feeding means 8, there is a first take-out roller 41 attached to a swingable first arm 40 and for taking out sheets P one by one. A first conveying roller 42a and a first conveying roller 42a receive the sheet P taken out through the take-out roller 41 and send it into a first branch conveying path 33a forming the upstream side of the sheet conveying path 33. A first paper separation and conveyance means 42 consisting of a separation roller 42b is provided, and the paper P manually fed from the manual paper feed tray 30, which also serves as the cover of the standard cassette 6, is separated from each other. A manual feed roller 43 is provided that feeds the paper into the first branched conveyance path 33a through between the first conveyance roller 42a and the first separation roller 42b.

Also, in the vicinity of the mounted portion of the large-capacity cassette 7, there is a second take-out roller 45 that is attached to a swingable second arm 44 and takes out sheets P one by one, and a second branch conveyance path 3 that receives the taken out paper P and forms the upstream side of the paper conveyance path 33;
3b, the second conveying roller 46a and the first
A second paper separation and conveyance means 46 is provided, which includes a separation roller 46b, and a paper-out detection switch 5 is installed at the mounting portion of each of the standard cassettes 6 and large-capacity cassettes 7.
0, and a paper size detection switch 51 which also serves to detect the presence or absence of a cassette.

Further, in the figure, 52 is a paper sensor, and this paper sensor 52 is connected to the first and second branch conveyance paths 33a.

33b, that is, near the upstream side of the pair of aligning rollers 34, and the standard cassette 6 or large-capacity cassette 7 is transported via the first or second paper separation and transport means 42, 46. It is designed to be able to detect the paper P coming from.

Further, the exposure device 23 has an exposure lamp 61 surrounded by a reflector 60 that illuminates the back of the document set on the document placement glass 3 provided on the top surface of the device main body 1.
The reflected light from the document surface is reflected by the first mirror 62.
．． The light is guided to the lens 65 via the second mirror 63 and the third mirror 64 in order, and then the light transmitted through the lens 65 is guided to the fourth mirror 66, the fifth mirror 67, and the sixth mirror 68.
The photoreceptor 20 is made to float on the photoreceptor 20 through the following sequentially.

Then, the exposure lamp 6 surrounded by the reflector 60
1 and the first mirror 62 are mounted on a first carriage 69 that is reciprocally movable along the lower surface of the document placement glass 3, and the second mirror 63 and the third mirror 64 are The first and second carriages 69 and 70 are respectively mounted on second carriages 70 that move in the same direction at half the speed of the carriage 69, and in the state shown in FIG. By moving it in the right direction, the document sheet set on the document placing glass 3 is scanned, and an image corresponding to the document sheet is slit-exposed onto the photoreceptor 20.

Note that the first carriage 69 is equipped with a spotting unit 71 for specifying an area where there is a document stain when copying is desired with the area erased.

The developing device 24 is composed of an upper developing unit 75 for color development and a lower developing unit 76 for black development, each of which is of a magnetic brush type and equipped with developing rollers 77 and 78. By selectively bringing the .78 close to each other and rotating them, it is possible to selectively develop black or other colors, such as red.

Furthermore, said cleaning device! 27 is adapted to bring a cleaning blade 80 into contact with the photoreceptor 20 to scrape off the developer (toner) remaining on the photoreceptor 20, and to scrape off the developer (toner) remaining on the photoreceptor 20 through an auger 81. It is configured to be discharged outside the casing 82 and collected into a collection box (not shown).

The fixing device 35 has a heating roller 86 containing a heater lamp 85 and a pressure roller 87 that is urged to be in constant pressure contact with the heating roller 86, and these are surrounded by upper and lower casings 88 and 89. In addition, the pair of paper ejection rollers 32 and the paper ejection switch 90 are integrated near the downstream side thereof.

Furthermore, the charging device l! 21, the transfer device 25 and the stripping device 26 are each constituted by a corona discharge device, and the charging device 21 irradiates the photoreceptor 20 with light from the static eliminating lamp 95 via the green filter 96, and the erasing device 22 is a large number of LEs along the longitudinal direction of the photoreceptor 20.
D is provided so that the charge in the portion corresponding to the area specified by the spot unit 71 can be erased.

Note that in the upper part of the fixing device 35 in the apparatus main body 1,
A cooling fan 55 and a sub-main motor 56 are disposed, and a conveyance belt 57 forming a part of the paper conveyance path 33 is disposed between the peeling device 26 and the fixing device 35. High voltage transformers 58 are arranged below the belt 57, that is, at the bottom of the upper unit 1a. Reference numeral 59 in FIG. 1 is a document stacking table on which a document tray in the automatic document supply/discharge unit device 4, which will be described later, is stacked.

That is, the automatic document supply/discharge unit device 4 includes a separation unit 100 that constitutes a separation means for feeding, separating, and conveying the documents stacked on the document stacking table 59, and a separation unit 100 adjacent to the separation unit 100. The separating unit 100 is configured to stack originals to be transported on a document stacking table 59 and separate and invert the originals. The transport unit 200 is the separation unit 100
The original document ejected from the main body 1 is conveyed and fed to the exposure position on the document placement glass 3 of the apparatus main body 1, and the original document after copying is ejected and stacked on the document ejection table 201. The separation unit 100 and the transport unit 200 are independent from each other, and
The transport unit 200 can be opened and closed to facilitate the removal of jammed 1M originals and the copying of thick originals such as books. Further, the separation unit 100 is installed on the main body 1 of the apparatus.

As shown in detail in FIG. 3, the separation unit 100 constituting the above-mentioned automatic document supply/discharge unit group @4 has a base 101 attached to the device main body 1 on one end of which the document loading table 59 is attached. A pickup roller 103 is fixed via a mounting bracket 102 and is a take-out roller on the downstream side of the document loading table 59 on the base 101.
, a separation roller 104 and a paper feed roller 105 paired with the separation roller 104 are provided in this order, and the pickup roller 103 takes out the uppermost document sheet stacked on the document stacking table 59 one by one, and performs the separation and feeding process. Paper roller pair 10
4,105, and a first pair of aligning rollers 106 is provided on the downstream side of the pair of separating/feeding rollers 104 and 105.
The document separated in step 04 is further conveyed to the downstream side.

A second aligning roller pair 107 is provided downstream of the first aligning roller pair 106, and this second aligning roller pair 107 is connected to the first aligning roller pair 106. A document conveyed from the pair 106 or a document conveyed from a reversing bus mechanism to be described later is conveyed to the conveying unit 200 side, and a reversing paper path mechanism 110 is provided at an upper position thereof.

This reversing paper path mechanism 110 is connected to a transport unit 2 which will be described later.
Three outer paper guides 111°, 112, and 113 and two inner paper guides form a curved paper path path for guiding and reversing the document reversely conveyed from the 00 paper path mechanism.
It is composed of two paper guides 114 and 115, and three pairs of transport rollers 116 to 118 provided on a curved paper path path formed by each of these paper guides 111 to 115. ~11
5 is divided into parts to improve jam handling and ease of assembly, and each of the three pairs of conveying rollers 116
118 are arranged so that the conveyance performance of the single curved paper path is ensured.

Further, a gate 120 is provided on the downstream side of the second aligning roller pair 107 described above, and this gate 120 is used during paper conveyance from the separation unit 100 to the conveyance unit 200 side, which will be described later, and during document reversal. The paper conveyance from the conveyance unit 200 to the separation unit 100 can be switched and guided.

Reference numeral 121 in FIG. 1 denotes a document detecting means 122 provided in the same phase as the pickup roller 103 to detect whether or not a document is stacked on the document stacking table 59 and to control the operation of the separation unit 100. 123 and 124 are document detection sensors installed on the conveyance path between the pair of separating/feeding rollers 104 and 105, which separate and feed the document one by one, and the first pair of aligning rollers 106; First and second aligning rollers installed separately on the conveyance path between the first and second aligning roller pairs 106 and 107, respectively.
This first jam detection means 1 is a jam detection means.
23 is designed to detect jams, document width, document length, etc. of the document conveyed from the pair of separating/feeding rollers 104 and 105 and the first pair of aligning rollers 106; The second jam detecting means 124 is configured to detect a jam in the document conveyed from the first pair of aligning rollers 106 and a jam in the document conveyed from the reversing paper path mechanism 110. In the figure, reference numeral 125 denotes a third jam detecting means installed on the curved paper bus path of the reversing paper path mechanism 110, and is adapted to detect a jam of a document to be reversed.

As shown in detail in FIG. 4, the transport unit 200 includes a paper path mechanism 210.
0 transports the original transported from the separation unit 100 to the exposure position on the original placing glass 3 of the apparatus main body 1, and transfers the original after copying to the original output table 201.
A conveyance belt 211 that conveys the paper to the side or reversely conveys it to the reversing paper path mechanism 110 of the separation unit 100, and first and second belt rollers 212 and 213 that drive this conveyance belt 211 by a drive system (not shown). Four sets of presser rollers 214 to 21 for ensuring that the conveyance belt 211 contacts the document placement glass 3 of the apparatus main body 1
7, and a paper guide 2 forming an ejection path so as to guide the original after copying to the original ejection table 201 side.
18, and a discharge roller 219 that conveys the documents on the discharge path by the paper guide 218 to the document discharge table 201 and discharges and accumulates them.

In addition, 220 in the figure shows the document conveyed by the conveyor belt 211 on the document placing glass 3 of the predetermined copying machine unit 1.
This is a document stopper for stopping the document at the upper exposure start position.

Next, the operation of the above-mentioned yKm automatic supply and discharge unit device will be explained. First, when copying a one-sided original.

When a document is set on the document stacking table 59 of the separation unit 100, this "document present" state is detected by the document detecting means 1.
21. In this condition.

When the copy button on the operation panel 6 of the copying apparatus main body 1 is pressed, the originals stacked on the original loading table 59 are picked up by the pickup roller 103 inside the separation unit 100, which rotates and descends, and the originals are separated and fed. The paper is sent to rollers 104.105 and these roller pairs 104.1
With 05 rotations.

For example, a document in a two-sheet state is separated one by one and sent to the downstream side. Then, when the leading edge of this document is detected by the document detection sensor 122 installed in front of the first aligning roller pair 106.

After a certain period of time has elapsed, the pair of first and second aligning rollers 106 and 107 start rotating and send the original to the transport unit 200 side. At this time.

Said first and second aligning roller pair 106°10
7, the conveyor belt 2 of the conveyor unit 200
11 is driven, and the document sent from the separation unit 100 is conveyed onto the document placement glass 3 of the apparatus main body 1 by the drive of this conveyor belt 211, and this document is moved by the document stopper 220 onto the document placement glass 3 of the apparatus main body 1. is stopped at a predetermined exposure start position on the document placement glass 3. In this state, the apparatus main body 1 operates and starts copying the original. Then, the completion of such a copying process is completed by the apparatus main body 1.
When the copying operation is completed, the above-mentioned conveyor belt 211 is driven again, and the document that is stationary on the document placement glass 3 of the apparatus main body 1 is transferred to the pager guide 218 and the ejection roller 219. The documents are discharged and accumulated on the document discharge table 201 via the document discharge table 201, thereby performing normal copying of the document.

In addition, when copying both sides of a document, the document is transported in the same manner as in the case of single-sided copying described above, and when the copying of the first surface of the document is completed, the gate 120 on the separation unit 100 side is switched by the switching drive of a solinoid (not shown) to transport the document. belt 21
1, the conveyor belt 211 is driven in the opposite direction to convey the document backwards to the reversing paper path mechanism 110 that constitutes the separation unit 100 and reverse it. When the leading edge of the paper passes through the paper path path and is detected by the second jam detection means 124, the conveyor belt 211 is driven in the forward direction again after a certain period of time in synchronization with this detection operation. , said second
The aligning roller pair 107 starts rotating and conveys the original onto the original placing glass 3 of the apparatus main body 1, and in this way, the second surface, which is the back side of the original, is again moved by the original stopper 220 to the apparatus main body. The second copying process is performed by stopping at a predetermined exposure start position on the first document placement glass 3, and when copying the first surface of the document, The original stopped at the exposure start position is reversed again and copied.

However, the operation of the first-generation main body 1 having the above-described structure is as follows.

The automatic document supply and discharge unit device! 4 original loading table 5
After setting the document tray on the document tray 9, by operating the operation panel 5, the document is set from the automatic document supply/discharge unit device 4 onto the document placement glass 3. Meanwhile, in this state, the photoconductor 20 rotates, and the photoconductor 20 is uniformly charged by the charging device 21.Next, with the exposure lamp 61 of the exposure device 23 turned on, the first carriage 69 and the second carriage 20 are rotated. By moving the carriage 70 from the left to the right in the figure along the lower surface of the document placement glass 3, the document tray set on the document placement glass 3 is scanned and exposed to slit light, thereby corresponding to the document tray. An electrostatic latent image is formed on the photoreceptor 20.

The electrostatic latent image thus formed on the photoreceptor 20 is developed and visualized by either the upper developing unit 75 or the lower developing unit 76 of the developing device 24. In synchronization with the image forming operation, paper P automatically taken out from the standard cassette 6 or large-capacity cassette 7, or paper P manually fed from the manual paper feed table 3o on the top of the standard cassette 6 is placed between the aligning rollers. 34 to the image transfer section 31, and transfers the developer image previously formed on the photoreceptor 20 to the transfer device 2.
The image is transferred onto the paper P by the action of 5.

Next, the paper P after the developer image has been transferred is transferred to the peeling device ff2.
6, the paper is peeled off from the photoconductor 20 and transferred to the paper conveyance path 3.
The fixing device 3
5, where the developer image is fused and fixed onto the paper P and then discharged onto the paper discharge tray 9 via a pair of paper discharge rollers 32. P
The developer remaining on the photoreceptor 20 after transfer and peeling of the developer image to the photoreceptor is scraped off and cleaned by the cleaning blade 80 of the cleaning device 27. Light is directed onto 20 to effect removal of the electrostatic memory.

This brings the photoreceptor 20 into a normal state in which the next copying operation can be performed.

By the way, the large-capacity cassette 7 constituting the above-mentioned paper feeding means 8 has a built-in paper pushing means 300 according to the present invention, and this paper pushing means 300 is shown in FIGS. 5 to 12. The configuration is as shown in .

That is, as shown in FIGS. 5 to 7, the paper pusher 300 is a paper pusher provided on the inner bottom surface of the large-capacity cassette 7 via a rotation shaft 301 so as to be able to push up the paper upward and downward. A lifting plate 302, a spring 303 that supports the sheet lifting plate 302 from below and urges it upward with a predetermined lifting force, and the sheet lifting plate 302 is raised and lowered with the urging force of the spring 303. A link lever 304 to be moved, an idle gear 307 that is coaxially provided with a pinion gear 305 that engages with a gear 304a provided at one end of this link lever 304 via a one-way clutch 306, and a worm wheel 307a of this idle gear 307. The one-way clutch is composed of a worm gear 308 that meshes with the worm gear 308, a drive motor 309 that rotationally drives the worm gear 308, and a battery 401 connected to the drive motor 309 via a control circuit 400 and whose power source is a dry battery. 306 is a paper push-up plate 30
The pinion gear 305 can be freely rotated in the downward direction of paper P, and can be kept locked in the upward direction. It has a strong spring force, which allows the driving motor 309 to gradually drive the paper push-up plate 302 upward while loosening the spring force of the spring 303, and to reduce the load applied to the driving motor 309. This makes it possible to reduce power consumption. At this time, the worm gear 3
By the deceleration means according to 08.

Since a large reduction ratio can be achieved, the entire device can be made compact, and since the worm gear 308 is used, the spring force of the spring 303 is not enough to drive the drive motor 309.
is not reversed, and by this.

The paper push-up plate 302 can be locked at an appropriate raised position.

Further, as shown in FIGS. 6 and 8, the height H2 of the paper P stored in the large capacity cassette 7 is set to a height H2.
A paper height position detection sensor 402 that detects at the - position is installed, and this paper height position detection sensor 402
As shown in Figure 9, it has a hysteresis characteristic between 0N and OFF, and the 0N and OFF positions differ depending on the direction in which the sensor enters.This allows one sensor to control the height of the paper P. This makes it possible to detect the location.

Furthermore, as shown in FIGS. 6, 10, and 11,
The paper push-up plate 302 of the large-capacity cassette 7 has through holes 40.
3 is provided, and this through hole 403 is.

Corresponding to the reflective sensor 11 installed at the bottom of the apparatus main body 1, it is arranged so as to be able to detect a "no paper" state even when the paper push-up plate 302 is at the top dead center position;
This eliminates the need to install a sensor that detects the state of "no paper on the large-capacity cassette 7 side," and the sensor position distance is small even at the top dead center of the paper push-up plate 302, making detection easy. It is now possible to do so.

That is, when the above-mentioned large-capacity cassette 7 is attached to the attachment part of the apparatus main body 1, as shown in FIG. The paper P is taken out in the same way as in the upper standard cassette 6 by vertically swinging the arm 44 of the paper taking out means (see Fig. 12), and as shown in Fig. 13, the height of the paper is increased. , when the installation height H- of the paper height position detection sensor 402 is reached, the paper height position detection sensor 402 is turned on and the drive motor is turned on.

309 is driven, and as shown in FIG. 14, the paper push-up plate 302 is pushed up according to the amount of paper taken out while relaxing the spring force of the spring 303, which has a spring force slightly stronger than the loaded weight of the paper P. By gradually driving the cassette upward, it is possible to take out the paper P in the same manner as in the standard cassette 6 in the upper stage.

Furthermore, FIG. 15 shows a state in which the standard cassette 6 is attached to the attachment part of the large-capacity cassette 7 of the apparatus main body 1, and as shown in FIG. 16, the insertion end side of the standard cassette 6 is A guide member 601 is provided on the side, and the guide member 601 is guided and supported by a support guide member (not shown) provided at the mounting portion of the large-capacity cassette 7 of the apparatus main body 1, so that the standard cassette 6 can be mounted. It is what it is. Further, 404 in the figure indicates the large-capacity cassette 7.
A display means consisting of an LED lamp installed on the top side of the
This display means 404 is connected to the battery 40 (not shown).
The battery 401 is connected to a means for detecting whether or not the battery 401 has a certain capacity, and when the capacity of the battery 401 falls below a certain capacity, a message to that effect can be displayed and checked.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, a normal amount of paper can be stored in the apparatus main body in which image forming process constituent means such as charging, development, transfer, cleaning, and fixing are built. A paper feeding means consisting of a standard cassette for storing a large capacity of paper and a large capacity cassette for storing a large capacity of paper, and a paper feed means for taking out the paper in the standard cassette and the large capacity cassette at respective loading parts. The image forming apparatus is configured to take out sheets one by one by a take-out means, and the large-capacity cassette has a height of the sheets stored in the large-capacity cassette that is equal to the normal amount stored in a standard cassette. It has a built-in paper pushing means that operates to push up the paper when the height becomes lower than the height of the paper, and this paper pushing means pushes up the paper stored in the large capacity cassette with the pushing force of the spring and through the deceleration means. The paper has a paper pushing plate that is pushed up by the driving force of a drive motor, and the drive motor is driven by a battery, and a display means that can detect and display the presence or absence of the battery capacity is provided. Therefore, a large-capacity paper feed cassette can be downsized, and the capacity of the drive motor can be reduced. In addition, since a battery is used as the drive source for the drive motor, there is no need to obtain power from an external source, so there is no need for connectors or connection cords, and there is no problem in attaching and detaching large capacity cassettes. However, it has an excellent effect in that it is possible to easily check the capacity of the battery.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an external view showing the overall configuration of an electronic copying machine as an image forming apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic longitudinal sectional front view, and FIG. 4 is a schematic explanatory diagram showing an enlarged view of the conveyance unit of the automatic document feed/discharge unit device; FIG. Figure 6 is a partially cutaway perspective view of a large capacity cassette;
The figure is a sectional view of the main part of the paper pushing means, and Figures 8 and 9 show the installation state and detection operation state of a paper height position detection sensor that detects the height of paper installed in a large-capacity cassette, respectively. Explanatory diagrams, Figures 10 and 11 are explanatory diagrams of a detection means for detecting the "out of paper" state of a large capacity cassette,
Figures 2 to 14 are explanatory diagrams showing the state of paper removal;
5 and 16 are explanatory diagrams showing the state in which the standard cassette is attached to the large-capacity cassette attachment portion of the main body of the apparatus. 1...Device body. 2... Image forming process configuration means, 6... Standard cassette (first paper feed cassette), 7...
・Large capacity cassette (second paper feed cassette), 8... Paper feed means, 11... Reflective sensor, 41... First paper take-out means (take-out roller) 45
...Second paper take-out means (take-out roller) 300.
...Paper push-up means, 302...Paper push-up plate, 303...Spring, 308...Deceleration means (worm gear), 309...
Drive motor, 401...Battery (dry cell), 404...Display means (LED lamp). P...Paper. Applicant's agent Patent attorney Takehiko Suzue Figure 1 307a 362' Text 8 Figure 9

Claims (1)

[Claims] A device that has built-in image forming process components such as charging, development, transfer, cleaning, and fixing, and consists of a standard cassette that stores a normal amount of paper and a large-capacity cassette that stores a large amount of paper. An image forming apparatus is provided with a paper feeding means, and the sheets in the standard cassette and the large-capacity cassette are taken out one by one by a paper take-out means consisting of a take-out roller provided in each mounting section, the image forming apparatus comprising: The cassette has a built-in paper pushing means that operates to push up the paper when the height of the paper stored in the large-capacity cassette becomes lower than the height of the normal amount of paper stored in the standard cassette. The paper push-up means has a paper push-up plate that pushes up the paper stored in the large-capacity cassette with the push-up force of a spring and the driving force of a drive motor via a deceleration means, and An image forming apparatus characterized in that a motor is driven by a battery, and a display means is provided that can detect and display the presence or absence of a capacity of the battery.