JPH0217461B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Technical Field The present invention relates to a sorter used with a copying machine;
More specifically, the present invention relates to a sorter that sequentially feeds sheets from below into a plurality of bins arranged in parallel.

Prior art The configuration of the sorter described above is, for example,
Shown in 32623. The first part that schematically shows this
To explain with the figure, a copy sheet sent out by a copying machine 1 enters a sorter 2, and its conveying device 3
It enters the feeding device 5 which can be moved in parallel under the plurality of bins 4, 4..., and enters the opening 4 of a predetermined bin 4.
It is fed into a predetermined bin by the feeding roller 5a of the feeding device 5, which has been moved to face the direction a. Each bottle has a vertical holding member 4b and a bottom holding member 4c, and the vertical holding member 4b is slightly tilted from vertical. The back of the vertical holding member 4b is provided with leaf springs 6, 6, . . . and 7, 7, which serve as paper pressers, and the copy sheets fed into the bin are held by the leaf springs 6, 6, . It is held at 7...

However, the sorter with the above configuration has the following drawbacks. That is, as shown in Figure 2,
If the rear end of the fed copy sheet P is curled due to high humidity or other causes, it will not be completely held by the bottom holding member 4c and will slide down from the opening 4a.
If both sides of the copy sheet P fed first are curled, the disadvantage is that they will be pushed upward by the copy sheet P fed next.

If the pressing force of the leaf spring was increased in order to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks, although slippage could be prevented, the copy sheet could not be fed smoothly or the copy sheet would be seriously damaged.

Furthermore, the pressing force of the leaf spring varies depending on the amount of copy sheets stored in the bin, and stable collation cannot always be expected.

Purpose/Summary The present invention has been made in view of the above, and it is possible to store copy sheets in a bin reliably and smoothly, and also to reliably prevent the copy sheets from slipping once they are fed into the bin. The purpose is to provide a sorter that can

The above purpose is to provide a stopper whose one end is supported by the tip of the bottom holding member, and whose other end abuts the back surface of the vertical holding member of an adjacent bottle at a higher position than the one end, and which is biased in the direction of the abutment. and an engagement prevention part provided on the back surface of the vertical holding member to prevent the rear end of the sheet fed into the bin and passed through the stopper from coming into contact with the tip of the stopper. be done. The copy sheet retracts the stopper and enters the bin, and when the copy sheet passes the stopper, the tip of the stopper returns to the back of the vertical holding member of the adjacent bin, and after being fed, it falls under its own weight. The rear end of the copy sheet is guided to the top surface of the stopper by the engagement prevention part on the back side of the vertical holding member of the adjacent bin without coming into contact with the tip of the stopper, and is securely held and stored in the bottom holding member of the bin. Ru.

Embodiment Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

FIG. 3 shows a sorter 11 connected to a copying machine 10.
This figure shows the overall configuration of the sorter 11, in which a plurality of bins 30, 30... are arranged in a slightly tilted state from the vertical position at the top of the sorter 11, and the feeding device 12 moves parallelly below the bins by a mechanism not shown. Possibly held. The feeding device 12 includes a pair of feeding rollers 13, upper and lower guide plates 14, 15, and a drive transmission mechanism for driving the feeding rollers 13.

A plurality of conveyor belts 16 are stretched horizontally below the movement path of the feeding device 12, and a lower guide plate 15 having a comb-like tip is inserted between the conveyor belts 16. ing.

On the other hand, one end of a band-shaped elastic member 17 is fixed to the upper guide plate 14 of the feeding device 12.
The other end of 7 is wound and secured to a winding shaft 18 fixedly provided on the left side in the figure. This elastic member 17 is pulled out as the feeding device 12 moves, and the conveyor belt 16
The copy sheet path is formed in cooperation with the copy sheet.

A guide member 20 and a distributor 21 are provided at the left end of the take-up shaft 18 and the conveyor belt 16 to connect the discharge roller 19 of the copying machine 10 and the sorter 11. The distributor 21 is for discharging copy sheets to a temporary tray 22 provided at the bottom of the sorter 11 when the copy sheets cannot be sent to the sorter section due to a malfunction of the sorter 11 or the like. Also, when the feeding device 12 comes to the rightmost dashed line position in the figure, it is in the non-sort mode in which collation is not performed, and the non-sort tray 23 that stores the copy sheets to be ejected at this time is placed above it. It is provided.

Next, the configuration of the bottle 30, which is the main part of the present invention, will be explained in the fourth section.
This will be explained using FIG.

Bins 30, 3 arranged on the upper part of the sorter 11
0... are the vertical holding member 31 and the bottom holding member 3, respectively.
2. A plurality of ribs 34 on the side part 33 and the back side of the vertical holding member 31 are integrally molded, and a pin 35 is implanted in the side part 33 at the tip of the bottom holding member 32.
A stopper 36 is provided which is rotatably supported by. The rear end of the stopper 36 and the tip of the bottom holding member 32 are each formed into a comb-teeth shape and engage with each other. The rib 34 is formed into a slope on the inlet side of the bottle, and a recess 36a formed at the tip of the stopper 36 engages with this rib slope. The stopper 36 also includes a torsion coil spring 37 which is wound around the pin 35 and has one end fixed to the stopper 36 and the other end fixed to the bottom holding member 32.
, the tip is biased in a direction so as to come into contact with the back surface of the vertical holding member of an adjacent bottle.

One bottle consists of the above-mentioned bottle 30 and stopper 36.
and a rib 34 formed on the back surface of the adjacent bottle. However, the rear rib of the leftmost bin 30 in FIG. May be used.

The sorter 11 having the above configuration operates as follows. That is, the copy sheet discharged from the copying machine 10 is transferred onto the conveyor belt 16 via the guide member 20. The feeding device 12 is sequentially moved below the bin 30 from the left side in FIG. 3 for each copy, and the copy sheet conveyed by the conveyor belt 16 reaches the feeding device 12 waiting under a predetermined bin. and its guide plates 14 and 15, and is fed into the bin 30 by the feed roller 13.

When a copy sheet is fed into the bin 30, the bin 30 is first in the state shown in FIG.
When the stopper 36 is reached along the slope 4, the stopper 36 is held by the copy sheet and rotated counterclockwise to be retracted, and the copy sheet is fed into the bin.

Even if the rear end of the copy sheet leaves the feed roller 13, the copy sheet is further kicked up by the inertia obtained by the sufficient driving force of the feed roller 13, and the rear end rises above the stopper 36.
When the rear end of the copy sheet leaves the stopper 36, the stopper 36 returns to rotation due to the elastic force of the torsion coil spring 37 and its own weight, and its recess 36a engages with the rib 34. Once the copy sheet has been kicked upward, the stopper 36 engages with the rib 34.
It falls onto the back surface of the bottle under its own weight, is guided, and is stored in the bottom holding member 32 of the bottle. When the copy sheet that has been kicked up once falls, the concave portion 36 of the stopper 36
Since a is engaged with the rib 34, the rear end of the sheet is prevented from coming into contact with the tip of the stopper 36, and the copy sheet once stored is completely prevented from slipping out of the bin.

6A, B, C, D, and E show modifications for preventing the rear end of the copy sheet from coming into contact with the front end of the stopper.

In the modification shown in FIG. 6A, a recess is formed in the stopper 36 as in FIGS. 4 and 5, and this engages with a rib 40, but the rib 40 is formed only in the lower part of the bottle.

6B, C, and D are constructed so that the tip of the stopper 36 is in direct contact with the back surface of the vertical holding member of the bottle, and an upper rib 41 that extends over the rib to the top of the bottle.
a and a lower rib 41a located below the stopper (Fig. 6B), one in which the lower rib in Fig. 6B is omitted (Fig. 6C), and one in which the rib is formed only at the lower part of the bottle. , the upper rib 42a is divided into lower ribs 42b (FIG. 6D).

In the modification shown in FIG. 6E, an opening 43 is formed in the bottle vertical holding member 31, and the tip of the stopper 36 is inserted into the opening 43.

In the embodiment described above, the circumferential speed of the feed roller 13 must be set appropriately in order to sufficiently kick up the copy sheet into the bin. Therefore, depending on the copy sheet used, the feed roller 1
The peripheral speed of No. 3 may be higher than the speed of the conveyor belt 16 in some cases.

Further, the stopper may bias the vertical holding member of the adjacent bottles by using an elastic plate or a spring, or by using only its own weight.

Although the above-described structure of the present invention completely prevents the copy sheet from slipping down, the following structure may be added in order to more smoothly store the copy sheet in the bin. That is, as shown in FIG. 7, the feed roller 50 on the side facing the stopper 36 is made of a hard roller, and the feed roller 51 on the side facing the rib 34 is made of a soft roller. It makes it curl. By using the combination of hard and soft rollers as described above, it is possible to curl the rear end of the copy sheet toward the bottom holding member. Even if it is, if it is curled as described above, it will be stored smoothly in the bottom holding member without getting caught in the burr. The configuration of the feed roller shown in FIG. 7 can also be used in the systems shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, and in this case, it is possible to almost completely prevent the copy sheet from sliding off.

Effects As described above, the present invention provides a sorter in which a plurality of bins each having a vertical holding member and a bottom holding member are arranged side by side, and sheets are sequentially fed from below between the bottom holding member and the adjacent bins. A feeding means that sequentially feeds sheets into each bin while moving along the sheet insertion part of each bin, one end supported by the tip of the bottom holding member, and the other end vertically holding the adjacent bins. A stopper that abuts the back of the member at a higher position than the one end and is biased in the direction of contact, and a stopper that is provided on the back of the vertical holding member and that is connected to the rear end of the sheet fed into the bin and passed through the stopper. Since it has an engagement prevention member that prevents engagement with the tip of the stopper, it is possible to completely prevent the copy sheet once fed from slipping off.

Furthermore, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, in the present invention, there is no spring material or the like that provides resistance to the movement of the copy sheet within the bin, so the copy sheet can be stored extremely smoothly. By placing the mechanism that prevents the tip from coming into contact with the ribs on the back of the vertical holding member of the bin, the area in the bin that the copy sheets come into contact with is further reduced, making it possible to store the copy sheets even more smoothly. can.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figures 1 and 2 are diagrams showing the prior art, Figure 3 is a sectional view of a sorter to which the present invention is applied, Figure 4 is an enlarged side view of its main parts, Figure 5 is a top view of the same, and Figure 6. ,
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing another embodiment. 1, 10... Copy machine, 2, 11... Sorter,
12... Feeding device, 13... Feeding roller, 3
0... Bottle, 31... Vertical holding part, 32... Bottom holding part, 33... Side part, 34, 40, 41a, 41
b, 42a, 42b...Rib, 35...Pin, 3
6...stopper, 36a...recess, 37...torsion coil spring, 43...opening.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A plurality of bins each having a vertical holding member that supports the flat part of the fed sheet and a bottom holding member that supports the lower end of the sheet are arranged in parallel, and the bins are adjacent to the bottom holding member. A sorter configured to sequentially feed sheets from below into a space between the bottom holding member and the bottom holding member; a stopper whose one end is supported by the tip and whose other end abuts the rear surface of the vertical holding member of an adjacent bottle at a higher position than the one end and is biased in the direction of contact; 1. A sorter comprising: an engagement prevention part that prevents the rear end of a sheet fed into a bin and passed through the stopper from coming into contact with the tip of the stopper. 2. The sorter according to claim 1, wherein the engagement prevention portion is a vertical rib provided on the back surface of the vertical holding member. 3. The sorter according to claim 1, wherein the engagement preventing portion is an opening formed in the back surface of the vertical holding member into which an end portion of the stopper can be inserted. 4. The sorter according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the stopper is biased by a spring. 5 Claim 1, characterized in that the stopper is biased by the stopper's own weight.
The sorter according to any one of items 1 to 3.