JPH03172275A - Printing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To perform work for jam processing and supply part replacing without removing a sorter part, in the case of processing a paper jam and replacing a supply part of donor or the like, by providing a sorter tray turnably in a direction equal to the opening-closing direction of a door. CONSTITUTION:When a front door 36 is opened at the time of processing a paper jam or exchanging a donor, following rotation of this front door 36, a load is gradually generated from a 5-bin sorter tray 29 and transmitted to a 4-bin sorter tray 28 from the 5-bin sorter tray 29 finally to a 2-bin sorter tray 26. While when this load is removed, a sorter tray 24 is reset before it hits a positioning shaft 34 by tension of a positioning spring 35. That is, when the front door 36 is closed, the sorter tray 24 is returned to a predetermined position.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printing device using the principle of an electrophotographic process, and particularly to a printing device that facilitates paper jam handling and replacement of supplies. [Prior Art] In small printing devices that have been proposed in the past for printing as output devices for personal computers and word processors, the sorter section is usually a substitute for a large printing press or a copier. Met.

No. a1gI shows a conventional example of this type of printing device. As shown in the figure, the paper printed by the printing device main body (hereinafter referred to as the main body) 112 is moved in the direction of arrow A to a discharge means 103 consisting of a discharge roller 101 and a discharge sensor 102. is discharged to the sorter drive roller 105. Thereafter, the paper is sent to a bin discharge roller 107 of a desired bin by a bin switching lever 106 provided in each bin, and is discharged to a bin sorter tray 108 provided in each bin. The sorter drive roller 105 and the bin discharge roller 107 are driven by a sorter drive motor 109 via gears, belts, etc. Further, each of the bin switching levers 106 is provided with a bin plunger 110 that drives each of the bin switching levers 106.

The sorter unit W1111 can be separated from the main body 112 at the position of arrow B.The main body 112 has a printing section that uses electrophotographic principles, and the toner and photosensitive drums, which are consumables, are replaced regularly. It is necessary to. In addition, when the printing paper cannot pass through the main body 112, it is necessary to take out the paper. The former is called replacing supplies, and the latter is called paper jam processing. Conventionally, the sorter device w1111 was separated from the main body 112.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In the above-described conventional printing apparatus, when replacing supplies and disposing of paper jams, the sorter apparatus must be separated from the main body, which makes cleaning complicated.

In addition, if the sorter tray stores a lot of printed paper, there is a problem that if the sorter device is separated from the main body, it becomes unstable due to the weight of the paper, and the paper often spills from the tray. There was.

The present invention solves these problems, and its purpose is to provide a printing device that does not require separating the sorter section from the main body when replacing supplies or handling paper jams.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention includes a main body having an ejection port for ejecting printed paper, an openable/closable door provided on a surface of the main body where the ejection port is located, and a door for discharging the ejection port of the main body. A sorter tray is provided on a certain surface side and stores sheets to be discharged from the discharge port, and the sorter tray is rotatably provided in the same direction as the opening/closing direction of the door.

[Effect]

When replacing supplies or disposing of paper jams, the door of the main unit can be opened. At this time, since the sorter tray can be rotated in the same direction as the door opening direction, a space necessary for replacement and jam removal can be obtained on the side where the door is opened.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of a printing apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIGS. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are diagrams showing embodiments of the present invention, and FIGS.
FIG. 14 is a cross-sectional view and a bb diagram showing a 14-layer structure.

In the figure, A is the main body of the printing apparatus (referred to as the main body), and B is a sorter section having a sorter tray 24.

First, the main body A will be explained.

As a printing means, a photosensitive drum 1 rotates in the direction of arrow C,
A charging device 2, a light control device 3, a developing device W14, a transfer device 5, a collecting device 6, an eraser 7, a fixing device 8 provided below the photosensitive drum 1, a fixing device 8 provided below the photosensitive drum 1, and a fixing device 8 provided on the back side of the main body. A printer control device W19 and a power source 10 are arranged to electrically control the printing press.

A stacker part 12 that can store a plurality of sheets of printing paper 11 as a paper supply means, a pickup roller 13 that feeds out printing paper 11 one by one when requested, and a bat part 14
Paper feeding device with! 15, a gate roller 16 that sends out the printing paper 11 sent by the paper feeder 15 at a uniform speed, and a paper guide 17 that constitutes a paper path from the paper feeder 15 to the gate roller 16. .

A fixing paper guide 18, a discharge paper guide 19, a discharge roller 20, and a discharge detector 21 are arranged below the fixing device 8 as discharge means. There is also an exhaust fan 22. The photosensitive drum 1 has a surface layer that exhibits semiconductor characteristics such that when irradiated with light, the electrical resistance of the irradiated portion decreases. The charging device M2 generates a discharge by applying a high voltage of several thousand volts between the thin gold a11 and the installed electrode. The light control device 3 employs a semiconductor laser beam, and has a function of converting image information created in a control box (not shown) into an optical signal (light on/off signal) and outputting it. The devices such as 0 and above are covered by an outer case 23, and a paper outlet 23a is provided at the lower front of the outer case 23.

The process of printing by the main body A will be described below.

When the photosensitive drum 1 is rotated at a constant speed while the exterior case 23 blocks external light and the inside of the case is dark,
4i) The surface of the photosensitive drum is charged by the type device 2. Furthermore, when the charged photosensitive drum 1 is irradiated with light according to image information from the light control device 3, the irradiated portion becomes an electrical conductor and a latent image is formed. The developing device 4 has toner, and brings the toner into contact with the latent image portion through the sleeve 4a to form a developed image on the surface of the photoreceptor.

On the other hand, the printing paper 11 stored in the stacker part 12 provided in the paper feeder w115 is sent out along the paper guide 17 by the pickup roller 13, and is sent out along the paper guide 17 by the gate roller 1.
Waiting at position 6. At this time, the leading edge of the printing paper 11 is oriented substantially vertically. The transfer device 5 is connected to the charging device 2 and the gate roller 16 rotates in synchronization with the rotation of the photosensitive drum 1 which has been developed by the developing device 4 and has toner attached to its surface, and sends out the printing paper 11 toward the photosensitive drum 1. Similarly, it is composed of a thin metal wire and a ground electrode, and has the function of charging the back surface of the printing paper 11.

The toner developed on the surface of the photosensitive drum 1 is transferred to the printing paper 1
Transfer is performed by being attracted to the surface of 1. The transferred printing paper 11 is transferred to a fixing device! 8, the toner on the surface is fixed to the printing paper 11.

Next, the printing paper 11 fixed by the fixing device 8 is discharged from the discharge port 23a by the discharge means. As described above, the ejecting means is composed of the fixing paper guide 18, the ejecting paper guide 19, and the ejecting roller 20. The printing paper 11 is advanced along a fixing paper guide 18 and a discharge paper guide 19 by the driving force of the fixing device 8 . When the leading edge of the printing paper 11 reaches the ejection roller 20, the driving main body gradually shifts from the fixing device 8 to the ejection roller 20. When the rear end of the printing paper 11 reaches the discharge roller 20 and comes off the discharge roller 20, the printing paper 11 is sent out to the sorter section B from the discharge port 23a. At this time, the printing surface of the printing paper 11 is the bottom surface. Printing devices using electrophotography are often called page printers, and require the following functions in order to print at high speed and print many pages at once.

For example, if you have printed several pages, you can simply remove the several sheets of paper from the tray and the pages will be aligned. In this case, the printing device must store the paper in a face-down tray.

Next, the sorter section B will be explained with the addition of FIGS. 2, 3, 4, and 5.

The sorter unit B has sorter trays 24 from 1 bin to 5 bins that accumulate printed sheets 11 face down.
There are 1 bin sorter tray 25. 2 bin sorter tray 26. 3 bin sorter tray 27. 4 bin sorter tray 28. 5 bin sorter tray 29. A sorter guide 30, a sorter discharge roller 31, and a sorter guide 3 serve as sorter guide means for guiding the paper discharged from the discharge port 23a by the discharge roller 20 to the sorter tray 24.
- There is a sorter guide means rotating shaft 32 provided in a part of the 0. The sorter guide means rotation shaft 32 is attached to the sorter case 33, and the sorter tray 24 is rotatably supported on the sorter guide means rotation shaft 32. A positioning shaft 34 for determining the position of the sorter tray 24 is provided in a part of the sorter case 33. Also, sorter tray 2
A positioning spring 35 is provided on the sorter guide means rotating shaft 32 for applying and engaging the panel 4 with the positioning shaft 34.

Next, the operation of the sorter section B will be explained using an example in which the first page is sorted into the first bin and the second page is sorted into the third bin. Sorter designation information is sent from a personal computer or the like to the printing device along with image information. A designation to output the first page to the 1-bin sorter tray 25 and the second page to the 3-bin sorter tray 27 is sent and stored in the printer control device 9. The printer control device 9 is
Generates a print start command for the first page. Thereafter, the above-described printing process is followed, and when the discharge detector 21 is activated, sorter bin selection is started. Since the first page is designated to be output to the 1-bin sorter tray 25, the sorter guide 30 and the sorter discharge roller 31 are set at the 1-bin discharge position as shown in FIG. In the embodiment, the ejection position for one bottle is also the upper position. This reset position can be confirmed using a part of the sorter guide 30 using a photodetector (not shown).
Do this in combination with

Next, a description will be given of the process until the sorter guide 30 and the sorter discharge roller 31 are selected at the position of the three-bin sorter tray 27 as shown in FIG.

After confirming the reset state, a pulse motor (not shown) is set in advance to drive steps up to the 3rd bin position, and the sorter guide 30 and sorter discharge roller 31 are driven by the number of steps. The guide means rotates around a rotating shaft 32 in synchronization with a pulse motor. While the three bins are selected, the paper discharged by the discharge roller 20 is sent to the sorter discharge roller 31 through the rotating sorter guide 30.

Immediately before the paper enters the sorter discharge roller 31, the aforementioned sorter guide 30 and the sorter discharge roller 31 stop moving. The sorter discharge roller 31 discharges the printing paper sent by the discharge roller 20 to the 3-pin sorter tray 27. The driving force of the sorter discharge roller 31 is the same as that of the discharge roller 20.
The driving force of
(not shown).

Thereafter, no matter which bin is selected, printed sheets can be accumulated in the desired sorter tray 24 by the method described above. Note that in continuous printing of a page printer, the printing speed is determined by the paper feed speed and the distance between the sheets, so in this embodiment, the distance between the sheets is determined by the ejection roller 2.
This distance is slightly longer than the distance from the exit of the sorter discharge roller 31 to the exit of the sorter discharge roller 31. Therefore, when the ejection detection i21 is on, the previous printing paper is removed from the sorter ejection roller 3.
This means that it is always discharged from 1, and the sorter guide 30
There is no problem even if the sorter discharge roller 31 is moved to select the sorter bin.

Next, when paper jams or when replacing toner, use the front W36
The movement of the sorter section B when it is opened and processed will be explained. The fixing device 8, the fixing guide plate 18, one of the paper discharge guides 19, one of the gate rollers 16, and the transfer device 5 are attached to the front door 36, and when the front door 36 is opened, the paper path is easily visible. Become.

The rotation center of the front door 36 is provided near one axis of the discharge roller 20. The sorter tray 24 is located at the front 53
In this embodiment, the sorter guide means rotation shaft 32 provided near the rotation center of the front door 36 is used as the rotation axis, and can be rotated counterclockwise when a load is applied. A load is gradually generated from the 5-bin sorter tray 29, transmitted from the 5-bin sorter tray 29 to the 4-pin sorter tray 28, and finally transmitted to the 2-pin sorter tray 26 (see Figure 3). For example, the sorter tray 24 is returned to its original position by the spring force of the positioning spring 35 until it hits the positioning shaft 34 (see FIG. 5). That is, when the front door 36 is closed, the sorter tray 24 returns to the predetermined position. Furthermore, in this embodiment, when the front door 36 is opened, the sorter trays 24 are stacked in a very compact manner without dropping the printing paper stacked on the sorter tray 24, so the structure is shown in Fig. 4.5. Refer to and explain. In order to stack paper on the sorter tray 24, a guide is required to prevent the printing paper from falling. Therefore, a sorter tray loading guide 37 is provided at the lower edge of the sorter tray 24 as this guide. Since the sorter tray stacking guide 37 only needs to be located at a portion of the width of the printing paper, each bin is installed so as to be slightly shifted in the width direction of the printing paper. Therefore, even if the sorter trays 24 are stacked one on top of the other, the sorter tray loading guides 37 for guiding paper stacking do not overlap each other, and the sorter trays 24 can be stacked compactly.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, in the present invention, the sorter tray is provided so as to be rotatable in the same direction as the opening/closing direction of the door, so when processing paper jams or replacing supplies such as toner, the work can be done without removing the sorter section B. can be done.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1(a) and 1(b) are a sectional view and a bb view showing the overall configuration of the printing apparatus of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the bin selection state of the sorter section, and FIG. , a sectional view showing the state of paper jam processing; FIGS. 4 and 5 are partial perspective views of the sorter unit;
FIG. 6 is a sectional view showing a conventional sorter portion. 1... Photosensitive drum 8... Fixing device 20... Discharge roller 21... Discharge detectors 24 to 29... Sorter tray 30... Sorter guide 31... Sorter discharge roller 32... Sorter Guide means rotating shaft 33... Sorter case 34... Bin discharge positioning shaft 35... Positioning spring 36... Front door 37... Sorter tray loading guide 108... Pin sorter tray... Sorter device 2.・More than the main unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] A main body having an ejection port for ejecting printed paper, an openable/closable door provided on the side of the main body where the ejection port is located, and a door provided on the side of the main body where the ejection port is provided so that the printed paper is ejected from the ejection port. What is claimed is: 1. A printing apparatus comprising: a sorter tray for storing sheets of paper, the sorter tray being rotatable in the same direction as the opening/closing direction of the door.