JPH0474697A - Sheet material distribution container - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To ensure the presser of sheet materials at the time of a binding action with a simple construction by a method wherein a means for truing up sheet materials by passing through each tray and abutting on all of the contained sheets is controlled to have a plurality of home positions. CONSTITUTION:In a tray moving action, a jogger wire 21 is retracted from paper S and stopped. This position serves as a home position. In a binding action, the jogger wire 21 comes closest to the paper S and stops. The home position of the jogger wire 21 is shown by a one-dot chain line. If the paper S is present in the case of this home position, the jogger wire 21 abutting on the end of the paper S is disposed as shown by a two-dot chain line to securely hold the bundle of paper without a shift. In this manner, the presser of sheet materials at the time of a binding action can be ensured with a simple construction.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a sheet material distributing and storing device, and in particular, to a copying machine,
The present invention relates to a sheet material distributing and storing device that processes paper for printers, etc. and is equipped with an automatic stapling function.

[Prior Art] This type of sheet material distribution and storage device includes, for example, a device shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 64-302 which moves the binding device itself to bind sheet materials in a tray, and a device disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 64-302 which binds sheet materials in a tray.
No. 4662, a device for distributing and storing sheet materials by sequentially moving a plurality of trays, or a device for pulling out sheet materials from a fixed tray by a sheet handling means and binding them by a binding means movable to a position corresponding to the tray. There are sorter staplers and the like that perform this process and return to their original state after binding.

This type of apparatus is provided with a jogger device because it is necessary to align (align) the sheet materials stored in the tray. This jogger device uses a DC motor, a stepping motor, etc., obtains a size signal of the sheet material, and performs an operation of aligning the sheet materials.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] By the way, the conventional jogger function uses a stepping motor to receive a paper size signal and move it to a predetermined position.
The alignment piece of the jogger device is moved, and alignment operations are performed once or twice (lightly touching the edge of the paper against a predetermined reference surface), and when the next paper is fed into the tray, the paper is It is controlled so that it is saved outside the stack range. On the other hand, when performing a binding operation, it is necessary to prevent the stack of sheets from moving unintentionally, and it is necessary to move and fix the alignment piece to the position of the edge of the sheets. However, since this type of sheet material distribution and storage device stores sheet materials of various sizes, it requires a stepping motor, a copying machine, a transmission of information on the size of the material, a control means for these, and a device that requires a large amount of cost. was required and complicated.

The present invention was devised in view of the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and its purpose is to provide a sheet material distributing and storing device which has a simple configuration and is capable of performing sheet cooking during the binding operation. This is what we provide.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention sequentially moves a complex tray to a position opposite to a discharge port for sheet materials discharged from an image forming apparatus, and deposits sheets into the tray. In a sheet material distributing and storing device with a binding function that distributes and stores materials and, after completing the distribution and storage, binds the bundle of sheet materials using a sheet material binding means, a sheet material that penetrates each tray and comes into contact with all of the stored sheet materials. The apparatus has an alignment means for aligning sheet materials, and a control means for controlling the alignment means to take a plurality of home positions.

[Operation] The above means switches the home position of the aligning means during the binding operation, and the aligning means stops at the home position at the position closest to the edge of the sheet material. Therefore, no misalignment occurs in the aligned bundle of sheet materials.

[Example code] Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the essential parts of the jogger device in the sheet material distributing and storing device according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a plan view of the essential parts of the jogger device, and Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of the overall configuration of the sheet material distributing and storing device. FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of the sheet material storage and distribution device viewed from above, FIG. 5 is a perspective view of essential parts of the bin moving device, FIG. 6 is an explanatory view of the sheet bundle moving device, and FIG. 7 FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing the operation of holding a bundle of sheets.

In these figures, 1 is a sheet material distribution/storage device, and this sheet material storage/distribution device 1 has a plurality of bins 3, 3, . and
Bins 4.4.4.4 are protruded from both ends of the bin 3, and each bin 3 is moved by a bin moving device 5,5.5.5 consisting of a helical force and a cam that can engage each of the bins 4. They are moved up and down in parallel one by one. The casing 2 includes a binding device 6 for binding the sheets S carried out onto the bin 3 with a staple 6a. A sheet bundle moving device 7 for pulling out the sheets S on the bin 3 toward the binding device 6 is also provided. The housing 2 is provided with a jogger device 8 that operates every time the paper S is carried out onto the bin 3 and aligns the paper by abutting it against a reference surface on the binding device 6 side.

9 is an upper guide plate, 10 is a lower guide plate, and a paper conveyance path is configured between the upper and lower guide plates 9 and 10;
An upper roller 11 and a lower roller 12 are each pivotally supported at the tips of the lower guide plates 9 and 1o, forming a pair of distribution and delivery rollers.

13 is a bottle connecting member, and this bottle connecting member 13 has a long hole 13a, into which the bottle 4 of each bottle 3 is inserted. Further, one of the bottle connecting members 13 has protruding pieces 13 b and 13 c protrudingly provided at two places on the upper and lower parts thereof, and one of the protruding pieces 13 b and 13 c is activated by the up and down movement of the bottle connecting member 13 . 14 is activated to act as an upper and lower limiter. This direct-coupling member 13 maintains the mutual relationship between the bins arranged above and below the helical cam 15, and plays the role of relating the bin 4 of each bin 3 to the groove +5a of the helical cam 15. This helical cam 15 is cylindrical and has a spiral groove 15a formed on its circumferential surface.A drive motor 16 rotates the helical cam 15 to the right or left to move the bin 4 up or down along the groove +5a. A drive pulley 45 is fixed to the lower end of the shaft 15b for moving the bottle 3 upward or downward, and these four drive pulleys 45...
The ring-shaped belt 46 is wound around the belt 4.
The gear 16a of the drive motor 16 is meshed with the gear 6. Then, each helical cam 15 is rotated in the same direction synchronously by the drive motor 16 via the belt 46.

17 is a sensor, and this sensor 17 is connected to the helical cam 15.
The output of this sensor 17 causes the motor 16 to perform braking and stopping operations to maintain the bin 3 in a constant positional relationship.

Reference numeral 18 denotes a sensor that outputs a signal indicating that the paper S has been received into the bin 3.

The jogger device 8 includes a jogger shaft 19 that is adjacent to one of the four helical cams 15 and arranged in parallel, and a jogger shaft 19 that connects the stacked biscuits 3 at the upper and lower portions of the jogger shaft 19.
, 3..., two jogger arms 20a, 20b fixedly sandwiching them, and both jogger arms 20a.
, 20b, the jogger wire 21 is stretched between the free ends of the
, an engagement pin 22 protruding from the jogger shaft 19, and an arm 2 which is loosely fitted onto the jogger shaft 19, engages with the engagement pin 22 in one direction, and can freely escape in the other direction.
3, a disc 24 fixed to the lower end of the shaft 15b of the helical cam 15, and a link 34 connecting the disc 24 and the free end of the arm 23. The jogger wire 21 is connected to the lower jogger arm 20b via a spring 21a. In addition, 35 is a tension spring that urges the jogger arms 20a and 20b in the direction B.
36 is a brake directly connected to the lower end of the jogger shaft 19;
7 is a mounting plate for the motor 36; 38 is an arcuate slit formed in each of the bins 3, 3, . . . for inserting and swinging the jogger wire 21; 44 is formed in the housing 2; Each bottle4. It is a long hole through which ... is inserted.

With such a jogger device 8, the jogger wire 21
In conjunction with one rotation of the edge cam 15, a swinging movement (angle a° in FIG. 2) is performed in the bin 3 via the link 34, etc., and the stacked sheets S are pressed against the front frame 39 surface. Performs matching action.

This jogger device 8 is provided with a control means for switching the home position of the jogger wire 21. This control means has a disk 40 fixed to the lower end of the shaft 15b of the left-hand cam 15 in FIG. Protrusions 41 and 42 are provided on the upper and lower surfaces of the disc 40, respectively, and the sensor 17 detects each of the protrusions 41.
．． and a sensor 43 for detecting the protrusion 42 are provided, and the home position of the jogger wire 21 is switched by detecting the protrusion 41, 42 of the disk 40 with these sensors l7, 43. In other words, during the tray movement operation with the stack effect, the mode is such that the jogger wire 21 retreats in a direction away from the paper S and stops, and the signal from the one-rotation detection sensor 17 is used for control at this time. . Further, when moving and operating the tray for performing the binding operation, the mode is such that the tray stops when the jogger wire 21 is displaced to the position closest to the paper S side, and the signal from the sensor 43 is used for control at this time.

The purpose of fixing the jogger wire 21 by applying it to the edge of the paper during the binding operation is to prevent the aligned stack of sheets from shifting during the binding operation, and if necessary, use a brake, etc. This makes it possible to securely fix the paper.

As shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the paper bundle moving device 7 has a slider 26 guided by guide bins 25 and 25 in the housing 2, and meshes with rack teeth 26a of the slider 26 to move the slider 26. A gear 27 for reciprocating motion, a motor 28 for driving the gear 27, an upper clamping piece 26b formed at one end of the slider 2 ('I), and the upper clamping piece 2
6b, a contact piece 26c formed perpendicularly downward to
6, and the tip of the operating shaft 29a and the lower clamping piece 2
8 and a solenoid 29 suspended by a coil spring 30.

Note that 31 is a sensor that detects the rotational position of the lower clamping piece 28, and 32 is a sensor that detects the completion of clamping of the lower clamping piece 28. When the sheets S are stacked in the bin 3 by the sheet bundle moving device 7 and the alignment of the sheets S is completed by the jogger device 8, the sheet bundle moving device 7 acts on the sheet bundle and pushes the sheets S with a certain force as shown in FIG. Hold the staple unit (
Binding device) Pull out to the 6 side. The pulled-out sheet bundle is stapled by the stapling unit 6, and then the sheet bundle moving device 7 performs a reverse operation to the previous operation to return the sheet bundle to the bin 3. Thereafter, the paper bundle moving device 7 is retracted out of the vertical movement range of the bin 3, the bin 3 is moved, and the above operation is repeated to bind all the paper stacks.

The jogger operation in the embodiment configured as described above will be explained next.

By driving the motor 16, the jogger arms 20a and 20b are rotated via the belt 46, drive pulley 45, disk 45, link 34, arm 23, and engagement pin 22. When the tips of the jogger arms 20a and 20b, that is, the jogger wire 21, are moved in the direction away from the paper S (input direction), they act against the tension spring 35, and conversely move toward the paper S side to align the paper S. When moving in the direction (direction B), the arm 23 moves in the direction of escaping from the bin 22, and at this time, the jogger wire 21 is attached to the bow tension spring 3.
It can be rotated with only a force of 5. At this time, when the jogger wire 21 comes into contact with the paper, it pushes the paper S to the reference surface (front frame 39) and performs abutting alignment.
The jogger wire 21 once hits the paper and stops, and the jogger arm 20.20b goes too far, and during the return operation, the arm 23 engages with the engagement bin 22, and the jogger wire 2
1 to a position outside the tray (bin).

The jogger wire 21 operates differently during the stacking operation and the binding operation described above. That is, during the tray movement operation in which the stacking action is performed, the jogger wire 21 is retracted in a direction away from the paper S and stopped. 1 for jogger wire 21 control at this time.
The signal from the rotation detection sensor 17 is used. For example, the motor 16 is stopped at the position where the sensor 17 detects the protrusion 41 (the position of the jogger wire 21 shown by the solid line in FIG. 2),
Operate this position as the home position.

On the other hand, during the bin movement operation for performing the binding operation, the mode is such that the jogger wire 21 stops when it is displaced to the position closest to the paper S side. A signal from the sensor 43 is used for control at this time.

In this mode, the position of the jogger wire 21 shown by the dashed line in FIG. 2 is set as the home position. Therefore, in this home position, if there is a sheet S, the jogger wire 21 is in contact with the end of the sheet S and is in the position shown by the two-dot chain line in FIG. 2, thereby fixing the sheet bundle and preventing it from shifting.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a sheet material distributing and storing device that has a simple configuration and can also perform sheet cooking during a binding operation.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

All drawings are for explaining one embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the essential parts of the jogger device in the sheet material distributing and storing device according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a plan view of the essential parts of the jogger device, and Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of the overall configuration of the sheet material distributing and storing device. FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of the sheet material storage and distribution device viewed from above, FIG. 5 is a perspective view of essential parts of the bin moving device, FIG. 6 is an explanatory view of the sheet bundle moving device, and FIG. 7 FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing the operation of holding a stack of sheets. 1... Sheet material distribution and storage device, 3...
Bin, 5...Bin moving device, 6...Binding device, 7...Paper stack moving device, 8...
・Jogger device, 40...Disc, 41.42・
...Protrusion, 17.43...Sensor. Figure 2 Figure 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] A plurality of trays are sequentially moved to positions facing the discharge port for sheet materials discharged from the image forming apparatus, and the sheet materials are distributed and stored in the trays, and after the distribution and storage is completed, the sheet material binding means is used to bind the sheet material bundle. A sheet material distributing and storing device with a binding function that performs binding has alignment means that penetrates each tray and contacts all of the stored sheet materials to align the sheet materials, and this alignment means has a plurality of home positions. A sheet material distributing and storing device characterized by comprising a control means for controlling the sheet material to be removed.