JPH0597261A - Controller for sheet feeder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obviate the confirmation work of a worker and carry out copying work with no erroneous copying by electrically-detecting whether the sheets in a cassette are interposed or not to eliminate a manually fed sheet automatically at the time of manual sheet feed with a cassette set in. CONSTITUTION:At the time of manual sheet feed with a cassette set in, clipping of sheets in a cassette is judged for detecting the existence of sheet by a manual size sensor 302 adjacent to a feed roller before the sheet is set, and non- existence of sheet is detected by the manual end sensor 300 of a manual table, and only a feed roller is rotated in a direction opposite to a sheet feed direction with the reverse rotation of a motor 101 through a microcomputer 700 and the interposed sheet is automatically returned to the cassette to be discharged for subsequent copying work, thus avoiding erroneous copying in advance.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a cassette sheet feeding device for performing a cassette sheet feeding and a manual sheet feeding in the same feeding path in a copier, etc. The present invention relates to a control device that controls so as to prevent erroneous copying due to pinching of a sheet.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a paper feeding device of this type, a friction separating roller system having a feed roller rotating in a paper feeding direction and a separate roller paired with the feed roller and driven in reverse through a torque limiter is known. It is well known.
In this system, for example, the sheets accumulated and stored in the cassette are sequentially sent from the top to the nip between the feed roller and the separate roller by the pull feed roller, and in the case of double feeding, they are separated into the inside of the apparatus main body. It is configured to feed sheets one by one.

In such a friction separation roller system, since the multi-fed paper is separated at the nip portion between the feed roller and the separate roller, the paper left after separation is held in the nip portion. Sometimes. Also,
For a paper having a relatively large inter-paper frictional force, such as recycled paper, the difference in frictional force from the inter-paper frictional force at the seam of the paper becomes large. For this reason, about 3 to 5 sheets of paper may be conveyed from the pickup roller to the feed roller in a double-fed state, and may be nipped by the feed roller and the separate roller in a nip.

In this case, as long as the same sheet feeding of the cassette or the manual feeding is continuously performed, the remaining sheets in the nip are sequentially fed without any trouble. By the way, in a copying machine configured to carry out cassette feeding and manual feeding by the same feeding path, if the manual feeding is performed in the state of remaining sheets at the time of cassette feeding, the following problems occur. .. That is, since the cassette paper is already left in the nip between the feed roller and the separate roller,
Even if an attempt is made to convey paper of different sizes and paper types during manual paper feeding, the remaining paper in the nip is conveyed first, which causes miscopying.

Therefore, as a method of solving the above-mentioned problem of the residual paper of the friction separation roller system, the feed roller and the separate roller are temporarily reversed after the paper is fed, and the residual paper of the cassette paper sandwiched in the nip is cassette. The method of returning to is proposed.

[0006]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional method for returning the remaining paper, it is always possible to surely return if the number of sheets to be sandwiched is one. When two or more sheets are nipped as in the case of double feeding, which occurs in step 2, the contact pressure of the separate roller is set to be relatively weak, so that the sheet may not be completely returned. In this case, since the contact pressure of the separate roller is determined by the sheet feeding condition, it cannot be changed because increasing the contact pressure causes defective feeding.

Therefore, when using the manual feed,
The method of checking whether the paper is nipped in the nip between the feed roller and the separate roller each time can be applied to all cassette paper feeding. However, since the position of the feed roller and the like is inside the main body of the apparatus, it is necessary to remove the cassette once for confirmation, which is very troublesome and there is a problem that workability is deteriorated. It was

The present invention has been made in view of this point, and in the case of manually feeding a sheet with the cassette set, the presence or absence of the sandwiched cassette sheet is electrically detected and automatically discarded, and the operator The purpose is to make it possible to perform copy work without anxiety, and without making a mistake.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention has a cassette and a manual feed table set together in a feed path having a pair of feed roller, separate roller and pickup roller. In a paper feeding device that feeds paper from one side, a motor that is connected to a feed roller and is driven to rotate in a paper feeding direction and a non-paper feeding direction,
A first detection device arranged near the feed roller to detect the presence / absence of paper in that portion, a second detection device to detect the presence / absence of paper on the manual feed table, and a first detection device when using manual paper feed And a microcomputer which processes the signal of the second detection device and, in the case of nipping the cassette paper, rotates the motor in the direction opposite to the paper feeding direction to remove the nipping paper.

[0010]

According to the above construction, when the cassette is set in the feeding path having one set of feed roller, separate roller, and pickup roller, the paper in the cassette is fed and the copying operation is performed. By opening and setting, the sheets on the manual feed table are fed by the same feeding path and the copying operation is performed in the same manner. When using the manual feed, for example, it is determined that the first detection device has paper before the paper is set and that the second detection device has no paper to pinch the cassette paper. In this case, a motor is used. In reverse rotation, only the feed roller rotates in the direction opposite to the paper feed direction, and the sandwiched paper is automatically removed so as to return to the cassette, and the copy operation is controlled after that, and miscopy is avoided in advance. Like

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. Referring to FIG. 1, the drive system of the friction separation sheet feeder will be described.
1, the motor shaft 102 of the motor 101 is connected to the feed roller shaft 104 of the feed roller 105 via the shaft joint 103. When the cassette 101 is fed, the motor 101 rotates in the forward direction to rotate the feed roller 105 in the sheet feeding direction indicated by the arrow. When the sheet is nipped during manual feeding, the motor 101 rotates in the reverse direction to feed the feed roller 105. Is designed to rotate in the direction opposite to the paper feed direction.

A gear 107 is mounted on the feed roller shaft 104 via a one-way clutch 106 which becomes free when the feed roller shaft 104 rotates in the reverse direction.
08, meshes with the gear 109 of the pickup roller shaft 111 of the pickup roller 110, and the motor 10
The forward rotation of 1 also causes the pickup roller 110 to rotate in the paper feed direction indicated by the arrow. Between the pickup roller shaft 111 and the gear 109, a one-way clutch 112 that is free when the pickup roller 110 reverses is provided. Further, as shown in FIG.
0 is held by the solenoid 200 via the spring 201. Then, when the solenoid 200 is turned on, the pickup roller 110 is lifted and separated from the sheet, and when the solenoid 200 is turned off, the pickup roller 110 is lowered and comes into pressure contact with the sheet.

On the other hand, there is a gear 113 which rotates in the clockwise direction indicated by the arrow by the drive source.
It is connected to a gear 116 via a torque limiter drive shaft 115. The gear 116 meshes with the gear 117 on the drive side of the torque limiter 118, and the separate roller 120 is fixed to the driven shaft 119 of the torque limiter 118. By this, the torque limiter 118 is driven at the time of paper feeding and the separate roller 120 is driven. A constant torque is applied in the direction opposite to the sheet feeding direction indicated by the dashed arrow.

A sheet feeding unit in which the cassette and the manual feed table are mounted will be described with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6. Reference numeral 500 denotes a paper feeding unit, and this paper feeding unit 50
The feed roller 105, the separate roller 120 and the pickup roller 110 are provided inside
The cassette 510 is inserted immediately below this feeding path. Further, a manual feeding table 520 is arranged just above the cassette of the paper feeding unit 500, and paper can be fed through the same feeding path.

The cassette 510 has a rising arm 511 inside.
It has a bottom plate 512, a back fence 513, and so on, and a large amount of sheets S are accumulated and stored. When the cassette 510 is attached to the sheet feeding unit 500 and is in the cassette sheet feeding mode, the raising arm 511 is rotated by the arm shaft 501 to raise the leading edge of the sheet S together with the bottom plate 512 as shown in FIG. The upper surface of the sheet S contacts the pickup roller 110. Then, when the upper surface of the sheet S and the pickup roller 110 reach the sheet feeding position, the sensor (not shown) stops the raising, and thereafter, the raising arm 511 rotates every time the position of the pickup roller 110 is lowered by the sheet feeding. Thus, the height of the upper surface of the paper S is kept constant.

The manual feed table 520 has an auxiliary plate 52 at its tip.
1 and is rotatably mounted by the shaft 502 of the support member 522 between the upper closed position in FIG. 5 and the substantially horizontal lower paper feeding position in FIG. When the manual feed table 520 is opened, it is switched to the manual feed mode by a changeover switch (not shown), the solenoid 200 is turned on and the pickup roller 110 is lifted, the arm shaft 501 rotates in the opposite direction to the above, and the raising arm 511 of the cassette 510 is rotated. , Bottom plate 5
12. The paper S is lowered. As a result, the auxiliary plate 521 of the manual feed table 520 is guided by the unit side plate rail and can enter the paper feed position without colliding with the pickup roller 110 or the like.

Further, on the manual feed table 520, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, a manual feed end sensor 300 is arranged with a paper detection filler 301. Then, the filler 301 when the paper G is on the manual feed table 520
The presence or absence of the paper G is detected by the sensor 300 detecting the upside down state of the sheet and the standing state of the filler 301 when there is no sheet.

Next, the paper feeding operation of the paper feeding device 100 will be described. First, the case of cassette feeding will be described. By rotating the manual feed table 520 upward and closing it, the cassette feeding mode is set. Then, the upper surface of the paper S inside the cassette 510 rises and comes into pressure contact with the pickup roller 110 that descends when the solenoid 200 is turned off, and both are set at the paper feed position so that the paper can be fed.

Then, when the start button is turned on, the motor 101 rotates in the normal direction and the feed roller shaft 104 causes the feed roller 105 to rotate in the sheet feeding direction. At this time,
The one-way clutches 106 and 112 are integrated, and the motor power is also transmitted to the pickup roller shaft 111 via the gears 107, 108 and 109, whereby the pickup roller 110 also rotates in the paper feeding direction and the paper in the cassette 510 is rotated. The upper part of S is sent out. Also, during this paper feeding,
Power from another drive source is transmitted to the gear 113 and thereafter and input to the torque limiter 118.

Therefore, when one sheet S enters the feed roller 105 by the pickup roller 110 at the time of the above-mentioned sheet feeding, the torque limiter 1 is caused by a large frictional force in this case.
When 18 is turned off, the separate roller 120 is also rotated in the sheet feeding direction, and thus the sheet is normally fed. On the other hand, when two or more sheets S enter the feed roller 105 as shown in FIG. 2, a small frictional force between the sheets acts on the separate roller 120. Therefore, the torque limiter 1
When 18 is turned on, torque is applied in the direction opposite to the sheet feeding direction. Therefore, the frictional separating action of the separate roller 120 prevents the feeding of the second and subsequent sheets S, and thus the sheets S are separated one by one and stably fed, and in this case, the double fed sheets separated and left. S ′ is sandwiched and held in the nip between the feed roller 105 and the separate roller 120.

Next, the case of manual paper feeding will be described. In this case, when the manual feed table 520 is rotated downward and opened, the mode is switched to the manual feed mode, and the solenoid 200 is turned on as shown in FIG.
The auxiliary plate 521 enters the sheet feeding position in a state where the sheet is once raised. Then, as shown in FIG. 4, when the sheet G is set on the manual feed table 520 and the sheet is detected by the manual feed end sensor 300, the solenoid 200 is turned off and the pickup roller 110 is pressed onto and fixed on the sheet G. The paper can be fed in this way. Therefore, when the start button is turned on, the feed roller 105 and the pickup roller 110 rotate due to the normal rotation of the motor 101, and torque is applied to the separate roller 120. Then, in this manual feed, a plurality of sheets G that enter the feed roller 105 in the double feed state are separated and fed one by one by the separate roller 120.

Next, the control device of the paper feeding device 100 will be described. First, the entire control system will be described with reference to FIG. 7, which is mainly configured by the microcomputer 700 and has a manual feed size sensor 302, a manual feed end sensor 300, and a manual feed open / close sensor 701 as a sensor group used in the manual feed mode. ..

The manual feed size sensor 302 is arranged immediately before the feed roller 105 as shown in FIG. In this sensor 302, for example, as shown in FIG. 8, three reflective photosensors 801, 802, 803 are linearly arranged at a predetermined interval, and those photosensors 80 are arranged.
1, 802 and 803 are connected in parallel. The photo sensors 801 and 8 are provided only in the manual feed mode.
02 and 803 are scanned, and the size of the manual paper G is detected by the combination of the output signals.

On the other hand, in the manual feed mode, the manual feed table 5
There is a waiting time until the sheet G is set after closing 20. At this time, the photosensors 801, 802, 803 detect the state immediately before the feed roller 105, but the sheet S ″ of the cassette feeding is temporarily sandwiched. In this case, the sheet S ″ bends downward as shown in FIG. 3, but the distance from the photosensors 801, 802, 803 is short. The outputs of the photosensors 801, 802, 803 change depending on the distance, but the distance to the sandwiched paper S ″ is short and sufficient detection is possible.
Before the sheet G is set on the sheet 20, it has a function of detecting the presence or absence of the sheet S ″ sandwiched by using the time.

The manual feed end sensor 300 detects the presence or absence of the paper G on the manual feed table 520, as described above. The manual feed open / close sensor 701 is provided on the manual feed table 520.
The open / closed state of is detected to detect whether the manual feed mode is set or off. And these sensors 302, 300, 7
The signal 01 is input to the microcomputer 700.

As the sensor group used in the cassette mode, there are a cassette set sensor 702 for detecting whether or not the cassette 510 is set, a cassette remaining amount detection sensor 703 for detecting the remaining amount of the paper S in the cassette 510, and a paper size. It has a cassette size sensor 704 for detecting and also inputs these sensor signals to the microcomputer 700.

In addition to the above-mentioned sensors, the microcomputer 700 receives signals from the paper feed sensor 705, the mode selection key 711 of the operation panel 710, the copy key 712, etc., determines the cassette mode or the manual feed mode, The transport mechanism 720 is driven, the main body mechanism section 721 is controlled, and various messages are displayed on the display 713. In addition, the copy key 7
The motor 101 is rotated in the paper feeding direction by the operation 12 and the motor 101 is temporarily rotated in the reverse direction when it is determined that the cassette paper is pinched at the time of switching from the cassette paper feeding to the manual paper feeding.

Next, the operation in the manual feed mode will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, the paper feed mode is checked (S1), and if the manual feed table 520 is in the closed cassette mode, the process proceeds to mode 1. On the other hand, when the manual feed table 520 is opened, the manual feed open / close sensor 70
When detected by 1, the manual feed mode is determined, and the cassette set state is checked by the cassette set sensor 702 (S2). If the cassette is not set, the mode 2 is entered. On the other hand, if there is a risk of remaining paper when the cassette is set and the cassette is fed, the presence or absence of data from the manual feed size sensor 302 is checked (S3).

Here, as described above, the paper feeding device 1
If there is no double feed when the cassette paper is fed in No. 00, there is no cassette paper in the portion of the feed roller 105. Further, in the initial stage of the manual feed mode, the paper G is not yet set on the manual feed table 520. Therefore, in this paper feed state, the manual feed size sensor 302 detects the absence of data and instructs the paper set (S5).

By the way, in the above cassette feeding, when recycled paper or the like is used, it may be double-fed due to a large inter-paper frictional force. In this case, as shown in FIG. 3, the cassette sheet S ″ is sandwiched in advance by the feed roller 105, and therefore the presence of data is detected by the manual feed size sensor 302 before setting the paper. On the other hand, in this manual feed mode, the manual feed table is used. In some cases, the manual feed size sensor 302 detects the presence of data, and the manual feed size sensor 302 detects the presence of data. The presence or absence of paper is checked (S4) to determine whether the paper is present, that is, when the presence of paper is detected by the manual feed end sensor 300, the determination by the manual feed size sensor 302 is normal. The size of the manual paper G is detected by determining that it is a set (S8).

On the other hand, although the manual feed size sensor 302 detects the presence of paper, the manual feed end sensor 30
When 0 is detected, it is decided that the double-fed cassette paper S ″ is pinched, as shown in FIG. 3. In this case, the copy is performed by the miscopy prevention routine of mode 4. The operation is prohibited (S12), and the motor 101 is driven in reverse (S13).
The reverse power of 1 is transmitted to the feed roller 105,
The one-way clutch 106 is released, and the gear 107 and the subsequent parts are held in a stopped state.
A conveying force in the direction opposite to the sheet feeding direction acts only on the sheet 5, and the cassette sheet S ″ held between the feed rollers 105 is fed to the cassette 51.
Removed back to zero. Such reverse driving of the motor 101 is repeated until the cassette sheet S ″ is completely removed, and thus miscopy can be avoided in advance.

When it is determined that the cassette sheet S ″ is removed (S14), the routine returns to the normal manual feed mode operation routine of the mode 3. In this case, since the sandwiching of the cassette sheet is released, the above-mentioned operation is performed. It is determined that the normal state has been restored (S3, S4), and the display 713 instructs to set the paper on the manual feed table 520 (S5).
After that, as shown in FIG. 4, the paper G is set on the manual feed table 520 and is judged (S6), the presence of paper is confirmed by the manual feed end sensor 300 (S7), and the paper size is detected by the manual feed size sensor 302 ( S8),
Manual feed is possible.

Therefore, the copy key 712 is checked and O
If the answer is N (S9), the sheet is conveyed by the same feeding path as the cassette sheet feeding as described above, and the copy operation in the manual feed mode is performed (S10). Then, the copy end is checked, the paper G on the manual feed table 520 is removed, and the manual feed table 520 is closed again. Then, the copy end is judged and the operation in the manual feed mode is finished (S11).

Table 1 shown in FIG. 10 collectively shows the output states of the respective sensors and the state of the paper in the operation of the manual feed mode.

In this way, in the paper feeding device 100 that performs cassette paper feeding and manual paper feeding in the same feeding path, the time before the paper G is set is used every time the manual paper feeding mode is switched in the cassette set state. Then, the manual size sensor 3
02 and the manual feed end sensor 300 detect the sheet. The combination of the signals from both sensors 302 and 300 can be used to electrically detect the presence or absence of the sandwiched cassette paper S ″ in advance, and the result can be displayed to the operator so that miscopying is prevented. become.

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention,
In a paper feeding device that performs cassette paper feeding and manual paper feeding in the same feeding path, when manual paper feeding is used in a cassette set state, whether or not the cassette paper is pinched is determined in advance,
In the case of the nipping state, the feed roller is reversely driven by the motor, so that the cassette paper can be surely returned to the cassette. Therefore, when using manual paper feeding, there is no paper to be pinched by the feed roller, so it is not necessary for the operator to check the pinching state one by one.
Workability is improved and you never forget to check. Further, by such control, miscopying can be avoided in advance, and the copying operation can be performed efficiently with peace of mind. Particularly, the paper feeding device is provided with a mechanism for removing the residual paper when feeding the cassette. It is effective when it does not function sufficiently in such cases. Since a motor is attached to the drive system of the feed roller and the motor is configured to perform forward rotation and reverse rotation to perform paper feeding and returning of the sandwiched paper, the structure and control are simplified.

Whether or not the cassette paper is nipped is determined by using the time before the paper is set on the manual feed table, so that workability is not impaired. Since this determination is made by combining the signals of the manual feed size sensor near the feed roller and the manual feed end sensor of the manual feed table, the determination accuracy and reliability are high. Since the manual feed size sensor has a function of detecting the paper size and the sandwiched paper, a new sensor is not required, which is advantageous in terms of cost and space.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a drive system of a sheet feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side view showing a cassette sheet feeding state of the sheet feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a side view showing a state where a cassette sheet is pinched when the sheet feeding device according to the present invention is switched from cassette sheet feeding to manual sheet feeding.

FIG. 4 is a side view showing a manual sheet feeding state of the sheet feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view showing a cassette paper feeding unit of the paper feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view showing a paper feeding unit in manual paper feeding of the paper feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a control device of the paper feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of a manual feed size sensor in the control device of the paper feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the operation of the manual feeding mode in the control device of the paper feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a table showing an output state of each sensor and a sheet state in the operation of the manual feed mode.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 Paper Feeding Device 101 Motor 105 Feed Roller 110 Pickup Roller 120 Separate Roller 510 Cassette 520 Manual Feed Table 302 Manual Feed Size Sensor 300 Manual Feed End Sensor 700 Microcomputer

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification number Office reference number FI technical display location B65H 11/00 J 7111-3F G03G 15/00 109 7369-2H

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A sheet feeding device in which a cassette and a manual feed table are set together in a feeding path having a set of a feed roller, a separate roller and a pickup roller, and is fed from either one of them is connected to the feed roller. A motor that is driven to rotate in the paper feed direction and the opposite paper feed direction,
A first detection device arranged near the feed roller to detect the presence / absence of paper in that portion, a second detection device to detect the presence / absence of paper on the manual feed table, and a first detection device when using manual paper feed A paper feeding device, comprising: a microcomputer for processing a signal from the second detection device and, in the case of nipping a cassette paper, rotating a motor in a direction opposite to the paper feeding direction to remove the nipping paper. Control device. 2. The first detecting device is provided with a function of detecting whether or not a cassette sheet is pinched before setting the sheet and manually detecting the sheet size after setting the sheet when the sheet is manually fed. The control device for the sheet feeding device according to claim 1. 3. The microcomputer according to claim 1, wherein the first detection device detects the presence of the paper before the paper is set when the manual feeding is used, and the second detection device detects the absence of the paper on the manual feeding table. If the cassette paper is pinched, the motor is rotated in the direction opposite to the paper feed direction to automatically discard the pinched paper, and after the cassette paper has been rejected, the paper is set and the paper is set on the manual feed table. The control device for the sheet feeding device according to claim 1, wherein after the printing is performed, the first detection device is controlled to detect the paper size. 4. The feed roller is connected to a motor capable of forward / reverse rotation so as to always transmit power, the pickup roller is connected to transmit motor power to the motor only during paper feeding, and the separate roller is a torque limiter. 2. The control device for the paper feeding device according to claim 1, wherein the control device is connected to another drive source via the.