JPH0680300A - Sorter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a drive transmitting mechanism which can stop a distributor provided to a sorter securely at a specific pin position. CONSTITUTION:A drive transmitting mechanism 60 to move the distributor of a sorter is composed of a motor 61, a driving side gear 62 connecting to the motor 61, a driven side gear 64 engaged to the gear 62, nontooth parts 62c and 64c provided to the gears 62 and 64, plural pins 63 and 63a provided to the driving side gear 62, an upper groove and a lower groove 65a and 65b provided to the driven side gear 64 which is engaged to the gear 62, a stopper which consists of a convex 62e at the driving side and a concave 65c at the driven side, formed in a circular arc of the same curvature, and a detector 68 to detect the driving of the driving side gear 62. One rotation of the driven side gear 64 makes one stroke of the distributor moving opposing to the neighboring pin.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a drive transmission means for a sorter which is connected to an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a printer to collect recording sheets.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a sorter connected to an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a printer has bins arranged in multiple stages in the vertical direction, and recorded sheets discharged from the image forming apparatus are binned in each bin. It is designed to be inserted one by one in order and collated.

As a distributing means for sequentially feeding the recording paper into each bin, for example, a distributor that reciprocates up and down along the inlet side of each fixed bin is used, and the distributor is sequentially arranged in each bin to be collected. The recording paper, which is moved and stopped and discharged from the image forming apparatus, is fed into each of the bins.

[0004]

However, recent sorters have a compact structure and the intervals between the bins arranged in a stack are set to be fairly narrow.

For this reason, as in the prior art, for example, a DC motor is used in the drive transmission mechanism for moving up and down the distributor, and if the drive is directly transmitted to the timing belt that suspends the distributor via the timing gear or the timing belt, the drive is transmitted to the predetermined bin. Even if you try to stop the distributor at the opposite position, when the motor that rotates at a relatively high speed is stopped, the rotation inertia causes a variation in the stop position. Therefore, the stop position of the distributor also varies and the recording paper is reliably fed into the bin. However, there is a problem in that it may not be possible to cause a jam in some cases. In addition, if a stepping motor is used to avoid this problem, the cost will naturally increase, and if a drive transmission mechanism uses a Senevar drive, the change in acceleration / deceleration of this mechanism is large, so not only noise due to impact but also life is shortened. Each has its own problems. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above problems and provide a sorter having a drive transmission mechanism capable of reliably stopping a distributor that moves at a relatively high speed with an inexpensive motor at a predetermined position. .

[0006]

This object is a sorter for supporting a distributor between a transport belt provided along the inlet side of a bin which is vertically stacked and arranged and a bin so as to be capable of reciprocating vertically. In, the drive-side gear that connects the distributor up-and-down drive to the drive source, the driven-side gear that meshes with the drive-side gear, and the toothless portion formed in a part of each gear The protrusion of the drive side gear and the groove of the driven side gear,
It is configured to have a stopper for the driven gear that is formed by the convex surface portion of the drive-side gear and the concave surface portion of the driven-side gear that are formed by arcs of the same curvature, and a detection unit that detects the stop position of the driving-side gear. This is achieved by a sorter characterized by using a star gear mechanism.

[0007]

1 is a side view showing the configuration of a distributor drive transmission mechanism of FIG. 1, a top view of FIG. 2, a side sectional view of a sorter having a distributor of FIG. 3, and FIG. It will be described with reference to a sectional view taken along the line XX shown in FIG. However, the present invention is not limited to this embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 3, the sorter 10 includes a conveyor belt 12 provided along the inlet side of the bins 51 which are vertically stacked and arranged, and a distributor 21 which reciprocates between the rows of the bins 51. It has a structure that supports vertical movement.

That is, the bins 51 are arranged on the casing 10c of the sorter 10 in order from the top by means (not shown).
········ Equipped with 51n at equal intervals.

The conveyor belt 12 includes a conveyor belt pulley 13a,
It is suspended on 13b as shown in the drawing, and is rotated clockwise when driven. The image forming apparatus 100
The recording paper on which the image has been formed is discharged from the sheet discharge port 100g of the image forming apparatus 100 and immediately inserted into the sheet receiving port 10g of the sorter 10, and the recording paper is conveyed by the conveyance roller 14 and the guide plate 16. Guided conveyor belt
It will be transported to the downward traveling section on the right side of 12.

The distributor 21 (see also FIG. 2) has a recording paper receiving member having a wide opening receiving port 23a in the upper part thereof, and is integrally attached to the distributor frame 22. And
A discharge port 23b is provided at the other end of the reception port 23a,
A pair of discharge rollers 30 that rotate in the direction of the arrow are arranged in contact with each other in the up-down direction so as to be adjacent to the discharge port 23b, and discharge the recording paper from the discharge port 23b in the direction of the arrow onto the bin 51. ing.

In FIG. 3, a conveyor belt pulley 13b is provided above the sorter 10 at both upper and lower ends in the longitudinal direction of the distributor frame 22.
Timing gear 29d and pulley 27a located on the right side of
Each end of a timing belt 28b, which is wound around 27b and a timing gear 29c located on the right side of the conveyor belt pulley 13a below the sorter 10, is connected and fixed as shown. The distributor frame 22 is suspended from above and below by pulling the timing belt 28b. Then, as shown in the figure, a drive transmission mechanism 60, which will be described later, transmits drive to a timing gear 29b that rotates integrally with the timing gear 29c, and moves the distributor 21 up and down to stop it at a position facing a predetermined bin. It is like this.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, a timing gear
29d is coaxially connected to the wire winding pulley 27. The wire 24 wound around the wire take-up pulley 27 is
a, 27b and wire receiver 26, and the tip is a wire spring
The wire spring 25 is attached to one end of the distributor 25, and the other end of the wire spring 25 is hooked on a bent portion of a stay (not shown) of the distributor frame 22. The wire spring 25 is a spring for applying an appropriate tension to the wire 24.

In this way, the distributor 21 drives the drive transmission mechanism.
Distributor 21 when driven up and down by 60
The wire take-up pulley 27 having the same diameter as that of the timing gear 29d that is rotated by the vertical drive is rotated, and the wire 24 is wound around the wire take-up pulley 27 while maintaining an appropriate tension. It will be rewound. That is, by driving the distributor 21 in the vertical direction, the tension with respect to the wire 24 is properly maintained regardless of the position of the bin 51 of the distributor 21.

Next, the position of the wire 24 in the section parallel to the conveyor belt 12 will be described.

In FIG. 4, a distributor frame of wires 24
In the present embodiment, the position of 22 with respect to the longitudinal direction is 8 as shown in the figure, such that there are four sets of four conveyor belts 12 and two sets of two conveyor belts 12 sandwiching the conveyor belts 12 from both sides.
A wire 24 of books is located. Further, again, the wire 2 with respect to the conveyance surface of the recording paper 101 of the conveyance belt
The position 4 is located inside the transport surface. FIG. 5 is a diagram in which this portion is extracted and shown in order to make this situation easy to understand. As shown in FIG.
Since the position 24 is located inside the conveying surface of the conveying belt 12 by the dimension e, as described above,
The recording paper 101 conveyed by the conveying roller 12, the guide roller 16 and the guide roller 16 is conveyed by sandwiching the recording paper 101 by the conveying belt 12 and the wire 24 as shown in the figure, and thus the conveyance is large and stable. You will be able to gain strength.

In the pressing roller unit 40, the pressing roller 41 is pivotally supported by the U-shaped plate 42, and the support shaft of the U-shaped plate 42 mounts the pressing spring 43 on the base 44 attached to the sorter frame 10f. It is designed to be inserted between them.
Although not shown, the rotating shaft of the pressing roller 41 is structured to be kept parallel to the rotating shafts of the conveyor belt pulleys 13a and 13b.

The pressing force for pressing the conveyor belt 12 of the pressing roller unit 40 from the inside is such that the conveyor belt 12 escapes due to the waist of the recording paper 101 when the conveyance of the recording paper 101 is changed by the distributor 21. It is the load of.

The pressing roller unit 40 presses the recording belt 101 from the inside of the conveyor belt 12 with a light load as described above, so that the recording paper 101 that has been sandwiched is conveyed when it is deflected by the distributor 21. The belt 12 loses the waist of the paper and escapes, so that stable conveyance can be obtained without causing stress, wrinkles, or folds in the paper.

The drive transmission mechanism 60 for vertically moving the distributor 21 according to the present invention is constructed as follows. As shown in FIG. 1, the drive transmission mechanism 60 includes a motor 61 that is a drive source,
A drive-side gear 62 which is rotationally transmitted via a worm gear 61a of the motor 61 and a drive-side worm gear 62a meshing with the worm gear 61a.
And toothless portions 62c and 64c provided on the gears 62 and 64, and an upper pin 63 and a lower pin 63a that are protrusions provided on the drive side gear 62 and a driven side gear 64 that meshes with the drive side gear 62. ,
A drive side gear formed with an arc having the same curvature as a locking plate 65 having an upper groove 65a and a lower groove 65b provided on the driven side gear 64.
A stopper 62d having a convex surface portion 62e integral with 62, a concave surface portion 65c formed at the tip of the engaging plate 65 of the driven gear 64,
A drive transmission timing belt 67 and a detection unit 68 that detects the stop position of the motor 61 are included.

The drive mechanism composed of such components is generally called a star gear mechanism.

On the bottom surface of the sorter 10, the lower part of the timing belt 28b is parallel to the support shaft of the timing gear 29c, and the support shaft 64b for supporting the driven gear 64 is provided on the right side of the support shaft 64b. The supporting shaft 62b is rotatably supported by a frame 10h standing on the bottom surface with a predetermined space therebetween. The motor 61 is attached to the frame (not shown) of the sorter 10 orthogonally to the support shafts 64b and 62b.

A worm gear 62a that meshes with a worm gear 61a integral with the motor 61 is integrally attached to the support shaft 62b, and the rotation of the motor 61 rotates the drive side gear 62 via the worm gears 61a and 62a. It is supposed to do. The drive-side gear 62 is provided with a toothless portion 62c in which a predetermined number of teeth are omitted as shown in the figure, and the upper pin, which is a protrusion as shown in the figure, is provided at each of two end portions of the toothless portion 62c. 63 and a lower pin 63a are symmetrically planted at a position in contact with the peripheral surface of the toothless portion 62c.

Further, each upper and lower pin 6 is attached to the drive side gear 62.
A stopper 62d is provided in the middle of 3, 63a, and a left end surface of the stopper 62d is formed with a convex surface portion 62e formed by a circular arc concentric with the drive gear 62, and its peripheral surface has pins 63, 63a.
It is set to be located inside the diameter of. The convex portion 62e of the stopper 62d serves as a rotation stopper for the driven gear 64, which will be described later. Driven gear that meshes with drive gear 62
64 is also provided with a toothless portion 64c as shown in the drawing, and a locking plate 65 having a concave surface portion 65c formed by an arc having a curvature equal to the curvature of the convex surface portion 62e of the stopper 62d is integrally attached. The concave surface portion 65c of the locking plate 65 and the convex surface portion 62e of the stopper 62d face each other at the home position of the drive side gear 62 and the driven side gear 64 in the stop position shown in the figure, and are in sliding contact with each other with a slight gap. It has become.

On both upper and lower surfaces (FIG. 1) of the locking plate 65, there are provided a flat portion on which the upper and lower pins 63, 63a abut, an upper groove 65a and a lower groove 65b having an abduction cycloid curve as a center line, and a driving side. When starting the gear 62, each pin 6
The rotations are transmitted to the driven gear 64 by engagement of 3, 63a. The upper pin 63 rotates the driven gear 64 clockwise when the driving gear 62 rotates counterclockwise (distributor).
21 is lowered), and the lower pin 63a is engaged with the lower groove 65b when the drive side gear 62 is rotated clockwise, and the driven side gear 64 is rotated counterclockwise (the distributor 21 is raised). .

Then, the driven gear 64 rotates to rotate the driven gear.
The gear ratio of the gears 62, 64, the positions of the tooth-missing portions 62c, 64c and the tooth-missing amount thereof so that the driven-side gear 64 returns to the home position shown in FIG. Is set. A timing gear 66 is integrally attached to the support shaft 64a, and the timing gear 66 and the timing gear 66 are
The timing belt 67 is wound around 29b, and the rotation of the motor 61 rotates the timing belt 28b that suspends the distributor 21 via the belt 67. And motor
A detection unit 68 for stopping the rotation of 61 is composed of an encoder 68a attached to the support shaft 62a and a known photo sensor 68b, and a notch 68c formed at a predetermined position of the encoder 68a is provided as a photo sensor 68b. Is detected, the power source (not shown) of the motor 61 is turned off. Then, one rotation of the driven gear 64 is a stroke for moving the distributor 21 to the next adjacent bin 51.

Then, as shown in FIG. 1, in the home position of the gears 62, 64 at the stop position, the toothless portions 62c, 64 are formed.
c, the concave surface portion 65c of the locking plate 65, and the convex surface portion 62e of the stopper 62d.
And the upper groove 65a and the upper pin 63 face each other at the upper side and the lower groove 65b and the lower pin 63a face at the lower side, and the upper pin 63 and the lower pin 63a stand by for the next operation. is doing.

The operation of the drive transmission mechanism 60 having the above structure will be described below. From the stop position of each gear 62, 64 in the home position of FIG.
When lowering the motor 61, the motor 61 is rotated in the clockwise direction and the drive-side gear 62 is stopped through the worm gears 61a and 62a.
The convex surface portion 62e of d rotates counterclockwise while slidingly contacting the concave surface portion 65c of the locking plate 65. Then, when the upper pin 63 rotating in the same direction contacts the upper groove 65a of the locking plate 65 and rotates the driven gear 64 clockwise, passing through the toothless portions 62c and 64c of each other, and reaches a predetermined rotation amount. The teeth of the gears 62 and 64 mesh with each other to continue rotation, and the upper pin 63 separates from the upper groove 65a.

Therefore, the timing belt 28b suspending the distributor 21 is rotated downward through the timing belt 67 rotating clockwise and the timing gears 29b and 29c to lower the distributor 21. Then, the drive-side gear 62 and the driven-side gear 64 further rotate, the toothless portions 62c and 64c provided on them respectively move upward, and the gears 62 and 64 are disengaged from each other. At the same time, the driven-side gear 64 is at the home position. Return to and become free and stop.

At this time, the driven gear 64 does not rotate in the rotating direction because the concave surface portion 65c of the locking plate 65 contacts the convex surface portion 62e of the stopper 62d of the drive gear 62. And the driven gear 64
Stopping causes the distributor 21 to stop at a position facing the predetermined bin 51.

On the other hand, the drive gear 62 rotating on the other hand turns off the power of the motor 61 when the notch 68c of the encoder 68a provided at a predetermined position reaches the photo sensor 68b and is detected.
Then, the drive side gear 62 stops. Incidentally, in order to raise the distributor 21 sequentially contrary to the above, it is achieved by rotating the motor 61 in the reverse direction (clockwise rotation).

Since the drive transmission mechanism 60 is configured as described above, even if the drive-side gear 62 may stop after being displaced from a predetermined position, the drive-side gear 62 is determined without affecting the stop position of the driven-side gear 64. Since the distributor 21 is stopped and positioned at a predetermined position, the distributor 21 is always reliably stopped at a position facing the predetermined bin 51.

Therefore, an inexpensive DC motor can be used for the drive transmission mechanism 60 without using an expensive stepping motor, which is extremely advantageous in terms of cost.

[0034]

Since the distributor is moved up and down by the drive transmission mechanism of the present invention, even if the stop position of the drive-side gear varies, the distributor always faces the predetermined bin without affecting the up-and-down driving of the distributor. It can be reliably stopped at the position. Moreover, since an inexpensive DC motor can be used as the drive source, it is extremely advantageous in terms of cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing a configuration of a drive transmission mechanism of a distributor according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a top view of the above.

FIG. 3 is a side sectional view of a sorter including a distributor.

4 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line XX shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a positional relationship among a conveyor belt, wires, and recording paper.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Sorter 12 Conveyor belt 21 Distributor 24 Wire 28b Timing belt 51 Bin 60 Drive transmission mechanism 61 Motor 62 Drive side gear 62d Stopper 62e Convex part 63 Upper pin 63a Lower pin 64 Driven side gear 62c, 64c Missing part 65 Locking plate 65a Upper groove 65b Lower groove 65c Recessed surface 68a Encoder 68b Sensor

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Hisao Hosoya 2970 Ishikawa-cho, Hachioji, Tokyo Konica stock company (72) Inventor Akihiko Nishiki 2970 Ishikawa-cho, Hachioji, Tokyo Konica stock company (72) Inventor Keisuke Tanaka 2970 Ishikawa-cho, Hachioji City, Tokyo Konica Stock Company

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A sorter in which a distributor is reciprocally and vertically movable between a conveyor belt provided along an inlet side of a bin vertically stacked and arranged, and the bin is lifted and lowered. A drive-side gear that connects a drive to a drive source, a driven-side gear that meshes with the drive-side gear, a toothless portion that is formed in a part of each gear, and a protrusion of the drive-side gear that engages with each other during driving. And the groove portion of the driven gear, the stopper of the driven gear formed by the convex surface portion of the driving gear and the concave surface portion of the driven gear formed by the arc of the same curvature, and the detection unit for detecting the stop position of the driving gear A sorter characterized by using a star-shaped gear mechanism configured with.