JPH078362U - Sorter - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] (Modified) [Objective] This invention is a sorter having a multi-layered bin, and when the sheets stored in the bin are taken out, the rear part of the bin is lifted by hand or the bin is unnecessarily loaded. It is an object of the present invention to provide a sorter which is small in size without requiring a large interval, and which can easily take out sheets stored in a bin. [Structure] A bin shifting unit 30 is provided for varying the position of the edge of the entire bin 20 on the paper ejection side when the paper is oriented and when ejecting the stored paper.

Description

[Detailed description of the device]

[0001]

[Industrial applications]

 The present invention relates to a sorter including a plurality of bins arranged in multiple stages and an orienting means for orienting the relative position of these bins in sequence and orienting the paper to a desired bin. It is used to collect discharged sheets from the image forming device and sort or sort them.

[0002]

[Prior art]

 Along with the increase in the processing capacity of image forming apparatuses such as copying machines, the necessity of processing a large number of sheets for sorting, sorting, or the like is increasing. In order to serve such a processing purpose, a plurality of bottles are stacked at appropriate intervals and a sorter having various types of orientation means is used.

As an example of such a sorter, U. S. Pat. 4332377 (JP-A-57-141357).

In this sorter, the position of the orienting means (transport path) is not changed, and the position of the leading end of the bin is relatively sequentially moved by a special mechanism so that the paper is orientated. At the rear of the bin, a thick bearing member is fitted to maintain the space between the bins, and the bearing member is attached to the bearing member to open the bin upward so that the stored sheets can be taken out.

The above sorter is suitable for downsizing due to its simple mechanism, and has a feature that it can be manufactured at low cost.

[0006]

[Problems to be solved by the device]

 However, even with the above sorter, when removing the paper stored in the bin, the rear part of the bin must be lifted by hand, and if the upper bin is the only one, the paper in the lower bin must be removed. , It is very troublesome to stack and lift all the upper bottles.

Even when the sheet is oriented by the orienting means that fixes the bin side and moves relatively, the bin interval must be increased more than necessary in order to make it easy to take out the sheet. There was a problem that it was against the demand for miniaturization.

In view of these conventional problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a sorter that minimizes the bin interval to contribute to downsizing, and that can easily take out the paper stored in the bin. It is a thing.

[0009]

[Means for Solving the Problems]

 The above object can be achieved by the following sorter according to the present invention. (1) In a sorter comprising a plurality of bins provided in a multi-stage manner and an orienting means for orienting the paper to a desired bin by sequentially controlling the relative positions of these bins, A sorter equipped with bin shifting means that changes the position of the edge on the paper ejection side of all bins when the paper is oriented and when ejecting stored paper. (2) In a sorter comprising a plurality of bins provided in multiple stages and an orienting means for orienting the paper to a desired bin by sequentially controlling the relative positions of these bins, Bin shifting means that changes the position of the edge on the paper ejection side of all bins when the paper is oriented and when ejecting the stored paper, and when all bins are moved by the bin shifting means, the distance between adjacent bins And a bin spacing holding means for holding the sorter.

[0010]

【Example】

 An embodiment of the invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, the sorter 10 has a frame 11 on which a plurality of bins 20 are provided in multiple stages.

As shown in the figure, the frame body 11 is composed of two parts, that is, frame bodies 11A and 11B. Of these, the frame body 11B faces the paper exit 1 of the copying machine F which is an image forming apparatus, and is appropriately It is fixed to the sheet discharge port 1 by the means. A paper ejection roller pair 2 and a paper ejection sensor 3 for detecting the paper p to be ejected are disposed at the paper ejection port 1 of the copying machine F.

The frame 11A is provided with an orienting roller unit 40 which is movable in the up-down direction by a driving unit (not shown) along the sheet entrance side end of the bin 20.

The orienting roller unit 40 has a roller frame 41 provided with a pair of orienting rollers 42, and is rotationally driven by a driving means (not shown).

A paper receiving guide A 43 for guiding the paper p to the alignment roller pair 42 is swingably supported on the roller frame 41 of the alignment roller unit 40.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 1, on the frame body 11B, there is arranged a paper receiving guide B44 which is pivotally supported on the side facing the paper discharge port 1 of the copying machine F and whose other end is opened in the paper receiving guide A43. It is set up.

With the above-described structure, as shown in FIG. 1, the paper receiving guide A43 and the paper receiving guide B44 move freely between the positions indicated by the solid line and the broken line in conjunction with the vertical movement of the orientation roller unit 40. It is like this.

On the other hand, the bin 20 is controlled in time by a not-illustrated bin interval control means along a guide groove 31b formed in a swinging member 31 of a bin shifting means 30 described later, so that the paper p can be removed as shown in FIG. The space between the receiving bins 20 is opened.

The orientation roller unit 40, the sheet receiving guide A43, the sheet receiving guide B44, and the bin interval control means (not shown) constitute the sheet p orientation means.

Next, the configuration of the bin 20 will be described.

As shown in FIG. 1, the bin 20 includes a bottom portion 21 that receives the sheet p and a leading edge support portion 22 that supports the leading edge of the sheet p. For convenience of explanation, the bins 20 will be referred to as the first bin 20 ₁ , the second bin 20 ₂ and so on from the top.

The leading edge and the trailing edge (including the rear portion) of the sheet p are defined with a mushroom.

The sheet is supplied from the copying machine F and enters each bin 20 from the sheet receiving guide A 43 and the sheet receiving guide B 44 by the orientation roller pair 42. During the orientation of the sheet, the sheet p moves in its traveling direction. The front end is the front end and the rear part is the rear end. After being stored in the bin 20, the above-mentioned trailing end is opposite, and the rear side of the bin 20 is referred to as the trailing or trailing end of the sheet p and the leading end support portion 22 side is referred to as the leading end. Relatedly, the side of the sorter 10 facing the copying machine F as a whole is regarded as the front part, and the opposite side is regarded as the rear part, and the same applies to the respective constituent members of the sorter 10.

Now, a plan view of the bottle 20 is shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, the bottom portion 21 is provided with a large notch 21a so that the rear portion of the sheet can be pushed out regardless of the size and is convenient for taking out. In the figure, a large size sheet p ₁ and a small size sheet p ₂ are shown for reference.

As will be described later, at both ends of the bottom portion 21 of the bottle 20, a bin interval holding means for holding the bin interval d constant when moving the overlapping of the bins 20 stacked in multiple stages by the bin shifting means 30. A bin interval holding member 23 is provided so as to project.

Further, a pair of engaging projection members 24 are projected from both side edges of the bottom portion 21 near the tip support portion 22. The function and the like of the engaging projection member 24 will be described below with reference to the bin shifting means 30.

As shown in FIG. 1, the bottle shifting means 30 has a base portion pivotally supported by the frame body 11A so as to be swingable, and a swinging member 31 having a meshing portion 31a at an upper portion and the meshing portion 31a. It comprises a small gear 32 for tilting the swinging member 31 in a timely manner, a coaxial pulley 33, a belt 34, and a drive motor 35. Of course, the pinion gear 32, the drive motor 35, and the like are fixed to the frame body 11.

A guide groove 31 b for guiding the engaging projection member 24 of the bottle 20 is bored in the swing member 31. The guide groove 31b has a function of freely guiding the engaging projection member 24 to change the overlap of the bottle 20 when the swinging member 31 swings, and as shown in FIG. 1 by a bottle opening control means (not shown). It has already been explained that it will guide the user to open the space between the bins that receive the paper.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 2 and 3A, 3B.

It is well known that the sorter has a collating mode in which the sheets p are stored in the page order of the document and a sorting mode in which the pages are sorted.

[0031] When thus the collating mode is selected, the sheet p is sent from the copying machine F, after housing the first page of the first sheet to the first bin 20 ₁ 1, also the In order to store the second sheet of the first page, the first bin 20 ₁ is moved up to the position of the imaginary line in FIG. 1 by the bin opening control means (not shown), and the orientation roller unit 40 is moved down one step to the first position. The paper is placed in a position between the bin 20 ₁ and the second bin 20 _2, and the second paper is stored in the second bin 20 ₂ . In this way, the n-th sheet is sequentially stored, and the first sheet of the second page is sequentially stored from the n-th bin 20 _n (not necessarily the bottom bin) upward. The n-th paper is stored in the bin 20 ₁ . When the desired pages have been stored in this way, all the bins 20 are once lowered and stacked, and the stored sheets are taken out from the rear of each bin 20. At this time, the bin shifting means 30 of the present invention is used. To use.

During the above-described orientation operation, the paper receiving guide A43 swings from the solid line to the broken line in FIG. 1 in conjunction with the vertical movement of the orientation roller unit 40, and the paper receiving guide B44 follows this swing. Similarly, the paper p is guided by swinging from the solid line to the broken line.

First, as shown in FIG. 3A, the drive motor 35 is operated to rotate the belt 34 and the pulley 33 in the clockwise direction in the figure with all the bins 20 containing the sheets being lowered. Then, the small gear 32 moves the meshing portion 31a of the swinging member 31 to the left in the drawing, and eventually rotates the swinging member 31 counterclockwise by the angle θ as shown in FIG. 3B.

Due to the above-described swing of the swing member 31, before the swing, the rear end of the bin 20 as shown in FIG. 3A, for example, the point Q in FIG. ), A non-overlapping portion of the length h, that is, a shift amount occurs. Moreover, the bin d interval d does not change as shown in FIGS. 3 (A) and 3 (B).

As described above, even if the paper is protruding at the non-overlapping portion, the paper can be easily taken out without being obstructed by the lower bin. <Modification> The configuration and operation mode of the present invention are not limited to the above-described embodiments, and the following modifications are conceivable, for example. (1) In the above-described embodiment, the swinging member 31 is tilted by the drive motor 35. However, as shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B, the swinging member 31 is moved by the weight of the bottle 20 itself. It can be tilted to the left. During the normal orientation operation, the pawl portion 52a of the release button 52 held by the spring 53 is engaged with the engaging pawl 51c of the swing member 51 so that the pawl portion 52a does not tilt.

A small gear 54 with a torque limiter meshes with the meshing portion 51 a of the swinging member 51, so that the tilting speed of the swinging member 51 is limited when the release button 52 is pressed. There is. (2) In the modified example shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B, the rocking member 61 is tilted by the weight of the bottle 20 as in the modified example of the above (1). The pawl 62a of the locking member 62 pivotally supported on the head of the swinging member 61 is manually connected to and disconnected from the locking pin 63 planted in the frame. (3) The one shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B is characterized by the bottle shifting means 70, and a meshing portion 71a is engraved in place of the swinging member in the above-mentioned embodiment and each modification. It has a moving member 71, a small gear 72 meshing with the moving member 71, a drive motor 73, and a belt 74 for transmitting driving force. Further, the bottle 20 is provided with an upper protrusion 75 that engages with the claw portion 71b of the moving member 71 and a lower protrusion 76 that engages with the respective upper protrusion 75.

During the orientation operation, the bins are held in a completely overlapped state as shown in FIG. 6 (A), while the drive motor 73 is placed as shown in FIG. 6 (B) when the stored sheets are taken out. was started, first by engaging the claw portion 71b of the moving member 71 to the first upper protrusion 75 of the bottle 20 _1, it moves the first bin 20 ₁ to leftward direction. Then the lower projection 76 of the _first bottle 20 ₁ is moved to the second bin 20 ₂ of the upper projection 75 ₂ engaging with the left the second bin 20 ₂ similarly. In this way, each lower protrusion 76 engages with the upper protrusion 76 of the next bin 20 to move the next bin 20 in sequence, and eventually the adjacent bins 20 are displaced from each other. (4) As shown in FIG. 7 (A), the bottle shifting means 80 can be replaced with a single rocking lever 81. That is, as shown in FIG. 7 (B), if it is tilted by the angle θ, the shift amount h at the rear portion of the bottle 20 can be obtained. In order to secure the bin spacing d, it is necessary to provide each bin 20 with a means such as the bin spacing holding member 23 as in the above embodiment, but other types of bin spacing holding means can be considered. . (5) In the above-mentioned embodiment and each modified example, the means for keeping the bin distance d constant is taken. However, as shown in FIG. 8A, the swing member 91 is engaged with each bin 20. The projection member 24 is simply pivoted so that the displacement h of the bottle 20 becomes d ₁ · sin θ when tilted by an angle θ as shown in FIG. 8B. With this configuration, the bin interval is narrowed from d ₁ to d _{2 when the} paper is taken out, but there is no need to provide a bin interval holding means, and the structure can be simplified.

[0038]

[Effect of device]

 According to the sorter of the present invention, in a sorter equipped with a plurality of multi-stage bins and an orienting means for orienting the paper to a desired bin, the position of the edge on the paper ejection side of all bins is set when the paper is orientated. Since there is a bin shifting mechanism that makes it different when taking out and taking out the stored paper, it is not necessary to manually lift the rear part of the bin when taking out the paper stored in the bin, and make the bin interval larger than necessary. In addition, the paper stored in the bin can be easily taken out while contributing to downsizing of the device.

Further, when all the bins are moved by the bin shifting means, if the bin spacing holding means that holds the adjacent spacing between the bins is provided, the stored sheets can be taken out more easily.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a vertical sectional view of an embodiment of a sorter.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of a bottle.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a configuration and an operation of a main part including a bin shifting unit.

FIG. 4A is a main part configuration diagram of a first modified example of the bin shifting means.

FIG. 4B is also an operation explanatory diagram.

FIG. 5A is a main part configuration diagram of a second modified example of the bin shifting means.

FIG. 5B is also an operation explanatory diagram.

FIG. 6A is a main part configuration diagram of a third modified example of the bottle shifting means.

FIG. 6B is also an operation explanatory diagram.

FIG. 7A is a main part configuration diagram of a fourth modified example of the bin shifting means.

FIG. 7B is also an operation explanatory diagram.

FIG. 8A is a configuration diagram of a main part of a fifth modified example of the bottle shifting means.

FIG. 8B is also an operation explanatory diagram.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 Sorter 11 Frame Body (Fixed Part) 20 Bin 23 Bin Interval Holding Member (Bin Interval Holding Means) 30 Bin Shifting Means 31 Swing Member p Paper p ₁ Large Size Paper p ₂ Small Size Paper d Bin Interval θ Swing Angle ( Bin shift angle h Bin shift amount 32 Small gear (drive means) 35 Drive motor (drive means) 50 Bin shift means (first modification) 60 Bin shift means (second modification) 70 Bin shift means (third modification) Example) 80 bin shifting means (fourth modified example) 90 bin shifting means (fifth modified example)

Claims (3)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A sorter comprising: a plurality of bins provided in a multi-stage manner; and an orienting means for orienting the paper to a desired bin by sequentially controlling the relative positions of these bins. A sorter provided with a bin shifting means for varying the position of the edge of the bin on the paper ejection side when the paper is oriented and when ejecting the stored paper. 2. A sorter comprising a plurality of bins provided in multiple stages and an orienting means for orienting the paper to a desired bin by sequentially controlling the relative positions of these bins. Bin shifting means that changes the position of the edge of the bin on the paper ejection side when the paper is oriented and when ejecting the stored paper, and when all bins are moved by the bin shifting means, the adjacent space between the bins is maintained And a bin interval holding means for controlling the sorter. 3. The bin shifting means engages side edges of the respective bins with each other, and a swinging member pivotally supported by a non-moving portion of the sorter, and an angle between the non-moving portion of the swinging member. 3. The sorter according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the drive means is configured to be different when the paper is oriented and when the paper is taken out.