JPH08268639A - Paper sheet folding device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To stably fold a perforated continuous paper sheet after having it printed by a printer or the like even if the length of the paper sheet changes. CONSTITUTION: A perforate continuous paper sheet 13 printed by a printer 13 passed through a swing fin 14 in its discharging process, turned back at the perforation by the oscillating action of the swing fin 14 powered by a motor and folded on a stacker table 16 which is in the latter part of the swing fin 14. When the paper sheet length is different (space between the perforates), a suitable turn back timing matching the perforates (reversing timing of the swing fin 14 oscillation action with respect to the perforate which has passed the tip of the swing fin 14) is selected. Thus a stabilized folding by a paddle 15 collaborating with the swing fin 14 as shown on jig. (a) is assured.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a sheet folding device (generally called a stacker) such as a printer for folding printed continuous sheets through perforations.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When a continuous sheet is printed by a printer (for example, a heat fixing type laser beam printer) or the like, folding perforations are provided at predetermined intervals of the continuous sheet, and after the continuous sheet is sequentially printed, This continuous paper is passed through a swing fin in the discharging process. Then, the ejected continuous paper is folded back through the perforations by the swing motion of the swing fin driven by the motor, and the continuous paper is folded on the table after the swing fin in this manner (this The sequence of operations is described in detail in the example section).

The swing angle (swing width) of the swinging motion of the swing fin is controlled according to the length of the sheet (the length of the sheet defined by the perforations), and the short sheet has a small swing angle and the long sheet. Then, the swing angle is set large.

[0004]

By the way, in the above-mentioned conventional control, the swing fin has a constant speed, and the reversal timing (synonymous with the folding back timing) with respect to the perforations at the folding back point of the swinging motion is the same for all sheet lengths. It was the same timing against. That is, the swing fin reverses its swinging operation at the timing when the position of the folding perforation in each sheet length passes the same position with respect to the tip of the swing fin.

FIG. 1B shows a problem to be solved in the case where the sheet length at the folding timing of the conventional swing fin is different. In the figure, 14 is a swing fin for guiding the perforated printed continuous paper 13 onto the stacker table 16, and the swing fin 14 swings left and right with the swing fin shaft 34 as a fulcrum while passing the discharged continuous paper 13. However, the continuous paper 13 is
Are folded back through the perforations so that the continuous papers 13 are stacked (folded) on the table 16. On the table 16, the rotating paddle 15 presses the continuous paper 13 at the position of the folding perforations, thereby promoting orderly folding. In this figure, regarding the relationship between the swing fin 14, the paper 13, and the paddle 15, the paper length (the length of the paper defined by the perforation interval)
Shows the comparison of long and short cases.

The distance indicated by H is the distance between the swinging fulcrum 34 of the swing fin 14 and the stacker table 16, or the swinging fulcrum 34 of the swing fin 14 when the folded sheet is already on the stacker table 16. And the distance to the paper on the stacker table 16. This distance H is generally constant even if the paper length changes because the mechanism becomes complicated. However, when the distance H is constant, there is a difference in the behavior of the sheet as shown in FIG. 1B depending on whether the sheet length is long or short. Figure 1 (b)
Shows the case where the long or short paper length is folded back by the swing fin 14 in accordance with the timing when the paper length is long. When the paper length is short, the paddle 15 located on the right side of the stacker table 16 in the drawing Swing fin 1
The sheet 4 folded back one page before 4 does not hit the folding perforation. As described above, the folding of the sheet 13 is made up of the swinging movement of the swing fins 14 and the pressing of the folding perforations by the paddles 15. Therefore, the folding fin 14 has the same folding back timing with respect to the sheet length. In, it was difficult to achieve stable paper foldability for all paper lengths.

In T1 and T2, when the folding perforation passes through the tip of the swing fin, the folding back timing (reversal timing) of the swing motion of the swing fin 14 with respect to the perforation is converted into the moving distance of the sheet. Although there is a slight control deviation (value less than 1 inch), T1 and T2 can be regarded as substantially the same.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a sheet folding apparatus of this type which can obtain stable folding performance with less paper jam even when the sheet length changes. is there.

[0009]

According to the present invention, continuous sheets having perforations for folding are sequentially printed at predetermined intervals, and then the sheets are folded on a table provided at the latter stage of the discharging section while discharging the continuous sheets. In a paper folding device, a swing fin that swings by motor power so that the continuous paper is folded back through the perforations while passing the discharged continuous paper, and a folding perforation of the paper folded on the table. Paddle mechanism that is pressed by a paddle that rotates at a position, swing angle control means that changes the swing angle of the swing fin swing motion according to the paper length defined by the perforation interval, and the swing fin swing motion Timing control means for changing the timing of starting the reversing operation with respect to the perforations at the turning point according to the sheet length. And said timing control means is enough to the paper length is shortened, characterized in that it comprises set to the inversion timing is delayed.

[0010]

According to the above construction, when the continuous paper is passed through the swing fin in the discharging process, the discharged continuous paper is folded back through the perforations by the swinging motion of the swing fin driven by the motor. Swing fins The continuous paper is folded on the table after the swing fin. However, if the paper length is different (perforation spacing), the optimum folding back timing (swing fin swinging relative to the perforations passing through the tip of the swing fin) The reverse timing of the dynamic operation) can be selected. For example,
If the reversal timing is set to be delayed as the sheet length becomes shorter, as shown in FIG. 1A, even if the sheet lengths are different, the one page before the page folded back by the swing fin swing is always provided. Stable folding is guaranteed by securely pressing the perforations on the paper with the paddle.

[0011]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a thermal fixing type laser beam printer showing an example of the application of the present invention. When a signal for starting the printing operation is issued to the laser beam printer from a controller that controls the laser beam printer, the photoconductor 1 starts to rotate. The photoconductor 1 rotates at a speed corresponding to the printing speed of the laser beam printer, and continues to rotate until the printing operation is completed. When the photoconductor 1 starts rotating, a high voltage of + is applied to the charger 2 to uniformly charge the surface of the photoconductor 1 with a positive charge.

The polygon mirror 3 is a polyhedral reflecting mirror, which starts rotating immediately when power is supplied to the printer, and rotates at high precision at a constant speed as long as the power is supplied, and outputs from the laser tube 4. The laser light is reflected by the polygon mirror 3 and is irradiated while scanning the photoconductor 1 through the Fθ lens 5. Character and graphic data converted into dot images from the controller are issued to the laser beam printer as a laser beam on / off signal, and the photoconductor 1
There are areas where the laser light is irradiated and areas where the surface is not irradiated.

When the electric charge on the photosensitive member 1 disappears due to the irradiation of the laser beam and the portion reaches the front of the developing device 6, the toner charged in + is attracted by the static electricity and a toner image is formed on the photosensitive member 1. To be done. The continuous paper 13 on which the print data formed on the photoconductor 1 by the laser light is printed at the beginning of the transfer device 7 is printed.
The tractor 8 is driven so that the leading edge of the per-perforation-unit sheet (perforations for folding the sheet) in (1) is located in front of the transfer device 7. The paper 13 is conveyed by the tractor 8 from the hopper to the fixing unit via the developing unit including the photoconductor 1, the developing unit 6 and the transfer unit 7. The paper 13 reaching the fixing device 9 is preheated by the preheating plate 10 and then heated by the heat roll 11 and the pressure roll 12.
The toner image is melted and fixed on the paper 13 by being conveyed while being pressurized and heated by the.

As shown in FIG. 6, the printed sheet 13 is folded by the swinging motion of the swing fins 14 according to the direction in which the sheet 13 is folded back, and then the paddle 15 is rotated.
The sheets are stacked on the stacker table 16 while the folded state is adjusted by.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the swing fin unit 20. The rotation of the stepping motor 30 is reduced by the gear head 31. The rotation of the motor 30 is transmitted by the timing belt 32 to the pulley 33 fixed to one end of the swing fin shaft 34. The swing fin 14 is fixed to the swing fin shaft 34. In the swing fin unit 20, in order to swing the swing fin 14 to the left and right about the shaft 34 as a fulcrum, the stepping motor 30 is moved to CW (clockwise).
The rotation direction may be switched to the / CCW (counterclockwise) direction for rotation. Therefore, the swing angle of the swing fin 14 can be freely selected by managing the number of operation steps of the stepping motor 30. Swing fin shaft 34
An encoder plate 37 is fixed to the other end of
The position of the swing fin 14 is detected based on the positional relationship with the photo interrupter 36. The position where the swing fin 14 faces directly below is defined as a basic position (hereinafter referred to as a home position).

The control of the swing fin unit 20 will be described with reference to FIGS. 4, 5 and 6. As a signal inside the printer, when a signal P FEED-P indicating that paper feeding is being executed rises in synchronization with a DVS-P signal generated at a period corresponding to the time for feeding 1/6 inch paper, the microcomputer 38 A signal SWINGDRV-P for operating the stepping motor 30 is issued to the stepping motor control unit 39. This signal rises in synchronization with the DVS-P signal input first after P FEED-P rises. In this example, the swing fin 14 moves from the home position to CCW.
A timing chart is shown when moving in the direction.
Stepping motor 30 from microcomputer 38
CW-P signal is issued at "L" level in order to move the signal in the CCW direction. Further, the microcomputer 38 increments a counter for counting the number of steps each time the stepping motor 30 is operated by one step. As shown in FIG. 5, the turning point on the CCW side is n
If so, the swing fin 14 operates toward the CCW side until the counter value reaches n, and the SING D
RV-P becomes "L" and the swing fin 14 stops.

Next, when TURN-P (swing fin inversion timing signal) is input, CW-P is again actuated to move the swing fin 14 in the CW direction.
H ”. After the TURN-P signal is input, the SINGDRV-P becomes“ H ”at the first DVS-P input, and the swing fin drive is restarted. The process of the swing fin 14 moving in the CW direction Then, the signal HOME-P from the home position sensor composed of the encoder plate 37 and the photointerrupter 36 changes from "L" to "H", and the counter is forcibly corrected to 2n in response to this signal. 14 is controlled and returns at the point of counter 3n, and further HOME-
The counter is forcibly rewritten to 0 when P changes from “H” to “L”.

If the swing fin 14 is in operation at the time when the TURN-P signal is received, the operation immediately stops and waits for the next DVS-P. When the paper feed operation of P FEED-P is completed, the swing fin 14 is stopped by turning on the SWIN DRV-P with the next DVS-P signal input. As described above, the position information of the swing fins 14 is corrected by clearing the counter upon detection of the home position, and the turn-back timing is determined by the TURN-P signal, so that the time of the swing fins 14 with respect to the paper feed is temporally changed. It is possible to correct various phase shifts.

By having the value of the folding point n for each sheet length by the control as described above, the swing angle according to the sheet length can be selected as shown in FIG. Further, a short sheet length has a small swing angle, and a long sheet length has a large swing angle, but the rotation speed of the stepping motor 30 is almost constant.

Here, the difference between the conventional example and the present invention regarding the control of the TURN-P signal which is the inversion timing signal at the turning point of the swing fin 14 will be described.
Conventionally, as shown in FIG.
The reversing timing of the sheet 13 that has passed the leading end of the sheet 13 with respect to the folding perforation (swing fin return timing) is always constant (same timing), and is issued at a sheet feed time interval corresponding to the sheet length of the sheet to be printed. The timing is managed by counting the DVS-P signal so that the swing fin 14 should reach the turning point. In FIG. 5, m is the count value.

That is, the value of m at which the TURN-P signal is generated in FIG. 5 is determined so that it occurs at the timing when the position of the folding perforation in each sheet length passes the same position with respect to the tip of the swing fin. It was being done. In this case, as already described with reference to FIG.
Regardless of the paper length, the swing fin turn-back timing is always adjusted to the timing when the paper length is long, but when the paper length is short, the paddle 15 located on the right side of the stacker table 16 in the drawing The folding perforation of the sheet 13 folded back one page by the swing fin 14 is not hit. As described above, the folding of the sheet 13 is made up of the swinging movement of the swing fins 14 and the pressing of the folding perforations by the paddles 15. Therefore, the folding fin 14 has the same folding back timing with respect to the sheet length. In, it was difficult to achieve stable paper foldability for all paper lengths.

On the other hand, in the present invention, the swing unit 20 is provided with the timing control means for changing the timing of starting the reversing operation with respect to the perforations at the turning point of the swinging motion of the swing fin according to the paper length.
The timing control means is set so that the reverse timing is delayed as the sheet length becomes shorter.

In the control according to the present invention, the value of m in FIG. 5, that is, the value of T in FIG. 1 is converted into the moving amount of the paper corresponding to the change in the paper length and changed by 1 inch or more to the optimum value. To do. Specifically, the timing of starting the reversing operation from the temporary stop operation at the turning point of the swinging motion of the swing fin is changed according to the sheet length, and the timing of starting the reversing operation for the perforations is changed. is there. Then, by changing the reversal timing of the swing operation according to the sheet length as in the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1A, the sheet of the previous page that is always folded back by swing of the swing fins is returned. By securely pressing the folding perforations with the paddle, stable folding is guaranteed even if the paper length changes. The selection of the inversion timing can be automatically set by operating the selection button according to the paper length or detecting the paper length.

[0024]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the reversal timing of the swing fin turning point is changed depending on the length of the sheet, it is possible to obtain stable folding performance with less sheet jam. In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, a means for adding a mechanism for changing the length of H in FIG. 1, that is, the distance between the swing fulcrum of the swing fin 14 and the stacker table 16 depending on the length of the sheet is conceivable. Since the present invention does not require a mechanism to be added to the mechanism of the conventional device, it is considered that the present invention can be realized at low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a swing fin turnback timing according to a conventional example and the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a laser beam printer showing an example of an application target of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a swing fin unit used in the laser beam printer.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a swing fin drive unit used in the laser beam printer.

FIG. 5 is a timing chart showing the operation of the swing fin.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a swing fin operation.

[Explanation of symbols]

13 ... Continuous paper, 14 ... Swing fin, 15 ... Paddle, 16 ... Stacker table, 20 ... Swing fin unit (swing angle control means, timing control means), 30
… Stepping motor.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Satoshi Aida 1060 Takeda, Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Hitachi Koki Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Isao Watanabe 1060 Takeda, Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Hitachi Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Kazuo Takano 1060 Takeda, Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Hitachi Koki Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor, Tsukasa Onose 1060, Takeda Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Hitachi Koki Co., Ltd. (72) Katsuhito Koda, 1060 Takeda, Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture Address Hitachi Koki Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Yuji Meguro 1060 Takeda, Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture Hitachi Koki Co., Ltd.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A paper folding device that folds perforated continuous paper at predetermined intervals in sequence and then folds the continuous paper while ejecting the continuous paper onto a table provided in the latter stage of the ejection unit. Swing fins that swing by motor power so that the continuous paper is folded back through the perforations while passing the continuous paper, and the paper folded on the table is pressed by a paddle that rotates at the folding perforation position. A paddle mechanism, a swing angle control means for changing a swing angle of swing motion of the swing fin according to a sheet length defined by a perforation interval, and a reversal with respect to the perforation line at a turning point of swing motion of the swing fin. A timing control means for changing the timing of starting the operation according to the paper length, and Means enough to the paper length is shortened, the sheet folding apparatus characterized by comprising setting so that the inversion timing is delayed. 2. The sheet folding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the amount of timing change with respect to the sheet length at which the swing fin reversal timing is different is set to 1 inch or more in terms of the amount of movement of the sheet. 3. The timing control means changes the timing of starting the reversing operation from the temporary stop operation at the turning point of the swinging motion of the swing fin according to the sheet length, and starts the reversing operation for the perforations. The sheet folding device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the timing is changed.