JPH0977349A - Sheet sorting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent a sheet on a bin from being untidily arranged by opening a gap between a tray where the sheet is discharged and a tray which is just over the tray and a gap between trays over and under the tray where the sheet is discharged more widely than a gap between the other trays. SOLUTION: When a bin B12 , or the second bin from the top, for example, of a bin module of an electrophotography copying device is at a position responsive to a pair of discharging rollers 8g and can receive a sheet, a gap between a bin B11 and the bin B12 is enlarged. When a bin B14 , or the fourth bin from the top, is at a position where a bundle of sheets are discharged and a bundle of sheets are discharged to the bin and the bin is shifted to the position to discharge the bundle of sheets from each bin, a gap between a bin B13 and a bin B14 and a gap between a bin B14 and B15 are also enlarged and only a gap between a bin B14 and a bin B16 is kept small, thereby enlarging a gap between bins over and under the discharging bin and making air layer between the sheets and then easily straightening the sheets of paper even when they are curled.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a sheet material classifying apparatus, and more particularly to a sheet classifying apparatus for classifying sheets discharged from an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a printing machine or a printer. The present invention relates to prevention of disorder of a sheet placed on a bin.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a sorter unit having a plurality of bins, the bins are moved up and down to store the sheet material discharged from the main body of the image forming apparatus. A large distance is secured by the lead cam between the bin receiving B (for example, B _n ) and the bin one above it (B _n-1 ), but the bin spacing above and below it is equal to the diameter of the bin roller. Interval (the interval between the upper bins; B _n-2 and B _n-1 ), or the interval between the bins which is larger than the diameter of the bin roller but is smaller than the bin of the discharged paper receiving section (the next lower bin interval: B _{n + 1} And B _{n + 2} ). Is configured.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional example, when a sheet material sorting device is connected to the main body of a copying machine having high productivity, if a large number of sheets to be processed is set per bin, Then, the stack thickness of the sheet material increases due to the curling of the air layer and the sheet material. As a result, the sheet material makes a series of movements of aligning the sheet material on the aligning wall and retracting it while moving the bin from the time it is discharged onto the bin to the time before the next sheet material is discharged. In the bin that received the discharged sheet material, before the sheet material is completely aligned, the bin moves between the lower surface of the bin and the lower surface of the bin one above, and the sheet material is pressed in and aligned. It had the drawback of becoming defective.

An object of the invention according to the present application is to prevent misalignment of the sheet material on the bottle.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the apparatus according to the present application is such that the distance between a discharge bin for stacking discharged sheet material and the bin one above the bin is either upward or downward. Are shifted one step, their bin spacing becomes
It is characterized in that the bin position is configured so that the bins have a sufficient interval with respect to the thickness of the maximum number of sheets to be stacked per bin even if they are the same or less.

[0006]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

(First Embodiment) FIG. 1 shows an electrophotographic copying machine (image forming apparatus) 200 as a sheet material output device.

The electrophotographic copying machine 200 includes a copying machine main body 20.
1 and an automatic document feeder 2 arranged at the top of the copying machine main body
02 and a sheet material post-processing device 203 arranged on the side of the copying machine main body 201 from which the sheet S is discharged. The sheet material post-processing device 203 includes a folding device 204 and a stapling / stacking device 205.

A document table 20 of the automatic document feeder 202
The originals 207 placed on No. 6 are sorted in order from the lower side,
The bus 20 is placed on the platen glass 208 of the copying machine body 201.
After being read by the optical system 210 of the copying machine main body 201 and finished reading, it is discharged from the platen glass 207 via the bus 211 to the uppermost surface on the document placing table 205. The sheet S is fed from the deck 212, an image is formed by the image forming unit 213, and is fixed by the fixing unit 214. Generally, the sheet S passes through the folding device 204 and is stapled.
The sheet is conveyed to the sheet entrance 215 of the stacking device 205.

The image forming process of the copying machine 200, which is the main body of the present invention, is well known and will not be described here. The stapling / stacking device 205 is shown in FIGS.
As shown in FIG.
₁ and B ₂ , and each bin module has a plurality of bins B ₁₁ ~
B _1n , B _{21 to} B _2n (n = 6 in the figure).
Each bin module can independently change the bin interval and the bin position to move each bin to the sheet receiving position or the sheet bundle discharging position.

At the sheet carry-in port 215, a solenoid SL3 (not shown) that switches the first conveying path 1 in the upward direction and the second conveying path 2 in the downward direction is driven. The deflector 3 determines the traveling direction of the sheet. Further, the first transport bus 1
Is a deflector 4 driven by a solenoid SL4 (not shown)
Thus, the carry-out path 6 to the non-sort tray 5 and the path 7 to the upper module B ₁ are branched. On the other hand, the second transport path 2 directly serves as the path to the lower module B ₂ . Therefore, for each roller pair 8a-p, 8a, b, c for the non-sort tray, 8a, b, d-g for the upper module,
It is conveyed to the lower module by each pair of rollers 8a and hp. In addition, the staple / staff device 105 is
A grip / stapling unit 9 is provided in a space between the path to the upper module and the path to the lower module, and the bundle on each bin is conveyed by the advance gripper 10 in the right direction of FIGS. In 11, the staple is selectively stapled, and the leading end of the bundle is sandwiched by the transport gripper 12 and further transported in the right direction. Similarly, in the space between the path to the upper module and the path to the lower module, the stack unit 1 is provided below the grip / staple unit 9.
3 stands by and stores the bundle transported by the transport gripper 12.

Further, the left end portion of the right end portion and the stack unit 13 of the stapler 11, as shown in FIG. 2, overlap substantially in the horizontal direction (region of width 1 ₁₅ of FIG. 2).

[0012] After the sheet bundle to the bin B ₁₁ .about.B ₁₆ above modules is satisfied, Figure 1, to the position indicated by the broken line in FIG. 2, to move the gripping / stapling unit 9 taken out of the sheet bundle from the bin While the lower module is in the bin B ₂₁
After the sheets are conveyed to B ₂₆ to B ₂₆ and the bundle is taken out from the bins B _{11 to} B ₁₆ , and the conveyance to the lower module bins B _{21 to} B ₂₆ is finished, the modules are moved at the positions indicated by the solid lines in FIGS. 1 and 2. Take out the bundle from. By repeating this operation, copying can be continued continuously until the stack unit becomes full.

The schematic construction has been shown above, and the detailed construction of each part will be described below.

The folding device 204 is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
Since it is the same as the folding device disclosed in JP-A-1-237272, JP-A-62-59002, etc., it will not be described in particular.

First, the bin modules B ₁ and B ₂ will be described. FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the bin module. Hereinafter will be described bin module B _1, but the same configuration applies to B _2.

The bin module B ₁ is mainly composed of the bins B _{11 to} B _1n.
And two reference rods 14a and 14b, an alignment wall 15, lead cams 16a to 16c for moving the bin up and down, and a drive unit thereof. The reference rods 14a and 14b are members that determine a reference line when performing post-processing such as stapling on the sheet material discharged onto the bin, and are normally slightly retracted from the end position when discharging the sheet. It is set. Matching wall 15
The sheet material discharged onto the bin one by one or a plurality of sheets in a direction perpendicular to the sheet conveying direction (the direction of arrow A in the figure), and the opposite ends are abutted against the reference rods 14a, 14b. Make a match. Although FIG. 4 is a top view of the bin module, the lead cams 16a, 16b, 16c are arranged one on the front side and two on the rear side of the bin as shown in FIGS. Have a cam. Roller portions Ba, Bb, and Bc protruding from the bin are engaged with the cam, and the bin is moved up and down by a predetermined pitch each time each lead cam makes one revolution in synchronization. As shown in FIG. 4, the bin has a notch Bd corresponding to the reference rod, a hole Be corresponding to the matching wall, a notch Bf for a gripper, which will be described later, and a bin standing drive mechanism. Notch Bg and notch B required for operation
h is formed.

FIG. 5 is a front view of the bin module. As shown in FIG. 5, the bins are arranged parallel to each other with a certain angle with respect to the horizontal. On the other hand, the bincoro part Ba,
Bb and Bc are configured so that all of them have the same height when the bottle is inclined. That is, while the position of the bin roller Bb near the right side of the bin is near the reference plane of the bin, the position of the bin roller Bc near the left side of the bin is considerably below the reference plane of the bin, and a V-shaped space is provided between them. It is connected by a fixed arm. As a result, even when the adjacent bins B ₁₅ and B ₁₆ shown in FIG. Further, since the bin roller portions Ba, Bb, Bc are all at the same height, the positions of the lead cams 16a to 16c in the height direction can be set at the same height, and the overall size can be reduced. That is, as compared with the case where the rollers Ba, Bb, and Bc are provided in the vicinity of the thick portion of each bottle as shown in FIG. 5B, the whole size of the apparatus can be reduced by the method 1 ₁₆ minutes shown in FIG. 5B. .

The bin interval will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 11 shows a development view of the lead cam in which the bin is set.

FIG. 5 shows the upper bin module B _{1. In} the figure, the second bin B ₁₂ from the top is the discharge roller pair 8.
It is in the position corresponding to g and receives the discharged sheet. On the other hand, the fourth bin B ₁₄ from the top is at the bundle discharge position, and when the sheet discharge to the bin is completed, the bins are sequentially shifted to this position to discharge the bundle from each bin.

In FIG. 5, the bin intervals of bins B ₁₁ , B ₁₂ and B ₁₃ , B ₁₄ and B ₁₄ , B ₁₅ are as large as ₁₇ and only between B ₁₅ and B ₁₆ is as small as ₁₈ . The distance between B ₁₂ and B ₁₃ is l ₁₇ , and this interval satisfies the relational expression [l ₁₇ ≧ l ₁₇ ′> l ₁₈ ] and the air layer and the paper curl at the maximum number of sheets loaded per bin The opening interval of the discharge bin B ₁₂ is a value of l ₁₇ or less in order to reduce the overall size of the apparatus. It is the upper and lower bins of the discharge bin (here, B ₁₂ ) for aligning the discharged sheets that are provided with the interval of l ₁₇ ′ so that the alignment can be performed before or after the vertical movement of the bin is completed. .

The space between the bins varies depending on the situation. In FIG. 6, the bin B ₁₆ is in the sheet receiving position, and the bin is in the uppermost position. At this time, the bin spacing B ₁₁ .about.B ₁₄ until less at l _18, B _14, B ₁₅ during a l _n 'which is obtained in the same manner as described above, B _15, B ₁₆ between becomes large l _17.

Further, in FIG. 7, the bin B ₁₁ is at the bundle discharging position,
With the bin shifted to the bottom, at this time, the bin interval is large at l ₁₇ only between B ₁₁ and B ₁₂ , and small at the other l ₁₈ .
That is, the distance between the bins in a sheet receiving position and the bottle on the larger of about l _17, also above and below the bin and the bin in the bundle discharging position should have as large as l ₁₇ intervals. Speaking of FIG. 5, B ₁₁ and B ₁₂ , B ₁₃ and B ₁₄ , B ₁₄ and B
_{Is 15} .

On the other hand, in the case of the lower bin module, as can be seen from FIGS. 1 and 2, the sheet receiving position and the bundle discharging position are upside down as compared with the upper module. Therefore, in the same way, in FIG. 2, the distance between the bin B _{24 at the} sheet receiving position and the upper bin B ₂₃ is as large as about l ₁₇ , and the bin B _{22 at the} bundle discharging position and the upper and lower bins B ₂₂ are located.
_21, the interval between the B ₂₃ must also large as l _17. B ₂₄
And B ₂₅ is l ₁₇ . However, if the distance between B ₂₄ and B ₂₅ is also increased to 1 ₁₇ , the sheet receiving position and the bundle discharging position are reversed, but the spacing between the upper and lower modules is the same. That is, the pitch of the lead cams that determine the bin interval may be the same, and there is an advantage that the upper and lower lead cams are commonly used. Further, the fact that the sheet receiving position and the bundle discharging position are reversed in the upper and lower modules has another merit that the grid / staple unit 9 and the stack unit 13 can be shared when the sheet is taken out.

Further, here, the intervals between the bins are opened by the lead cam described later, but not limited to this, the same applies when the intervals between the bins are opened and closed by other driving means.

In the above structure, by opening and expanding the space between the upper and lower bins of the discharge bin, a large amount of sheet material can be aligned even if an air layer is formed between the sheets and the output paper is curled. Can be aligned even after one-step shift,
Good consistency is always obtained.

Next, the bin shift drive will be described (FIGS. 4 and 5).

The bin shift motor M1 is a motor pulley 1
Drive is synchronously transmitted to the lead cams 16a to 16c by the belt 8, the belt 19 and the lead cam pulleys 20a to 20c, the motor is rotated in the forward and reverse directions, and the lead cam is rotated once to raise and lower the bin by the cam pitch. Each shaft of the lead cam is rotatably supported by bearings, and drive is transmitted from a pulley 20 attached to one side of the shaft. The bin shift motor 17 has an encoder 21 on the side opposite to the pulley 18, and the sensor S1 detects one rotation.

Further, each bin module has a bin home position detecting sensor S2 (not shown) for detecting that the respective top pins B ₁₁ and B ₁₂ are at their sheet receiving positions. Further, each bin module has a penetration sensor S3 (FIG. 2) for detecting the sheet on the bin, and detects the presence or absence of the sheet on the bin to determine the timing for switching the module.

Next, the drive structure of the alignment wall for aligning the sheets on the bin will be described. (FIGS. 8 and 9) FIG. 8 is a top view and FIG. 9 is a front view.

A shaft 22 is caulked on the matching wall 15, and the caulking shaft 22 is stopped by penetrating a U-shaped support plate 23. On the other hand, a compression spring 24 is installed inside the U-shaped plate 23 while being slightly biased in the compression direction. One side of the compression spring 24 is an inner wall of the plate 23, and the other side is a stopper 25 provided on the caulking shaft. It has been hit. By the force of the compression spring, the caulking shaft 22 and the matching wall 15
Is urged downward in FIG.

The lower side of the U-shaped support plate 23 is fixed to the moving side of the accuride 27 via the slide plate 26, and the fixed side of the accuride is fixed to the accuride rail plate 28 extending in the sliding direction of the alignment wall. Has been done. Caulking shafts 29 and 30 stand on the front side and the back side of the acryl rail plate, and a pulley gear 31 and a pulley 32 are rotatably attached to the caulking shafts 29 and 30, respectively. Double pulley 3
A timing belt 33 is passed between 1 and 32, and the slide plate 26 is fixed to the belt 33. On the other hand, the motor gear 34 of the matching wall drive motor M2 is transmitted by being engaged with the gear portion of the pulley gear 31. The home position of the matching wall is detected by the sensor S4.
A slide member 35 is attached above the U-shaped support plate 23, and is engaged with and guided by a recess of a fixed rail 36. In FIG. 9, the drive is applied from below the alignment wall and the top is guided by the rail, but it may be upside down. Further, the configuration of the matching wall and the way of driving may be reversed between the upper module and the lower module.

Here, control of discharged paper, bin shift, and alignment wall will be described (FIG. 10).

This is achieved by the sheet discharge motors (S1, S2) arranged in the vicinity of the discharge rollers 8g and 8p and the control sensors (S3, S4) arranged slightly upstream of them, the sheet material conveying motor and the bin shift motor. , The alignment motor (not shown) is driven (see FIG. 2). A development view of the lead cam is shown in FIG.

Sheet material is a sheet material post-processing (classification) device 2
03, and when reaching the control sensor S3 (S4), the conveyance motor that drives the two rollers 8f8g (8o, 8p) speeds up the distance between the trailing edge of the sheet material and the next sheet material. Acting to open, the transport motor detects the trailing edge of the sheet material and returns to the initial speed. The sheet material that has passed through the control sensor S3 (S4) is discharged by the discharge sensor S1 disposed near the discharge roller 8g (8p).
Reach (S2). The trailing edge of the sheet material passes through the sheet ejection sensor S1 (S2) at the above-described first conveyance speed, and the bin shift motor is driven after a certain period of time based on the off edge of the sheet ejection sensor S1 (S2). There is. The bin shift must be completed before the next sheet material turns on the sheet discharge sensor S1 (S2), and in aligning the sheet material, the trailing edge of the sheet material of the sheet discharge sensor S1 (S2), that is, off edge Therefore, the aligning operation is started after the time T1 for the sheet material to settle in the bottle. Also,
There is a time T2 until the driving of the bin shift motor is completed after the forward movement of the matching operation is completed. This is because when the bin is shifted by one stage, the opening amount after the shift is smaller than the opening amount of the discharge bin. The bin spacing is maintained so that the integrity of the sheet material is not impaired even when sheets are stacked. next,
When the bin shift is completed, the matching motor enters the return motion,
The operation is completed before the leading edge of the next sheet material reaches the position of the alignment wall 15. Thus, this series of movements is repeated.

Also, if the time when the tying time T1 of the sheet material and the forward / backward movement time of the aligning wall are combined so that the next sheet material does not reach the position of the aligning wall, it is possible to align even after the bin shift. Of course.

Next, the drive configuration of the bin standing portion forming the alignment surface in the transport direction on the bin will be described (FIGS. 12 and 13).

This is to move the bin stand when it is conveyed from the bin in the bin stand-up direction in order to post-process and stack the sheet stack stacked on the bin. 12 is a top view and FIG. 13 is a front view.

The bin B includes a sheet stacking section Bi and an aligning section B.
The rotating shaft on the side of the matching surface Bj fits into the rotating hole on the side of the stacking unit Bi to be rotatable. The rotation angle is about 90 as shown in FIG.
It can rotate until the alignment surface, which stands at a right angle to the fixed loading surface, becomes substantially flush with the loading surface.
Normally, the alignment surface is at a right angle to the loading surface (Fig. 1
It is urged by a spring or the like so that it becomes a solid line 3). The spring has such strength that the aligning portion Bj does not fall down even with the weight of the sheet bundle on the bin. A drive arm 45 is attached to the back side of the matching portion Bj. A bin 45a is erected at the tip of the drive arm.

The bin stand-up drive solenoid SL1 has a base 4
6 is supported on. A link 47 is rotatably supported on the base 46, and one end of an arm 48 is engaged with a pin 47a on the link. The other end of the arm 48 is attached to the solenoid SL1 and the solenoid is operated to move the link 47 from the solid line portion to the two-dot chain line portion. Although a bottle contact member 47b is attached to the tip end portion of the link 47, in a normal state, the space between the bottle 47b and the bottle 45a is separated, and does not hinder the up-and-down operation of the bin B. When the sheet discharge into the bin is completed and the sheet bundle in the bin is post-processed and stacked, the corresponding bin is set as shown in FIG.
The solenoid SL1 is operated by shifting to the position of 3.
The bin contact member 47b contacts the pin 45a, and the link 47 further rotates to reach the position indicated by the chain double-dashed line in FIG.
The matching part Bj is moved. When the solenoid SL1 is turned off, the link 47 returns to the original solid line position by the action of the spring 49, and correspondingly the aligning portion Bj also returns to the position orthogonal to the loading surface.

Next, the drive configuration of the transport system will be described (FIG. 14). FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram of the drive configuration, in which the hatched side of each roller pair is the drive input shaft, and the other side is the driven side. The drive system is roughly divided into three systems. First, the conveyance motor M14 receives the drive on the side closer to the main body of the copying machine and transmits it to the upper and lower modules in the vertical path after branching and the non-sort path. Corresponding roller pair is 8a ~
7 pairs of c and 8h to k.

Next, the carry motor M15 receives the lateral path of the upper module path and supplies the drive to the four roller pairs 8d to 8g.

Further, the carrying motor M16 takes charge of the horizontal path of the lower module path and the vertical path to the final exit, and is 8 l.
5 roller pairs of ~ p are driven.

Further, since the portion surrounded by the broken line in FIG. 14 is the portion which is pulled out to the front side in the case of JAM processing which will be described later, the couplings 139 and 140 are provided so that the drive can be separated. There is.

Further, in the system driven by the motor M16, the lower sides of the horizontal paths 8l to 8n are on the driving side, while the vertical paths 8o and 8p are on the right side or the upper side. 141 is bitten to reverse the direction of rotation.

As shown in FIG. 14, it is divided into three conveying systems so that when a part of the sheet remains in the main body of the copying machine, the speed of the main body of the copying machine is adjusted as much as possible and the sheet is not damaged. When the entire sheet reaches the post-processing device side, the sheet conveying speed is increased to discharge the gap between the sheet and the next sheet, specifically, the trailing edge of the previous sheet, and then the leading edge of the next sheet arrives. This is because the time until the sheet falls in the bin and the time for alignment are increased by increasing the time until the sheet falls. Therefore, the speed of the motor M14 is almost the same as that of the main body, and
For 5, and M16, the normal setting is to increase the transport speed except for the deceleration at the time of discharging. For example, if the pair of rollers 8d and 8e controlled by the motors M15 and M16 are the pair of rollers 8d and 8e, the trailing edge of the sheet having the maximum length in the transport direction when the leading edge of the sheet is bitten is 8a and 8j. If a one-way clutch is inserted in the four roller pairs 8b, 8a, 8k, 8j, the leading ends of the rollers 8d, 8e will be bitten, and the pull-out load when speeding up can be reduced.

[0046]

As described above, according to the present invention,
When a large amount of sheet material is processed, it is possible to prevent misalignment of the sheet material on the bottle.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic front view of a sheet material output device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic front view of the sheet material post-processing apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a bin module.

FIG. 4 is a top view of the bin module.

FIG. 5 (a) is a front view of the bin module. (B) Front view of a bin module (comparative example).

FIG. 6 is a state diagram of a bottle.

FIG. 7 is a state diagram of a bottle.

FIG. 8 is a top view of the matching unit.

FIG. 9 is a front view of a matching unit.

FIG. 10 is a time chart of bin shift / matching.

FIG. 11 is a development view of the lead cam.

FIG. 12 is a top view of the bin standing drive unit.

FIG. 13 is a front view of the bin standing drive unit.

FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram of a drive configuration of a transport system.

[Explanation of symbols]

B ₁ , ₂ bin module 2 Lower module path 7 Upper module path 8a-p Conveying roller pair 14 Reference rod 15 Alignment rod 16 Lead cam

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A sheet material classifying apparatus having a plurality of trays for accommodating discharged sheet materials, and means for aligning the sheet materials discharged to the trays, and moving means for moving the trays up and down. , And the distance between the tray from which the sheet material is discharged and the tray above it, and the distance between the trays above and below the tray from which the sheet material is discharged and the tray above each one of them. A sheet material sorting device characterized by having a wider opening than the distance between other trays. 2. A tray from which the sheet material is discharged and a tray above the tray from which the sheet material is discharged are at least one of the intervals between the upper and lower trays and the upper tray of each tray. 2. The sheet material sorting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sheet material sorting apparatus is configured to be wider than an interval corresponding to the maximum number of sheets of sheet material that is equal to or less than the interval between and.