JPS61151635A - Automatic original feeding device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automate and simplify matching and recovering of plural kinds of originals by turning plural stoppers on an original discharging tray to the lower step exposure position according to the size of the original and then turning to the upper step exposure position on completion of discharging. CONSTITUTION:When a copied B5 original 18 detected in terms of size by the sensor of an original feeding tray arrives at a discharging tray 12, a stopper 13a is turned from the storing position to the lower step exposure position by the action of a solenoid 19a, and matches the tip of the original and stores. When an A4 original is sent in, the stopper 13a goes down and a stopper 13b goes up, and the original 17 is matched similarly. When discharging of all originals is completed, a stopper 13 goes down, and the stopper 13 is turned to the upper step exposure position by the action of another solenoid. The original is separated from the face of the tray and recovering of the original becomes easy. Accordingly, matching and recovering of plural kinds of originals are rationalized, and its operation rate can be improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Technical Field> The present invention relates to an automatic document feeder that is attached to a device such as a copying machine and continuously feeds a plurality of documents.

<Prior Art and Its Disadvantages> The above-mentioned automatic document feeder has been commercialized in large numbers for the purpose of simplifying the task of changing documents when processing multiple documents in succession in devices such as copying machines. The feeding device feeds a document placed on a document feeding tray attached to a document feeding section to a document conveying section, and discharges the processed document to a document discharging section. In order to easily recover documents ejected during feeding of multiple sheets of single paper size documents,
It is necessary to align and store the ejected originals on the original ejection tray. For this reason, conventionally, a stopper that moves in the document ejection direction is provided on the bottom of the document ejection tray, and the stopper is moved according to the paper size of the document to be fed, and the stopper is moved when the front edge of the document to be ejected comes into contact with the stopper. The ejected originals were aligned and stored.

However, each time the paper size of the document to be fed by the conventional automatic document feeder is changed, it is necessary to manually move the position of the stopper, which has the disadvantage of complicating the document feeding operation. In addition, the document stored at the lowest part of the document ejection tray sticks closely to the tray surface and cannot be easily taken out when collecting the document, resulting in a significant decrease in work efficiency. Furthermore, when multiple document feed trays are installed and multiple types of documents with different paper sizes are continuously fed, it is necessary to collect the documents and change the stopper position after each document is fed. This method has the drawback that it requires a lot of work, and the work becomes extremely complicated. <Object of the Invention> In view of the above-mentioned conventional drawbacks, the object of the present invention is to automate the alignment work of ejected originals and simplify the original collection work,
Furthermore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic document feeder that can easily feed groups of documents of a plurality of paper sizes in a short time, thereby improving operating efficiency.

<Structure and Effects of the Invention> The present invention includes a size detecting means that horizontally detects the paper size of the original on the original feeding tray, and a leading edge of the original at a position corresponding to each paper size on the original output tray. A stopper that comes into contact with the paper size is arranged so that it can be exposed in two stages, and only the stopper corresponding to the paper size detected by the size detection means is set to the lower exposed position when the document is fed, and is set to the upper exposed position when the document is finished being ejected. The invention is characterized in that it includes a stopper driving means.

According to the present invention, configured as described above, it is possible to automate the change of the stopper that regulates the storage position of the ejected original according to the paper size of the fed original, and to facilitate the original collection operation using this stopper. can be done.

In addition, multiple document units with different paper sizes can be fed consecutively starting from the smallest paper size document group, and in this case, it is possible to omit changing the stopper position for each document and collecting ejected documents. It is possible to improve operating efficiency by reducing the time required for feeding work.

<Embodiment> FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of an automatic document feeder that is an embodiment of the present invention.

The automatic document feeder includes a document feeding section 1a and a document conveying section 1.
It is composed of b. Original feeding trays 2 and 3 are attached to the original feeding section 1a. Document feed belts 4 and 5 are disposed near the tip of the document feed tray 2.3, respectively, and rotate to feed the document toward the document transport section 1b. A document conveyance belt 6 is disposed inside the document conveyance section 1b and stretched around drive rollers 7 and 8. The conveyance belt 6 forms a document conveyance path 9 above the document table 22 on the upper surface of the copying machine main body 1. A discharge roller 10 is disposed on the outer periphery of the document conveyance belt 6 near the driving roller rough, and discharges the document which has undergone the copying process from the discharge port 1). Original transport section 1b
The upper surface of the document is used as the document ejection section 12, and the ejection roller lO
Sensors 15a to 15d and 16a, which are the size detecting means of the present invention, are installed on each of the feeding trays 2 and 3, in which documents ejected from the ejection port 1) are stored.
~16d are arranged respectively. The sensor detects the paper size of the originals placed on the original feeding trays 2 and 3. Also, the original discharge tray 12 has a stopper 13a.
~13d are rotatably arranged. Above stopper 1
Each of 3a-13d has a solenoid 1 at the bottom.
The actuators 9a to 19d are engaged and are moved between the storage position and the exposed position by the operation of the solenoid. Furthermore, the actuator of a solenoid 20 is engaged with each of the stoppers 132 to 13d, and the operation of the solenoid 20 causes the stoppers 13a to 13d to move to the upper exposed position when collecting discharged documents.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the operation of the stopper of the above embodiment.

A stopper for continuously feeding the A4 size original 17 placed on the original feeding tray 2 of the original feeding section 1a and the B5 size original 18 placed on the lower original feeding tray 3. The operation will be explained below. When feeding a B5 size document, a solenoid 19a disposed below a stopper 13a disposed at a position corresponding to the B5 size document discharge tray 12 is driven, and its actuator 19aa moves in the direction of arrow A. The actuator 19aa is engaged with an engagement member 13aa formed below the stopper 13a. Therefore, as the stopper 13a moves in the direction of the arrow A, the stopper 13a rotates about the shaft portion 13ac as a fulcrum, as shown in FIG.
It has moved to the lower exposure position shown in A). One surface of the stopper 13a formed into an abbreviated cross-sectional shape due to the above movement is positioned approximately perpendicular to the document ejection tray 12,
After the copying process is completed, it comes into contact with the leading edge of the 85 size original document 18 placed there. The position of the B5 size original 18 in contact with the stopper 13a is defined in the original discharge tray 12, and the plurality of originals are stored in alignment. Of the stoppers arranged on the document ejection tray 12, the stoppers other than those corresponding to the paper size of the document being fed are shown in FIG.
) As shown in A4 size stopper 13b, the engaging member 1
The storage state is maintained by the elastic force of spring 3bb that is engaged with spring 3ba.

After the feeding of the B5-sized original 18 placed on the original feeding tray 3 is completed, when the A4-sized original 17 placed on the original feeding tray 2 is subsequently fed, the process shown in FIG. 2(B) is completed. As shown, the solenoid 19a disposed below the B5 size stopper 13a is turned off and the A4 size stopper 1
Solenoid 19b disposed below 3b is turned on and its actuator 19ba moves in the direction of arrow B. The above operation moves the stopper 13a to the storage position and the stopper 13b to the lower exposed position. As a result, one piece of the A4-size stopper 13b becomes approximately perpendicular to the document ejection tray 12, and the A4-size paper that has completed the copying process is
Original size f! , 17 are in contact with each other. The A4 size document ejected by the above contact is placed in the document ejection tray 1.
The original document 18 of B5 size is stored aligned above the original document 18 inside the document 2 .

When the discharge operation of all the fed originals is completed, the solenoid 19 is turned off and the solenoid 20 is turned on at the same time, and its actuator 20a moves in the direction of arrow C. The actuator 20 engages with all the engaging members of the stoppers 132 to 13b provided on the document ejection tray 12, and by moving in the direction of the arrow C, all the stoppers move in the direction of the arrow shown in FIG. 2(C). move in the direction. The above operation moves the stopper to the upper exposed position shown in the figure. At this time, the contact surface of each stopper moves upward and toward the discharge port, and the length of the document storage position in the discharge direction becomes slightly smaller. However, since the front end of each document continues to be in contact with the stopper, it bends in a direction perpendicular to the document ejection direction. Further, a large paper size document, such as the A4 size original fg1)7 shown in FIG. 2(C), can be lifted upward at its intermediate portion by a stopper corresponding to the smaller paper size. As an effect of the above-described operation, the originals stored in the original ejection tray are completely peeled off from the tray surface, making it easier to retrieve the originals.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the above embodiment.

Sensors 15a to 15d disposed on the upper document feeding tray 2 and sensors 16a to 16d disposed on the lower document feeding tray 3 are connected to the CPU 31 via an internal bus, and the respective detection A signal is input. Further, connected to the CPU 31 are a ROM 34 that stores programs that define the operations of the CPU, and a RAM 33 that stores input and output data. A memory area M1 inside the RAM 33 stores the paper size detected by the sensors 15a to 15d, and a memory area M2 stores the paper size detected by the sensors 16a to 16d. Further, solenoids 1.9a to 19d, 20 are connected to the CPU 31 via a driver 32. By driving the above solenoid, the document output tray 12 is
Expose the stopper at the required location.

FIGS. 4(A) to 4(C) are flowcharts showing the operation of the above embodiment.

First, in steps nl (hereinafter, steps ni will be simply referred to as ni) to n4, the paper size of the original placed on the original feeding tray 2 is detected by the sensors 15a to 15d. Next, the largest size of the sheets detected by the sensor in n5 to n8 is stored in the memory area Ml of the RAM 33. When none of the sensors detects a document in n1 to n4, the contents of the memory area M1 are cleared in n9. After that, in n1o-n13, it is determined which of the sensors 16a to 16b disposed on the document feed tray 3 has detected the document, and in n14 to n17, the maximum size of the document detected among the sensors 16a to 16d is determined. Set to the contents of memory area M2. n14~n
If none of the sensors detects the document in step 17, the memory area M2 is cleared in step n18.

When the print switch of the copying machine is turned on at n19, it is determined at n20 whether the contents of either memory area n1 or n2 have been cleared. If the contents of any memory area are not cleared at n20, the contents of the memory areas M1 and M2 are compared at n21. If the paper size stored in the memory area M1 is small in n21, the motor of the feeding belt 4 is turned on in n22, and the solenoid corresponding to the paper size stored in the area M1 among the solenoids 19a to 19d is driven; The feeding operation is started at n23. Original feed tray 2
After finishing feeding the original placed on n2,
At n28, the motor of the feeding belt 5 is driven, and the solenoid corresponding to the paper size stored in the area M2 is driven, and at n28, the feeding operation of the original placed on the original feeding tray 3 is started. . If the paper size stored in area M2 is small in n21, n25→
The process proceeds in the order of n26→n27→n28, and the operation of feeding the original placed on the original feeding tray 3 is performed first. If the contents of either area M1 or M2 have been cleared at n20, proceed to n30 and then n31 or n32.
Proceed to. At n28, a feeding operation is performed from either the document feeding tray 2 or 3 on which the document is placed.

When the feeding operation in n28 is completed, the process proceeds to n29, where the solenoid 20 is driven and the stoppers 13a to 13d are moved to the upper exposed position.

In the above-mentioned operation, n1 to n4 and n14 to n17 correspond to the size detection means of the present invention, and n2l to n27 correspond to the means for performing the feeding operation starting from the smallest size.

As described above, by exposing the stopper corresponding to the paper size of the document detected by the placement detection means and using it as a member to regulate the storage position when the document is ejected, the work of moving the stopper when changing the document size is automated. be able to. In addition, when a group of originals with different paper sizes are placed on multiple document feeding trays, it is possible to continuously feed multiple types of originals by feeding them in order starting from the smallest paper size. The automatic document feeder and this device equipped with the automatic document feeder can be used to automate the work of changing the stopper position and simplify the document collection work, thereby simplifying and reducing the time required to feed the document. The operating efficiency of the system can be significantly improved.

Furthermore, since continuous feeding of multiple types of paper originals can be carried out using only a single original ejection tray, the drawback of increased space can be eliminated.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of an automatic document feeder that is an embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 2A to 2C are diagrams showing the operation of the embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the embodiment. , Figure 4(A)~
(C) is a flowchart showing the operation of the same embodiment. 2.3-Document feed tray, 1)-Discharge port, 12-Document discharge tray, 13a-13d-Stock 7 pa, 15a-15d, 16a-16d-Sensor, 19a-1
9d, 7 lenoid. Figure 4 (B) Figure 4 (C)

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In an automatic document feeder that has a single or multiple document feed trays in the document feed section and a single document ejection tray in the document ejection section, the paper size of the document can be set in the document feed tray. In addition to disposing a size detection means for detecting the paper size, a stopper that contacts the leading edge of the document is provided at a position corresponding to each paper size on the document ejection tray so that it can be exposed in two stages, and when the document is fed, An automatic document feeder is provided with a stopper drive means that sets only the stopper corresponding to the paper size detected by the detection means to the lower exposed position and sets it to the upper exposed position when the document ejection is completed. (2) Claim 1, wherein the size detection means includes means for performing a feeding operation starting from the smallest size when documents of a plurality of sizes are placed on a plurality of document feeding trays.
Automatic document feeder as described in section.