JPS61287631A - Sheet material feeding cassette - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make a wide variety of sheets chargeable without an interval side plate or a rear end stopper, by installing a concave groove which is uniformly allotted from a cassette center line along a width direction in a manner conformable to size in width and length of a sheet material to be charged. CONSTITUTION:Paper of A size is charged in a cassette body 1 on the whole, and in this time, even if the paper floats up at a part of a concave groove 40, there is some stiffness in the paper so that no hindrance occurs there. Next, when paper of B size is charged, a rear part of the paper is housed in this concave groove 40 and charged, but a tip end of the paper is situated in the same position at the time of charging the paper of A size. After doing like this, when a sheet material feed roller is attached to the specified cassette inserting port of an image former, a pushing plate 32 is pushed up by action of a spring 51, whereby the paper tip end comes into contact with a paper feed roller 12, and with operation of this roller 12, sheets of paper are fed one by one from one on the topper in order. Thus, sheets of paper different in size are easily charged in a cassette without an adjustable side plate and/or a shiftable rear stopper.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a sheet material supply case, and is particularly used in an image forming apparatus such as an electrophotographic copying machine, and is capable of loading sheet objects of a plurality of sizes. This invention relates to a sheet material supply cassette.

[Background of the invention]

Conventionally, sheet material supply cassettes (universal cassettes) installed in image forming apparatuses such as electrophotographic copying machines have been equipped with side plates with adjustable spacing and a movable trailing edge stopper, and have been equipped with The spacing between the side plates and the position of the trailing end stopper are adjusted according to the paper width to set the paper at a predetermined spacing.

However, since these types of cassettes require a side plate and a rear end stopper that are separate from the cassette body, they require a large number of parts and require a lot of assembly man-hours. The user has to reset the side plates and the rear end stopper, which is troublesome and inconvenient, and the durability of the side plates and the rear end stopper is also a problem.

[Purpose of the invention]

This invention eliminates the drawbacks of the conventional ones as described above, eliminates the need for side plates with adjustable spacing and movable rear end stopper, and makes it possible to load sheets of multiple sizes. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a sheet material supply cassette that can be used.

[Structure of the invention]

The present invention is a sheet material supply cassette capable of loading sheet materials of a plurality of sizes, and has a configuration in which grooves are provided that match the sizes of the sheet materials to be loaded.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the invention shown in a concave form will be described below.

FIG. 1 shows an electrophotographic copying apparatus which is a type of image forming apparatus equipped with a sheet supply cassette according to the present invention, and a charging device 2 is installed above a photosensitive drum 1 which is an image carrier. An exposure section 3, a developing device 4, a transfer pole 5, a separation pole 6, a cleaning device 7, and a post-exposure lamp 8 are provided in the forward direction of the photoconductor drum 1 from the charging device 2 in the direction of rotation of the photoconductor drum 1, respectively. It is provided.

Between the developing device 4 and the transfer pole 5, there is formed a paper feed path with two upper and lower stages for guiding the sheets of paper in the upper and lower two stages of sheet supply cassettes provided outside. Upper and lower guides +H10a, 10b and a middle guide plate 10C are provided, and a pair of upper and lower second paper feed rollers lla and llb are located between the upper and lower guide plates 10a and 10b.

Furthermore, paper feed rollers 12 are provided, which contact the uppermost sheet of the sheets P in each of the sheet material supply cassettes 9 and feed the paper to each of the paper feed paths.

Further, between the transfer pole 5 and the separation pole 6 to the fixing device 19, there is provided a conveyance device 22 in which a conveyance belt 20 is stretched downward between rollers 21a and 121b, and A guide plate 23 is also provided so that the upper part of the conveyor belt 20 protrudes.

A toner collection box 24 for storing the collected toner collected by the cleaning device 7 is provided below the conveyance device Z2, and this toner collection box 24 and
A communication member 25 is provided between the cleaning device 7 and the toner collected by the cleaning device 7 via the communication member 25 to the toner collection box 2.
It is designed to be guided within 4.

FIG. 2.3 shows a sheet supply cassette 9 according to the present invention.
One example of sheet supply cassettes A and 9B is shown, and these sheet material supply cassettes 9A and 9B are of a size that can accommodate A4 size paper as a whole, and are composed of a cassette main body 31 and a push-up plate 32. has been done. In the diagram! 3.LI is the width and height of A4 size, it and Lx are B respectively.
The width and height are 5 sizes.

The cassette main body 31 has a front plate 33 located at the tip in the paper feeding direction, a rear plate 34, a left plate 35, and a plywood 36 that form a rectangular frame, and a rectangular frame is formed between the front and rear ends on both the left and right sides. An arc-shaped bearing portion 37.37 is formed, and this bearing portion 37.3
A bottom plate 38 is formed entirely behind the bearing part 3.
In front of 7.37, a bottom plate 39 is formed only near the front plate 33.

The bottom plate 38 is integrally provided with inclined grooves 40 having a size for accommodating the rear part of a B5 size paper, and are evenly distributed from the center line of the cassette main body 31 along the paper width direction. A paper press claw 41 is formed at the rear end of the paper holding member 40 to prevent the rear end of the paper stored in the recess 140 from lifting up.

The push-up plate 32 is attached to the bearing portion 37.3 of the cassette body 31.
An arcuate shaft portion 42.42 formed on both sides of the rear end is large enough to be accommodated in the entire front portion of the bearing portion 37.7.
37, and is mounted so as to be swingable in the vertical direction using the shaft portions 42 and 42 as fulcrums.

Then, when the sheet material supply cassette is installed in a predetermined cassette insertion opening of the image forming KW or the like, the push-up plate 32
As shown by the chain line in FIG. 3, the leading edge of the paper is pushed up by a spring 51 and comes into contact with the paper feed roller 12.

Next, the operation of the above will be explained.

First, the photosensitive drum 1 charged by the charging device 2 is exposed to light to form an electrostatic latent image, and this electrostatic latent image is developed by the developing device 4 to become a toner image.

Further, the uppermost sheet of the sheets P stored in any of the sheet supply cassettes is sent out by the sheet feed roller 12 to the sheet feed path formed by the upper guide plate 10a and the middle guide plate 10c. Or the middle guide plate 10c and the lower guide plate 10
a second paper feed roller lla via a paper feed path formed by
, 11b, and is conveyed to a position facing the photoreceptor drum 1 at a predetermined timing, the toner image formed on the photoreceptor drum 1 is transferred to the paper by the transfer pole 5, and then the separation pole After being conveyed by the conveying belt 20 of the conveying device 22, which is separated by 6 and whose front end is tilted downward, the sheet is guided to the fixing device 19 by a guide member 26 that directs the leading edge of the sheet upward. After being fixed at step 19, the sheet is discharged outward by a pair of upper and lower discharge rollers 27.

Further, after the toner image has been transferred to the paper, the photosensitive drum 1 further rotates and reaches the cleaning device 7.
Residual toner is removed from the surface by the blade 7a of the cleaning device 7, and after that, post-exposure is performed using a post-exposure lamp 8, thus completing one process and waiting for the next process.

The residual toner removed by the blade 7a of the cleaning device 7 is transferred to the toner collection box 24 disposed below the conveyance device 22 via a communication member 25 that communicates the cleaning device 7 and the toner collection box 24. It falls inside and is stored inside.

The sheet material supply cassette according to the present invention is used in an electrophotographic copying apparatus or the like that operates as described above, and when loading A4 size paper into this sheet material supply cassette, the cassette main body 1 Load the entire area.

In this case, the paper is floating at the concave portion of $40, but since the paper has what is called paper stiffness, there is no problem at all.

Furthermore, when loading B5 size paper, the rear part of the paper is accommodated in the groove 40, but in this case, the leading edge of the paper is placed in the same position as when A4 size paper is loaded. become.

After doing so, when the sheet feeding roller according to the present invention is installed in a predetermined cassette insertion opening of the image forming unit 11 or the like as shown in FIG. 4, the push-up plate 32 is pushed up by the action of the spring 51. The leading edge of the paper comes into contact with the paper feed roller 12, and by the operation of the paper feed roller 12, the paper is fed one by one starting from the topmost one.

FIG. 5.6 shows another embodiment of the sheet supply cassette according to the invention, which has an inclined recess in the push-up plate 3.2 which is sized to accommodate the rear part of the postcard. Grooves 43 are integrally and evenly distributed from the center line of the cassette body 11 along the paper width direction.
A paper presser claw 44 is formed at the rear end to prevent the rear end of the postcard stored in the recess A43 from lifting up, and the rest is the same as the sheet material supply mechanism shown in Fig. 2.3. Therefore, similar parts will be shown with the same reference numerals, and detailed explanations of each part will be omitted.

This sheet supply cassette also operates in substantially the same manner as the paper supply cassette shown in FIG. 2.3.

In each of the above-mentioned embodiments, a size that accommodates A4 size paper is shown, but it is needless to say that the size is not limited to this.

〔Effect of the invention〕

Since this invention is constructed as described above, there is no need for side plates with adjustable spacing or movable rear end stoppers as in the conventional ones, and therefore there are fewer parts and less man-hours for assembly. In addition, there is no need for the user to reset the side plate each time a different size of paper is loaded, making it easy to operate and handle.
It has an excellent effect.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an image forming apparatus equipped with a sheet paddy supply cassette according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the sheet material supply cassette according to the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 4 is an explanatory view showing the usage state of the device shown in FIGS. 2 and 3. FIG. 5 is a longitudinal sectional front view of the one shown in FIG. 5. FIG. 1...Photosensitive drum 2...Charging device 4...Developing device 5...Transfer pole 6...Separation poles 9A, 9B... ...Sheet supply cassette 12...
... Paper feed roller 31 ... Cassette body 32 ... Push-up plate 33 ... Front plate 34
・・・・・・Back hand counter 35・・・・・・Left board 3
6...Plywood 37...Bearing part 3
8...Bottom plate 39...Bottom plate 4
0...Concave groove 41...Paper presser claw 4
2...Shaft portion 43...Concave groove 44
...Paper presser claw 51...Spring

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) A sheet material supply cassette capable of loading sheet materials of a plurality of sizes, characterized in that a concave groove adapted to the size of the sheet material to be loaded is provided. (2) The sheet material supply cassette according to claim 1, wherein the size of the sheet material is the width of the sheet material. (3) The sheet material supply cassette according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the size of the sheet material is the length of the sheet material. (4) The sheet article according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the grooves are evenly distributed from the center line of the sheet article supply cassette along the width direction. supply cassette.