JPS6366069A - Paper collector - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To transport recording sheets at a high speed and increase the accommodating capacity by introducing recording sheets with the aid of a feeding means, inverting each sheet up and down using a guide member etc., exhausting to a tray, and shifting the inlet to tray up and down with advance of a plunger. CONSTITUTION:Each recording sheet is led into a horizontal transport part 4 from a feed hole 3, and the heading direction is changed to plumb downwards by the use of a head change guide plate 5, and then the sheet is exhausted to a tray 2 of an exhaust unit 7 from a vertical transport part 6. The exhaust unit 7 is coupled with a tray inlet retaining member 20 and moved up and down together therewith with rotation of a rotary shaft 21. The other end of a constant torque spring 35 is drawn out with vertical motion of said exhaust unit 7, and the recording sheet is retained between the face thus drawn out and the face of a vertical transport belt 14. When the load on the tray 2 exceeds a set value, a plunger 41A is retracted into a pin supporting part 41 to allow getting over a pin 2A of the tray 2.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a collation device, and more specifically, a collation device that receives recording materials sent from a host device such as a copying machine or a printer,
The present invention relates to a collating device capable of distributing and storing by selectively discharging to one of a plurality of arrayed tray pins.

[Prior Art] In a conventional collating device of this type, tray pins are fixedly arranged vertically at intervals, and the recording material guided from the feeding port by the conveyance means is transferred to the selected tray by the tray selection means. A device configured to eject the recording material, or by vertically moving tray pins held at intervals vertically to align the entrance of the selected tray with the recording material delivery section and eject the recording material. Various types of devices, such as those in the following manner, are in widespread use.

However, the above-mentioned collating device with a fixed tray pin and the collating device with a tray pin that moves up and down each have their advantages and disadvantages, and in particular, in the case of the conventional general collating device of the latter type, When the number of sheets of recording material ejected to the tray pin (hereinafter referred to as tray) increases, multiple trays of recording materials stored in individual trays and held cumulatively above the ejection tray are simultaneously lifted. Therefore, a large amount of power is required, and there are also problems in increasing the speed.

Furthermore, in general, in conventional T-gold M, the recording surface, or surface, of the recording material sent out from a copying machine is kept facing upward, and the face and surface are kept facing upward.
If the documents are ejected to the tray in a close-up state, for example, when copying a plurality of original documents, the order of the number of pages will be reversed and it will take time to readjust them. Therefore,
Post-processing? A type of paper has been developed that has a function of turning the paper upside down and placing it face down before being discharged onto a tray, but the mechanism tends to be too complicated.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In view of the above-mentioned problems, an object of the present invention is to simplify the conveying means, make it possible to change the tray entrance up and down, and reduce the power required for the tray entrance changing means. It's small,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a collating device that has a high storage capacity with multistage trays and is capable of high-speed conveyance.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a horizontal conveying means for horizontally conveying the recording material introduced via the transmitting means, and a horizontal conveying means for horizontally conveying the recording material introduced through the transmitting means. a guide member that changes the direction of the recording material vertically downward; a vertical conveying means that conveys the changed recording material in the vertical direction; A constant torque spring that is extendable and holds the recording material while sliding it between the vertical conveying means, and an end of the constant torque spring is fixed.
A deflection member for deflecting the recording material conveyed by the vertical conveyance means in a direction opposite to the direction of conveyance by the horizontal conveyance means, a means for discharging the deflected recording material onto the tray, a tray evacuation means, and a deflection member. A tray inlet holding means that is movable up and down together with the internal member and that can change the inlet of the tray up and down by rotating around a rotation axis and pulling up or down a tray pin provided on the inlet side of the tray; The present invention is characterized by comprising a tray pin support device that individually supports the tray pins and has a plunger that can be climbed over by the tray pin when the tray pin is pulled up or down.

[Function] What is the effect of the T gold device of the present invention? When the elephant material is guided from the host device to the feeding means of this device, it is horizontal with the feeding means! 2. The feeding means and the vertical conveying means are driven simultaneously, but in the non-collation mode, only the feeding means is driven, the horizontal conveying means and the vertical conveying means are not driven, and the recording material is switched by the path switching means. The non-sort tray is discharged by a feeding means into the non-sort tray discharge path, and is sequentially and continuously accumulated on the non-sort tray by a non-sort tray discharge roller which is interlocked with the feed means.

Next, in the T mode, the path is switched to the horizontal conveying means by the passage 7 & switching means, so the recording material is guided to the horizontal conveying means by the feeding means and then further guided by the direction changing guide member. It is directed vertically downward and guided to a vertical conveyance means. It is then held by the vertical conveying means and the stretched strip of constant torque springs and conveyed to the tray ejecting unit by the frictional force on the surface of the vertical conveying means. On the other hand, the tray ejection unit has a member for changing the direction of the recording material and a means for ejecting the changed direction of the recording material onto the tray.The tray ejection unit is connected to the frame of the tray entrance holding member on both sides, and is connected to the frame of the tray entrance holding member. Since the tray entrance is kept in the corresponding position of the ejection unit by the d3 material, the recording material is ejected from the ejection unit to the tray. However, during the levering, the recording material is moved 9 times by the direction change guide member and the ejection unit.
Since the feeding direction is changed by 0 degrees, the recording material discharged onto the tray can be placed face down.

When the recording material is thus discharged onto the tray, the tray entrance holding member is subsequently rotated around its rotation axis, and the tray entrance is moved to a position corresponding to the tray one level above or the tray one level below. After that, the movement is continuously repeated.

[Example] Hereinafter, an example of the great invention will be described in detail and specifically based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the invention. Note that, in order to make the explanation easier to understand, the description of the means for discharging to the non-sort tray is omitted here. As shown in the figure, the outer case 1 of this collating device is formed in the shape of a box-shaped cabinet, and collated recording materials can be taken out from the side of the arranged trays 2. When the recording material sent out in the direction of the arrow from a host device such as a copying machine (not shown) is in the T combination mode,
From the feeding port 3, the tray 2 is directly guided to the horizontal conveyance section 4, from where it is changed vertically downward along the direction changing guide plate 5, and guided to the tray discharge unit 7 by the vertical conveyance section 6, where the tray 2
The overall structure will be further explained in detail with reference to FIG.

FIG. 2 shows an example in which a non-sorting tray r8 is provided, where 9A and 9B are used to store recording materials in a non-sorting manner.
The upper and lower guide plates IOA and IOB when discharging to the tray 8 are the upper and lower guide plates (inverse) that guide the recording material from the feed port to the horizontal conveyance path 4 at 114. Also, the feed port 3 is formed. The guide path 1 is provided with an entrance sensor IIA using a photo interrupter or the like, which detects when a recording material is introduced into the guide path 11 and sends the feed roller 12) horizontal completion heald 13 and vertical conveyance belt 14. drive all at once.

15 is a deflection plate; 16 is a solenoid for rotating the deflection plate 15 to change its direction; in non-collation mode, that is, in non-sort mode, the solenoid 16 rotates the deflection plate 15; From the state shown in the figure, the non-sort tray 8 is rotated counterclockwise for 1 hour and the non-sort tray 8
The recording material can be ejected and kept in an accumulated state.

In addition, during non-collation, the drive system of the feed roller 12 and discharge roller 17, the horizontal conveyance belt 13, and the vertical conveyance belt 14 are driven via a clutch mechanism (not shown). The system is configured so that only the feed roller 12 and the discharge roller 17 are driven, thereby saving power.

Next, the relationship between the vertical conveyance section 6, the discharge unit 7 for discharging the recording material from the vertical general feed section 6 onto the tray 2, and the tray entrance holding member 20 for securing an entrance between the trays for discharge will be described below. As will be explained with reference to FIG. 4 instead of FIG. 3, both ends of the support frame 7A of the discharge unit 7 and the support frame 20A of the tray entrance holding member 20 are fixed together as shown in FIG. , therefore, the tray entrance member 20
The discharge unit 7 can be moved up and down. That is, in FIG. 2, 21 is a rotor 1h that can rotate the member 20 while vertically supporting the tray entrance holding member 2G, and is rotationally driven by a drive motor 23 via a sprocket mechanism 2z. Ru. A guide shaft 24 slidably supports both ends of the support frame of the discharge unit 7.

FIG. 3 shows the relationship between the vertical conveyance section 6 and the discharge unit 7. Here, 31 is a discharge roller whose shaft is supported on both ends of the support frame 7A of the discharge unit 7, and 32 is a discharge roller 31.
A driven roller 33 is kept in contact with a recording material 34
This is a guide claw member (hereinafter referred to as a direction changing member) that changes direction in order to guide it to the tray 2.

Further, 35 is a belt-shaped constant torque spring wound around the winding shaft 35A in the shape of a clockwork spring, and no matter how it is unwound in the form of a tape measure, it is It has a function of being rewound around the winding shaft 35A. In this example, a plurality of constant torque springs 35 are mounted on the winding shaft 35A, and the ends of each constant torque spring 35 are fixed to the support frame 7A.
The recording material 34 is pulled out as the ejection unit 7 moves up and down, and is held between the smooth surface of the stretched state and the surface of the vertical conveyance belt 14 having frictional resistance. In addition,
Here, the constant torque spring 35 is made of a metal material such as copper, and can eliminate static electricity charged on the surface of the recording material 34 by coming into contact with the recording material 34.

The recording material 34 is held only by the frictional force between it and the conveyor belt 4 and is conveyed downward, and is held between the discharge roller 31 and the driven roller 32 by the deflection member 33 and then delivered to the tray entrance described later. The paper is discharged from the tray 2 toward the tray 2. Note that 36 is the shaft 3 of the discharge roller 31 in order to drive it once.
A drive gear 38 provided between 1A and the drive shaft 37 is a pulley attached to the drive shaft 37, in contact with one of the conveyor belts 14, and driven by the belt 14. Thus,
By rotating the discharge roller 13 at a circumferential speed somewhat higher than the feed speed of the belt 4, it is possible to prevent jamming.

Reference numeral 39 denotes a fixing metal fitting that holds the end of the constant torque spring 35 fixed to the support frame 7A, and 40 is a static elimination brush that is fixed to the support frame 7A and eliminates static electricity from the surface of the recording material to be discharged.

Next, the tray entrance holding member 20 and tray pin support structure will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 4. As described above, the tray entrance holding member 20 is supported by the rotary shaft 21 so as to be vertically movable, and is constituted by a screw cam having a spiral groove 20B along its columnar surface. On the other hand, each tray 2 is provided with tray pins 2A at both ends thereof for supporting the entrance side, and each tray pin 2A is supported by a plunger 41A of a tray pin support member 41 on both sides of the tray 2.

However, here, the plunger 41A is kept in a protruding state as shown in the figure by a spring (not shown), and the pin 2
When a load exceeding a predetermined recording material loading load is applied via A, the plunger 41A is retracted into the pin support member 41, thereby allowing the plunger 41A to overcome the pin 2A.

42 is a guide groove that keeps the tray pin 2A slidable.

Further, the tray 2 is provided with a tray pin (hereinafter referred to as a rear end pin) 2B for holding the rear end as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 on the rear end side, and the rear end pin 2B is provided on a pin support wall 43. sliding groove 43A1. :Slideably held. Therefore, this sliding groove 43A is formed with an upward slope toward the rear, so that the tray pin 2A on the inlet side is lifted up and the tray inlet 44 is maintained between it and the tray below. Sometimes, by holding the rear end of the tray 2 in a slightly upward position, a large number of recording materials can be stored in the tray 2.
Even if they are accumulated in the container, they will not become clogged and jammed, and can be easily guided.

Furthermore, in FIG. 2, 45A and 45B are a light emitting part and a light receiving part of a recording material discharge detection sensor 45 provided on the side of the tray entrance 44 of the discharge unit 7, and 45C is an optical path thereof. Further, the discharge unit 7 is provided with an inverted tip plate 46 on its discharge side, so that when the recording material is held between the discharge roller 31 and the driven roller 32 and is discharged almost horizontally, When the tip plate 46 is tilted from an upright position, it cuts off the optical path 45C, and it is detected that the recording material is being discharged. That is, by providing the edge plate 46, it is possible to detect even if the recording material is a transparent film that allows light to pass through. Note that if the light is cut off at the sensor 45 due to the passage of the recording material, and if the light remains cut off even after the elapse of the time set enough for the member to pass there, it is not shown in the figure. No: tlJ It is determined that jam occurred through the phloem.

To explain the continuous operation at the time of collation in the collation device configured as described above, the operation of non-collation 1"ν will be omitted as it has been described in detail earlier, and the operation for collation p++r will be explained from the host device (not shown). The recording material that has been guided is large-mouth sensor 1
2, the feed roller 12) horizontal conveyance belt 13 and vertical conveyance belt 1-14 are moved by a motor (not shown) via interlocking means (not shown).

In this way, the recording material is transported between the horizontal conveyance belt 13 and the direction change guide plate 5.
1? between the vertical conveyor belt 14 and the constant torque spring, sliding along the stretched smooth 111-shaped surface of the spring 35. After being held by the frictional force and being occupied by the ejection unit 7, the claw member 33
The paper is deflected by the paper, and is discharged onto the tray 2 by the discharge roller 31 and the driven roller 32. Note that this discharge operation is monitored by a sensor 45, and the static electricity of the material is eliminated by a static elimination brush 40 shown in FIG.

When the sensor 45 detects that the recording material has been completely discharged onto the tray 2, the drive motor 23 rotates the rotation shaft 21 of the tray entrance holding member 20 via the sprocket mechanism 22. In the case of this example, the tray pin 2A held in contact with either the upper surface or the lower surface of the member 20 is lowered or raised by a one-rotation movement in either direction of the tray entrance holding member 20, and the tray located one step higher is lowered or raised. Alternatively, the next tray inlet 44 is formed on the tray one level below to prepare for the next ejection operation.

Here, if a jam occurs near the discharge unit 7, the vertical conveyor belt 14 and the case rear MIA holding belt pulleys +4A and 14Bf- together with this belt 14 move around the axis of pulley A. Since it is configured to be rotatable, the jammed recording material can be removed by opening the case rear cover IA.

In the example described above, a screw cam is used as the tray entrance holding member, but the present invention is not limited to a tray entrance holding member of the screw cam type. Needless to say, the same effect can be obtained by using a Geneva cam type tray entrance holding member which is attached to a horizontal shaft that is movable eight times in the vertical direction and allows the tray pin to move up and down by rotating in the horizontal direction.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, there is provided a horizontal conveying means for horizontally conveying a specialized recording material, and a horizontal conveying means for horizontally conveying a recording material, and a method for directing the recording material conveyed by the horizontal conveying means vertically downward. A guide member for changing the direction of the recording material, a vertical conveyance means for conveying the recording material whose direction has been changed downward, and a smooth band-like shape, which is elastically wound at a constant torque and is held by a ring and can be freely stretched;
A constant torque spring slides and holds the recording material between it and the vertical conveyance means, and an end of the constant torque spring is fixed, so that the recording material conveyed by the vertical conveyance means is moved to the side opposite to the conveyance direction of the horizontal conveyance means. a direction changing member for changing the direction of the recording material, a means for discharging the recording material whose direction has been changed by the direction changing member onto the tray, and a means for discharging the recording material whose direction has been changed by the direction changing member, and a means for discharging the recording material into the tray, which is movable in the vertical direction together with the above-mentioned changing member and the discharging means, and rotates around a rotation axis. Tray entrance holding means that can change the entrance of the tray up and down by pulling up or lowering a tray pin provided at the entrance side of the tray; Since a tray pin support device having a plunge 1 that can be climbed over by a tray pin is provided, it is possible not only to transport the recording material reliably and continuously at high speed using a simplified single general transport means, but also to transport the recording material as a whole at high speed. can be stored in a box-shaped case, making it possible to arrange multi-stage trays with high storage capacity, and requiring less driving power, providing a compact and energy-saving T-bag bag. can do.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of the configuration of the T gold device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram for explaining the configuration, and FIG. 3 is an example of the vertical conveyance section and discharge unit according to the present invention. Perspective View FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing an example of the configuration of a tray entrance guide member and a tray pin support device according to the present invention. l...Outside ♀ [S case, IA...rear lid, 2...tray, 2A, 2B...tray pin, 3...feeding port, 4...horizontal transport section, 5...・Change guide plate, 6... Vertical transport section, 7... Discharge unit, 8... Non-sort tray, 9A, 9B, IOA, IOB... Guide plate, 11A...
・Entrance sensor, ]2... Feed roller, 13... Horizontal conveyance belt, 14... Vertical conveyance belt, 15... Direction plate, 16... Solenoid, ]7... Discharge roller , 20... Toshi-I person-ro holding member, 21... Rotation! '+b, 23...i5 ward motor, 31...4 Ide roller, 32...driven roller, 33...direction changing member, 34...recording material, 35...constant torque spring, 40... Static elimination brush, 41... Tray pin support member, 41A... Plunger, 42... Guide groove, 43... Bin support wall, 43A... Sliding? 1, 45... Discharge detection sensor, 45A... Light emitting section, 45B... Light receiving section, 45C... Optical path, 46... Tip plate.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) A horizontal conveying means for horizontally conveying the recording material introduced via the feeding means, and a guide member for redirecting the recording material conveyed in the horizontal direction vertically downward. a vertical conveyance means for conveying the recording material whose direction has been changed in the vertical direction; a constant torque spring that slides and holds the recording material between them; a deflection member for displacing the direction of the recording material and a means for ejecting the deflected recording material onto a tray; Tray entrance holding means that can change the entrance of the tray up or down by pulling up or lowering a tray pin provided at the entrance side of the tray; A collating device comprising: a tray pin support device having a plunger that can be climbed over by a tray pin. 2) The collating device according to claim 1, wherein the tray discharging means is interlocked with the vertical conveying means. 3) In the collating device according to claim 1 or 2, the feeding means can be switched to discharge the recording material to a non-collating tray when non-collating, and . A collating device, wherein only the feeding means is driven by the driving source when the collating is not performed. 4) In the collating device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, the tray has an upward slope with respect to the discharge direction, and the tray pin on the inlet side is connected to the tray inlet holding member. A collating device characterized in that a tray pin provided on a side opposite to the inlet side is slidably held in a sliding groove having a slope greater than an upward slope of the tray.