JPH09267940A - Paper feeder - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To separate paper securely in a paper supply device irrespective of degree of stiffness of paper. SOLUTION: A hopper 11 which stores paper 10 by loading it is provided. A paper supply roller 12 which comes into contact with the paper in the hopper and sends out the paper is provided. An inclined face 13 which is inclined in such a manner that it rises gradually from a section with which a front end 10a of the paper sent out from the hopper comes into contact is provided. A pressing member 4 is brought into contact with a top face of paper in such a manner that a front end of paper which is sent out is pressed against an inclined face side at a position which is closer to the inclined face than the paper supply roller 12. The paper having large stiffness overcomes the pressing member 14, rises along the inclined face 13, and is separated. The paper having small stiffness is pressed by the pressing member 14, is curved at a sharp angle along the inclined face 13, and is separated.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a sheet feeding device for feeding sheets stacked in a hopper one by one by a sheet feeding roller.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a paper feeding apparatus previously proposed by the present inventor, there is one shown in FIG. This comprises a hopper 3 for accommodating a stack of papers 2 on the main body frame 1 along the flow direction of the papers 2, a paper feed roller 4 for sending out the uppermost paper 2 in the hopper 3, It has a conveying roller 6 that receives the sheet 2 sent from the sheet feeding roller 4 and conveys it to the print head 5, and a driven roller 7 that sandwiches the sheet 2 together with the conveying roller 6. Further, a guide surface 8 for the paper 2 is formed from below the hopper 3 to the print head 5, and the guide surface 8 is inclined so that a portion of the paper 2 which is going out of the hopper 3 and which faces the front end gradually rises. It is an inclined surface 8a.

However, when a feeding force is applied to the uppermost sheet 2 by the rotation of the sheet feeding roller 4, the sheet 2 has its front end in contact with the inclined surface 8a and is separated from the lower sheet while receiving resistance there. The sheets are sent one by one to the transport roller 6. Then, it is sent to the print head 5 by the carrying roller 6 and is used for printing.

[0004]

However, there are some types of paper that have strong or weak stiffness, and the resistance received from the inclined surface differs depending on the strength of the stiffness. Therefore, when feeding stiff paper such as thick paper, even if it can be reliably separated from the underlying paper even if it has a gentle slope, when feeding stiff paper such as thin paper, It passes through the inclined surface without resistance and causes double feeding. Also, on a steeply inclined surface that can reliably separate weak paper, the resistance against strong paper may be too strong, and so-called idling may occur in which only the paper feed roller idles without paper being supplied. is there.

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide means for properly feeding paper regardless of the strength of the paper.

[0006]

In order to solve the above-mentioned object, the invention of claim 1 is such that a hopper 11 for accommodating and accommodating sheets 10 and abutting against the sheets 10 in the hopper 11,
An inclined surface 13 that is inclined so as to gradually rise from a position where the paper feed roller 12 that sends out the paper 10 and the front end 10a of the paper 10 sent out from the hopper 11 come into contact with each other.
And a pressing member 14 that presses the upper surface of the paper 10 at a position closer to the inclined surface 13 than the paper feed roller 12 so as to press the front end 10a of the fed paper 10 toward the inclined surface. A paper device, and the invention of claim 2 is
3. The paper feed device according to claim 1, wherein the pressing member 14 is capable of moving up following the paper 10 when the front end 10a of the paper 10 rises along the inclined surface 13,
According to the invention of claim 4, the pressing member 14 is a paper feeding device in which the free end 14a is in contact with the upper surface of the paper and the other end is an elastic plate fixed to the fixing portion 18, and the invention of claim 4 is In claim 3, the elastic plate is a sheet feeding device that extends while curving from the upstream side to the downstream side of the sheet feeding roller 12, and the invention of claim 5 is the sheet feeding device according to claim 4, wherein the hopper 11 is The paper feed device is detachably inserted into the main body frame 9 of the paper feed device from the upstream side of the paper feed roller 12, and the invention according to claim 6 is the paper feed device according to any one of claims 1 to 5. The sheet feeding device has an inkjet type print head 23 that ejects ink droplets onto the sheet 10 to perform a printing operation on the downstream side in the sheet feeding direction.

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. This paper feeding device has a configuration as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, and is designed to function as a printing machine itself.

In these drawings, reference numeral 9 indicates a main body frame of the sheet feeding device, and a hopper 11 for accommodating and accommodating the paper 10 on the main body frame 9 and the paper 10 in the hopper 11 are brought into contact with each other and the paper A sheet feeding roller 12 for feeding the sheet 10, a slanted surface 13 inclined in the feeding direction while gradually rising from a position where the front end 10a of the sheet 10 fed out from the hopper 11 abuts, and an inclined surface more than the sheet feeding roller 12. A pressing member 14 that abuts on the upper surface of the sheet 10 is provided at a position nearer 13 so as to press the front end 10a of the fed sheet 10 toward the inclined surface 13 side.

The hopper 11 may be integrated with the main body frame 9, but in this embodiment, the paper feed roller 12 is used.
It is removably inserted into the main body frame 9 of the sheet feeding device from the upstream side of. The hopper 11 has a box-shaped cassette 15 which is fitted in the recess 9b of the main body frame 9 in a state of being inclined downward in the feeding direction, and a push-up plate 16 which is housed in the cassette 15. The upper surface of the cassette 15 is open, and the push-up plate 16 is exposed from there.
The push-up plate 16 is axially supported by the cassette 15 so as to be vertically rotatable about the shaft 6a at the upstream end, and a spring 10 is used to push up the paper 10 placed on the cassette 15 toward the paper feed roller 12. Always energized by 17.

The paper feed roller 12 is a roller having a circular cutout portion 12a formed by cutting out a part of an arc portion. The paper feed roller 12 is fixed to a shaft 12b bridged between the left and right side walls 9a of the main body frame 9 and is driven by a drive not shown. Driven by the department. The uppermost sheet 10 is conveyed from the hopper 11 to the conveying roller 2 by rotating the sheet feeding roller 12 with the arc portion contacting the sheet 10.
It is designed to send out up to 1. At the position where the paper feed roller 12 makes one rotation and the cutout portion 12 a faces the paper 10, the collar 19 rotatably provided on the shaft 12 b stops the paper feed roller 12 at a distance from the paper. In the process of being fed by the paper feed roller 12, the front end 10a of the paper 10 is curved while being fed along the inclined surface 13.

Since the inclined surface 13 is inclined so that the front end 10a of the sheet 10 fed by the paper feed roller 12 gradually rises from the point of contact to fall in the feeding direction, the most contact with the inclined surface 13 occurs. The upper-layer paper 10 bends upward due to the resistance, separates from the lower-layer paper 10 and is fed alone. However, as described above, the separating performance of the inclined surface 13 differs depending on whether the paper 10 is stiff or weak, so that the pressing member 14 compensates for this.

The pressing member 14 presses the front end 10a of the paper 10 delivered from the hopper 11 toward the inclined surface 13 side, so that even the weak paper 10 can be curved along the inclined surface 13 without fail. Paper 1 regardless of strength
It is intended to ensure the separation of 0, and it is made of an elastic plate such as a synthetic resin film and one end of which is formed on both side walls 9a.
The free end 14a is fixed to the fixing member 18 which is bridged in between, and is brought into contact with the upper surface of the sheet 10. The pressing member 14 as an elastic plate is adapted to extend from the upstream side of the paper feed roller 12 to the downstream side while curving and contact the paper 10. That is, the sheet 10 located closer to the inclined surface 13 than the sheet feeding roller 12 due to elastic deformation
The front end 10a of is pressed with an appropriate force. The angle of the inclined surface 13 and the distance between the inclined surface 13 and the sheet feeding roller 12 are
The paper feed roller 1 is thick paper that is about the size of a postcard, that is, strong paper.
The size is set so that it does not stand up at a steep angle from the bottom of the 2 and hinders its delivery, and that the sheets can be separated one by one. Further, the elastic force of the pressing member 14 follows the paper when the front end of the thick paper having the above-mentioned postcard rises along the inclined surface 13, and rises in the case of normal thin paper, that is, in the case of a paper having a weak stiffness. The size is set so that it does not rise.

As shown in FIG. 2, the pressing member 14 is preferably provided over substantially the entire width of the hopper 11, and a portion facing the paper feeding roller 12 and the collar 19 is cut out.

A guide surface 20 is continuously provided on the inclined surface 13 along the feeding direction of the paper 10, and the guide surface 20 receives the paper 10 sent by the paper feed roller 12 and further downstream side. A transport roller 21 for feeding the sheet to the sheet and a driven roller 22 that is in contact with the sheet are provided.

On the further downstream side of the guide surface 20, there is provided an ink jet type print head 23 for ejecting ink droplets onto the paper 10 on the guide surface 20 to perform a printing operation. The print head 23 is attached to a carriage 25 that moves on a guide rail 24 that is stretched around the main body frame 9, and is supplied with ink from an ink cartridge 26 that is also mounted in the carriage 25 to receive ink drops on the paper 10. It is designed to eject.

Next, the operation of this paper feeding device will be described. When the paper feeding roller 12 is rotated by the driving of the paper feeding device, the paper 10 accumulated in the hopper 11 is sent out from the uppermost one and tries to hit the inclined surface 13. Then, the paper 10 is curved upward from the front end 10a along the inclined surface 13 and tends to separate from the paper 10 in a lower layer than that. In this case, when the paper 10 has high rigidity and high rigidity, as shown in FIG. 3, it overcomes the pressing force of the pressing member 14 and rises while curving the inclined surface 13 while separating from the lower paper. After that, it will be separated onto the guide surface 20. On the other hand, when the paper 10 has low rigidity and low stiffness, as shown in FIG. 4, the paper 10 loses the pressing force of the pressing member 14, and the leading end of the pressing member 14 starts from the state in which the paper 10 overlaps with the lower layer paper. Thus, the sheet is bent at a steep angle while being pressed against the inclined surface 13, separated from the sheet 10 directly below, and then heads toward the guide surface 20.

After that, the sheet 10 is conveyed by the conveying roller 21, is used for printing under the print head 23, and is discharged to the outside of the feeding device. Since the pressing member 14 extends from the upstream side to the downstream side of the paper feeding roller 12 while curving and contacts the upper surface of the sheet, the hopper 11 can be moved to the paper feeding roller without any special operation on the pressing member 14. By simply pulling it out to the upstream side of 12 and inserting it under the paper feed roller 12 from the same side, it is possible to easily attach and detach, and it is possible to easily replace or replenish the paper.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and the print head 23 can be changed to an ink jet type head or another printing type head, for example.

[0019]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the sheet can be pressed against the inclined surface by the pressing member at a position closer to the inclined surface than the paper feeding roller. Separation can be ensured, and the distance between the paper feed roller and the inclined surface can be set to a size that does not cause a large resistance even for strong paper. Therefore, regardless of the strength of the paper, it is possible to properly feed the sheets by the same sheet feeding device without causing double feeding and idling.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, when the front end of the sheet rises along the inclined surface, the pressing member can follow the sheet and ascend, so that even a stiff sheet does not generate a large resistance. That is, it can be sent out without causing a blank delivery.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, since the pressing member is the elastic plate whose free end is in contact with the upper surface of the sheet and the other end is fixed in the fixing portion, the pressing member is elastically brought into contact with the sheet to fix the sheet. Does not hurt. Further, the paper can be pressed at a position close to the inclined surface to ensure the separation of the weak paper.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, since the elastic plate extends while curving from the upstream side to the downstream side of the paper feed roller, the paper can be fed smoothly and the paper is not damaged. According to the invention of claim 5, in the invention of claim 4, since the hopper is removably inserted into the main body frame of the paper feeding device from the upstream side of the paper feeding roller, it is special to the elastic plate. The paper refilling work can be simplified without any operation. Further, maintenance, inspection, and replacement of the sheet feeding device, particularly the pressing member, are simplified.

According to the sixth aspect of the invention, since the ink jet type print head for ejecting ink droplets to the paper to perform the printing operation is provided on the downstream side in the paper feeding direction,
By utilizing the paper separation performance of the paper feeding device according to the first to fifth aspects, it is possible to provide an inkjet printer that has few printing errors due to defective paper supply and has high reliability.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a partially cutaway vertical sectional view of a sheet feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a partially cutaway plan view showing a main part of the paper feeding device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing, in a partial cross-section, a feeding state of a strong sheet.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing, in a partial cross section, a feeding state of a strong sheet.

FIG. 5 is a partially cutaway vertical cross-sectional view of the paper feeding device previously proposed by the present inventor.

[Explanation of symbols]

 9 ... Main body frame of paper feeding device 10 ... Paper 10a ... Paper front end 11 ... Hopper 12 ... Paper feeding roller 13 ... Inclined surface 14 ... Pressing member 14a ... Free end of pressing member 18 ... Fixed part 23 ... Inkjet printing head

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Office reference number FI technical display location B65H 3/56 330 330 B41J 3/04 101Z

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A hopper for stacking and accommodating paper sheets, a paper feed roller for abutting paper in the hopper to feed the paper out, and a front end of the paper delivered from the hopper so as to gradually rise An inclined surface that is inclined to, and a position closer to the inclined surface than the paper feed roller,
To push the front end of the sent out paper to the inclined surface side,
A paper feeding device comprising: a pressing member that presses the upper surface of the paper. 2. The sheet feeding device according to claim 1, wherein the pressing member is capable of following the sheet and ascending when the front end of the sheet rises along the inclined surface. 3. The paper feeding device according to claim 1, wherein the pressing member is an elastic plate whose free end is in contact with the upper surface of the paper and whose other end is fixed to a fixing portion. 4. The sheet feeding device according to claim 3, wherein the elastic plate extends while curving from the upstream side to the downstream side of the sheet feeding roller. 5. The paper feeding device according to claim 4, wherein the hopper is removably inserted into the main body frame of the paper feeding device from an upstream side of the paper feeding roller. 6. The ink jet print head according to claim 1, further comprising an ink jet print head that ejects ink droplets onto the paper to perform a printing operation, on the downstream side in the paper feed direction. Paper equipment.