JPH07102937B2 - Sheet sorter - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a sheet sorting apparatus attached to a sheet handling apparatus such as a copying machine, a facsimile, and a printer.

2. Description of the Related Art The above-described sheet sorting apparatus has a plurality of sorter bins, and, for example, copy products (so-called copies) as sheets discharged from a copying machine are distributed and stored in the respective sorter bins, and copy products are arranged for each number of copies. Sort.

In the conventional sheet sorting apparatus, it is general that a plurality of sorter bins are arranged in parallel in the vertical direction and the sheets are sequentially distributed one by one from the upper bin to the lower bin. Is. When a sheet jam (so-called jam) occurs in the sheet conveying path during the sorting work, the sheet sorting device and the main body device (for example, a copying machine) are stopped, and all the sheets accumulated in these devices are stopped. Needs to be removed. However, this work is very troublesome.

Aim The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object thereof is to provide a sheet sorting apparatus capable of easily processing a jam sheet.

The present invention is for achieving the above object, and includes a plurality of sorter bins divided into at least two groups, a discharge tray provided at least one in each sorter group, and an individual bin. When a sheet jam occurs in the sheet conveying means attached to the group and conveying the sheet to each bin and the sheet conveying means corresponding to one bin group, the succeeding sheet sent to this sheet conveying means is discharged to another bin group. It is a sheet sorting apparatus having a control means for controlling to convey to a paper tray.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described based on examples.

In FIG. 1, a sheet sorting apparatus 1 which is an embodiment of the present invention is attached to an electrophotographic copying machine 2 which is an example of a sheet handling apparatus. Although the structure itself of the copying machine 2 is conventionally known, it will not be described here.
The copied product (so-called copy) as a sheet obtained from the sheet is sent to the sheet sorting apparatus 1 by the sheet discharge path 3 and the sheet discharge roller pair 4.

The sheet sorting apparatus 1 includes a plurality (for example, 22) of sorter bins 5, and these sorter bins 5 are divided into two groups A and B. 1 for each sorter group for A and B
It consists of one sorter bin, but the uppermost bins 6A and 6B among them are especially paper ejection trays (detailed operation will be described later).
Used as.

A sheet conveying means 7A is attached to the sorter group A, while another sheet conveying means 7B is attached to the sorter group B. The sheet conveying means 7A conveys a copy product (hereinafter, simply referred to as a sheet) discharged from the sheet discharge roller pair 4 of the copying machine 2 to each sorter 5 in the sorter group A, and is provided with a sheet conveying path 8A. It has a conveyance roller 9A and a sheet distribution means 10A. The other sheet conveying means 7B is the copying machine 2
To convey the sheets from the sheet to each sorter 5 in the sorter group B, and has a sheet conveying path 8B, a conveying roller 9B, and a sheet distributing means 10B. Sheet transport path 8A and 8B
Is connected to the downstream side (right side in the drawing) of the sheet receiving roller 11, and one of the sheet conveying paths is selected by the conveying path switching claw 12 so as to be continuous with the sheet receiving roller 11. When the switching claw 12 descends downward as indicated by the solid line, the upper sheet conveying path 8A communicates. When the switching claw 12 is raised upward as indicated by the broken line, the lower sheet conveying path 8B is in communication. The switching of the switching claw 12 is performed by a driving means such as a solenoid (not shown).

The sheet distributing means 10A and 10B are, as shown in FIG.
The drive roller 14 supported by 3 and this drive roller 14
And a driven roller (15) which is pressed against and driven by.
The spring 16 is for pressing the driven roller 15 against the drive roller 14. The drive roller 14 is a motor 17 by a power transmission system (not shown), for example, a winding transmission system including a pulley and a wire.
It is drivingly connected to and rotates in a clockwise direction at an appropriate timing described later. The sheet receiving port 18 is continuous with the sheet conveying paths 8A and 8B when the sheet distributing units 10A and 10B are at the highest value (home position) shown in FIG. The sheet discharge port 19 is continuous with the sheet discharge trays 6A and 6B when the sheet distribution units 10A and 10B are in the home position.

The wire 20 connected to the upper and lower ends of the support frame 13 in FIG. 2 is connected to a drive source such as a pulley and a motor (not shown), and the drive of the drive source causes the support frames 10A and 10B to operate.
Can be moved up and down as indicated by arrow C or D. The C and D directions in FIG. 2 and the C and D directions in FIG. 1 are the same.

The control of the operations of the transport path switching claw 12, the sheet distribution means 10A, 10B, etc. is performed by a controller 21 incorporated in the microcomputer provided in the lower portion of the sheet sorting apparatus 1 in FIG. The following sheet sorting work is performed by the program stored in the ROM in the microcomputer. As an example, consider the case where five copies of a product are obtained from a multiple page original. In this case, five copy products are produced for each original, and they are sorted into the five sorter bins 5 one by one.

First, when the first one copy product is sent from the discharge roller pair 4 of the copying machine 1 to the sheet receiving roller 11, the transport path switching claw 12
Is below the solid line. Therefore, the above-mentioned copied product is sent to the upper sheet conveying path 8A and is sent to the upper sheet distributing means 10A by the conveying roller 9A.

The sheet receiving means 18 of the sheet distributing means 10A is provided with a sheet detection sensor 22 composed of, for example, a reflection type optical sensor, and when a copy product enters the sheet receiving means 18,
The tip is detected. When the sheet detection sensor 22 detects the leading edge of the copied product, a signal to that effect (sheet detection signal) is input to the controller 21 in FIG. 1, and based on this, the controller 21 sets the drive roller 14 in FIG. For a short time, and then stop the rotation. Due to this short rotation of the drive roller 14 and the subsequent stop, the copy product that has entered the sheet receiving port 18 stops with the leading end thereof being sandwiched by the drive roller 14 and the driven roller 15.

When the first copy product enters the holding state, the controller 21 (Fig. 1) pulls the wire 20 (Fig. 2) downward (direction D) to move the support frame 13 to the first sorter bin (sorter bin 5). Out of the sorting tray 6A, directly below the sorter bin
The 2nd, 3rd ... 10th sorter bins, and the 11th, 12th, ...
I'm going to call it 20th Sortabin) and stop it. Then, after that, the drive roller 14 is rotated again, and the copy product that has been held until then is discharged into the first sorter bin through the sheet discharge port 19. In order to make the function of holding the copy product by the driving roller 14 and the driven roller 15 more reliable, a one-way clutch 24 is interposed between the driving roller 14 and the driving shaft 23, and the driving roller 14 shown in FIG. It is desirable to prohibit the counterclockwise rotation at. The sheet distributing unit 10A that has finished discharging the copied product to the first sorter bin immediately rises to the home position, which is a position facing the discharge tray 6A, and stands by.

While the above-described conveyance work is being performed on the first copy product, the second copy product is sent from the copying machine 2 to the sheet receiving roller 11. At this time, the transport path switching claw 12 has already been switched to the upper position shown by the broken line, and the second copy product is sent to the lower sheet transport path 8B and is sandwiched by the lower sheet distribution means 10B ( This nipping operation itself is the same as in the case of the upper sheet distributing means 10A described above).

The lower sheet distribution means 10B holding the second copy product is
Based on the instruction from the controller 21, it rises as shown by arrow C,
After stopping in front of the fourth sorter bin, the second copy product is discharged to the fourth sorter bin, and then returns to the home position, which is a position facing the discharge tray 6B.

From this point onward, by the same operation, the third and fifth copied products are respectively subjected to the second sheet by the upper sheet distributing means 10A.
It is stored in the sorter bin and the third sorter bin. On the other hand, 4
The first copy product is stored in the fifth sorter bin by the lower sheet distribution means 10B. In other words, when sorting 5 copy products into 5 sorter bins, 3 copy products are conveyed to the upper 3 sorter bins by the upper sheet distributing means 10A, and the remaining 2 copy products are lower sheet distributing means 10A.
It is carried by B to the lower two sorter bins. In this case, since the sandwiching / conveying work of the copy product by both sheet distributing means 10A and 10B is performed alternately and simultaneously, when the copy product is sent out from the copying machine 2 at a short time interval (so-called high speed copying). Can also be used.

Although the above description is for sorting five copy products, high-speed sorting can be similarly performed for a larger number of sorts such as 10 or 20 sheets. Further, it is desirable that the number of sorter bins that both sheet distribution units 10A and 10B handle be the same. For example, for 10 copy products, there are 5 copies each. However, when the number of copies is an odd number, it is impossible to evenly distribute them in this way. In this case,
When the number of copy products to be sorted is N, It is advisable to determine that the lower sheet distribution means 10B is in charge of sorting by the number P represented by. As a result, if the number of copied products is 3, 5, 7, 9 sheets, the number P of sorter bins handled by the lower sheet distributing means 10B is 1, 2, 3, 4 sheets, respectively.

The above explanation clarified the details of the sorting work for the copied products. In this case, one problem is how to handle the jammed paper and the copy product sent subsequently when the copy product is jammed in the sheet sorting apparatus 1 (so-called jam). . In this embodiment, the following measures are taken in consideration of operability.

There are various methods for detecting the jam, but in this embodiment, the sheet receiving sensor 25 and the sheet detecting sensor 22 described above, which are arranged next to the sheet receiving roller 11 in FIG. 1, are used. That is, when the sheet detection sensor 22 does not detect the leading edge of the copied product even after a lapse of a predetermined time after the sheet acceptance sensor 25 detects the leading edge of the copied product, the controller 21 determines that a jam has occurred.

When a jam occurs in either one of the sheet conveying means 7A or 7B, the controller 21 switches the conveyance path so that the copy product is conveyed to the other sheet conveying means other than the sheet conveying means related to the jam occurrence. Switch the claw 12.
Then, the drive roller 14 is rotated in the clockwise direction in FIG. 2 while the sheet distributing means (10A or 10B) of the sheet conveying means to which the copied product is fed is fixed at the home position.

By the above operation, once a jam has occurred, the succeeding copy products are continuously fed into the sheet conveying means different from the sheet conveying means in which the jam has occurred, and finally within the different sheet conveying means. Continuously stacked in the paper discharge tray (6A or 6B). Therefore, even if a jam occurs, it is not necessary to stop the operations of the copying machine 2 and the sheet sorting apparatus 1 and thus sorting cannot be performed, but all copied products are regarded as finished products, that is, outside, that is, the discharge tray (6A).
Alternatively, it can be taken out in 6B). After that, the operation of taking out one jammed paper in any one of the sheet conveying means (7A or 7B) in the sheet sorting apparatus 1 may be performed. It is easy to operate because it is one jam paper treatment,
Moreover, there is no inconvenience of not knowing where the jam paper remains.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to one embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this embodiment. For example, the sheet conveying means is not limited to the one shown by 7A and 7B in FIG. 1, but may be any one that can convey the sheet to each bin in the individual bin group A or B.

Effect According to the present invention, the jam sheet remaining in the sorting device can be easily treated.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a side sectional view of an example of a sheet distributing means. A, B …… Sorter bin group 5 …… Sorter bin 6A, 6B …… Paper ejection tray 7A, 7B …… Sheet transport means 21 …… Control means

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of sorter bins divided into at least two groups, a discharge tray provided at least one for each of these sorter groups, and a sheet conveying device for attaching a sheet to each bin group to each bin. And a control means for controlling, when a sheet jam occurs in the sheet conveying means corresponding to one bin group, the succeeding sheet fed to this sheet conveying means to be conveyed to the discharge tray of another bin group. A sheet sorting device having.