Xerox Corporation

Brian Roy Ford

Kenneth Paul Moore

Timothy Gordon Shelhart

Paul N Richards

Lawrence R Benedict

Arthur Harold Kahn

Aldwin A Roberts

Lawrence Dee Dipzinski

David A D'Angelantonio

Douglas K Herrmann

Robert Alan Clark

Ron Edward Dufort

Stephen Bradley Williams

Joseph Salvatore Vetromile

Nicholas M Lamendola

Glenn M Keenan

Jason P Rider

Kenneth E Giunta

Russell C Rackett

Maurice Soucy

Frank E Parker

Demosthenes K Kiriazides

Sonya P Piotrowski

Dennis P Teeter

Printing devices include a printing engine and a media tray connected to a frame. The media tray is adapted to hold a stack of media supplied to the printing engine for printing. A magnetic trailing edge guide that is shaped to contact a corner of the stack of media is connected to a tether that is connected to the frame. A storage device is connected to the frame, and the storage device is shaped to accommodate the magnetic trailing edge guide. The length of the tether allows the magnetic trailing edge guide to reach the corner of the stack of media and to reach the storage device. The magnetic trailing edge guide includes a magnetic element adapted to magnetically hold to at least the media tray and the storage device.

Tethered trailing edge media guide

A sheet jam access assembly in combination with a finisher transport assembly having a main transport cover, is used with a digital printer. First and second axles with idler nip rollers are mounted on the transport assembly for movement away from the process path. First and second drive nip rollers are mounted for driven rotation on the transport assembly. A jam access cover pivots on the main transport cover from a closed to an open position. First and second hinges each have a first outer leaf on the jam access cover connected by a hinge pin to an inner leaf which translates transverse to the process direction. The hinge axis is spaced apart from the cover axis. A cam plate base portion translates parallel to the process direction. First and second ramps adjacent the axles extend away from the base portion at an angle to the process direction. A slot extends through the first inner leaf at an angle to the process direction. A transfer pin attached to the base portion engages the slot to move the cam plate ramps, which engage the axles to raise the nip rollers and release the jammed sheet. A leaf spring detent holds the jam access cover open.

Finisher transport assembly jam access cover for digital printers

An apparatus for a media feeding system having a trail edge guide, a frame, an elevator, a feed head and a stack of media including a plurality of sheets of media disposed on the elevator, wherein the plurality of sheets of media include an uppermost set of sheets of media located at a top portion of the stack of media. The apparatus includes a trail edge deflector having a body including an angularly disposed lower surface, at least one opening, and at least one stopping surface. The angularly disposed lower surface being shaped to contact and thereby shingle the uppermost set of sheets of media, the at least one opening being shaped for complimentary sliding engagement with the trail edge guide thereby permitting the trail edge deflector to slide along a portion of the trail edge guide and the at least one stopping surface being shaped to limit downward sliding movement of the trail edge deflector along the trail edge guide.

Trail edge guide deflector for improved media feeding

Disclosed herein is a sheet feeding apparatus including a blower for blowing air through a stack of sheets, and a controller configured to operate the blower at a high power setting for a predetermined time period based upon elapsed off time and to subsequently operate the blower at a target power setting. A printer, a method of controlling blower power, and a method of minimizing misfeeds are also disclosed.

Method and device for improving pressure control in a sheet feeder

An apparatus that is useful for acquiring and conveying a sheet includes a plenum having an opening for coupling a vacuum source to the plenum, a slide plate having a stop member positioned proximate a drop box opening in the slide plate, and a drop box adapted to slide within the drop box opening until a portion of the drop box engages the stop member so that the drop box is slidably installed in the slide plate. The apparatus may be used in an electrostatographic printing machine to improve top sheet acquisition.

System and method for improving top sheet acquisition in a printing machine

A pneumatic sheet feeder is selectively actuable to acquire a sheet from a stack and transport the sheet towards a take-away nip. The feeder includes a feedhead having an acquisition surface substantially aligned with the take-away nip. A sensing apparatus detects three separate distances between the stack and the acquisition surface at three separate locations over the stack. The stack is then tilted based upon the distances sensed by the sensors. In embodiments, the feedhead has two sensors, and moves so that the third distance can be measured by one of the sensors. In other embodiments, the feedhead includes three sensors for measuring each of the distances.

Sheet curl correction method and feeder apparatus

A sheet feeder assembly for acquiring and conveying a sheet comprises a plenum connectable to a vacuum source and having an opening facing the sheet to be conveyed, and a slide plate covering the opening. The slide plate has an acquisition surface facing the sheet to be conveyed and defining apertures in communication with the plenum. A drive mechanism is connected to the slide plate and supported within the plenum, and is operable to translate the slide plate relative to the plenum to convey the acquired sheet while maintaining the vacuum through the apertures. The drive mechanism includes a motor and eccentrically driven link connected to a carriage supporting the slide plate. The motor is coupled to a cam element that drives a flapper valve disposed between the plenum and a vacuum duct. The cam element also drives a height sensing arm supported to contact the top of the stack.

Integrated vacuum slide feeder

A sheet handling system for correcting the skew and/or transverse position of sequential sheets, especially those moving in a process direction in a sheet transport path of a reproduction apparatus to be registered for image printing, of the type in which the deskewing and/or side registration is accomplished by partially rotating the sheet with a transversely spaced pair of differentially driven sheet steering nips. The effective range of sheet size capabilities of such systems may be increased without steering nip slippage or other problems by applying a control signal proportional to the width of the sheet to a system for automatically increasing or decreasing the transverse spacing between the pair of sheet steering nips, so as to provide a much wider spacing for larger sheets yet still be able to handle small sheets. This may be provided as shown by automatically engaging only a selected pair of steering nips out of a selectable plurality of different fixed position sheet steering nips and disengaging the others by lifting their idlers out of the sheet path with cams rotated by a stepper motor with a rotation controlled by the sheet width signal.

Printer sheet deskewing system with automatic variable nip lateral spacing for different sheet sizes

A sheet handling system for a sheet transport path of a reproduction apparatus having a sheet skew correction system being fed image substrate sheets in the process direction by a sheet transport system, wherein it is desired to positively feed and yet effectively deskew a wide range of different lengths of sheets in the process direction. A plurality of identical but independent sheet transport units may be provided spaced along the sheet transport path in the process direction engageable with a sheet being fed through sheet transport path for positively feeding even very short sheets from one sheet transport unit to another and to the skew correction system. Yet these sheet transport units provide independently automatically disengageable nips for automatically releasing even a very long sheet from any unit when that long sheet is in the skew correction system. A different selected number of the sheet transport units are disengaged in response to a different sheet length control signal. A single stepper motor rotating a common camshaft in each unit may be used to reliably lift all the idlers of all the nips to be disengaged.

Printer sheet deskewing system with automatically variable numbers of upstream feeding NIP engagements for different sheet sizes

An apparatus and method that describes utilizing a corrugation slip nip system, including a variable force idler that encompasses three stages, to prevent buckling of copy sheets traveling at a high rate of speed upon exiting from a high speed printing machine to the exit tray for stacking. Buckling concerns are eliminated by allowing the sheet, driven by a high speed positive drive nip, to slip through the slower speed corrugation nip, yet still having enough drive force in the slip nip to drive the sheet into the exit tray. In order to vary the normal force on the sheet, a three stage variable force idler is used. The first stage oversizes the inner diameter of the idler rollers on the idler shaft. The second stage uses a slot in the spring which allows the idler shaft to move upward without deflecting the spring. These first two stages are particularly adapted for light weight paper. The third stage occurs when the idler shaft is topped out in the shaft slot such that the paper deflects the spring causing additional force to be applied to the paper to drive the paper out of the system and into the exit tray. The third stage is reached only where heavy weight paper is used because heavy weight paper has sufficient beam strength to deflect the spring.

Exit tray corrugation slip rolls with a variable force idler

An apparatus for transferring a developed image from a photoconductive surface to a copy sheet. The apparatus includes a continuously variable length contact assembly which is moved from a nonoperative position spaced from the copy sheet, to an operative position, in contact with the copy sheet for pressing the copy sheet into contact with the developed image on the photoconductive surface to substantially eliminate any spaces between the copy sheet and the developed image during transfer of the developed image from the photoconductive surface to the copy sheet. The transfer apparatus is provided with a continuously variable length for selectively corresponding the length of the contact assembly with the process width dimension of the copy sheet.

Variable length transfer assist apparatus

An idler roller assembly that prevents jams and image deletion in copier/printers by removing any corrugation in sheets before they reach sharp turns includes a shaft onto which idler rollers are mounted with the shaft having a bend in the middle in order to provide a 'toe out' condition to steer out any existing sheet corrugation. An alignment member is attachable to the shaft in order to prevent mis-installation of the shaft in its mounting support.

Device for correcting for corrugation induced in a sheet as a result of

A sheet feeding and separating apparatus includes a multiple piece entrance guide located between a stack from which sheets are to be fed and a retard nip. The guide includes a polycarbonate base member, a radiused high friction urethane retard member and a flexible polycarbonate or polyester film deflector member. The urethane is ground to a radius on the leading edge to promote the feeding of down curled sheets, shingling of sheets and the breaking up of slugs prior to entering the retard nip. The deflector member assists in feeding down curled sheets.

Sheet feeding and separating apparatus with an improved entrance guide

An integral sheet stopping, stacking and lateral registration system, in which sequential incoming sheets are fed into a tray and stopped at an edge registration position and also repositioned laterally by lateral sheet repositioning scuffers engaging an edge of the sheets at the edge registration position, with improved protection against sheet edge distortion or damage provided by movable partial sheet stopping surfaces partially shielding the incoming sheet lead edge from full impact with the lateral scuffers but without interfering with the subsequent lateral movement of the sheets by the lateral scuffers. The incoming sheets are fed in and stacked under a stack-floating curved input guide baffle and floating frictional input flapper scuffers feeding and holding an incoming sheet downstream against the lateral scuffers for improved lateral registration. The movable partial sheet stopping surfaces are mounted to ride vertically on the floating baffle and also ride horizontally against the lateral scuffers and thereby maintain a desired preset spacing relative thereto.

Growing community of inventors

Walworth, NY, United States of America

Brian Roy Ford