Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha

Minolta Company, Ltd.

Kuniaki Ishiguro

Takuma Ishikawa

Toshio Matsui

Akiyoshi Johdai

Kazunobu Maekawa

Keichi Kinoshita

Yoshiki Ohmichi

Riichi Hama

Hiroki Yamashita

Tohru Murakami

Seiichi Munemori

Tatsuya Shinno

Kazuhito Ozawa

Norikazu Okabe

Masato Yasui

Kazuyuki Tomishige

Motoki Takata

Tadashi Maruyama

Kenichi Yasuda

Yasuhiro Doi

A sheet accommodating device including a sheet-laid tray including a processing tray and a carrying tray for laying a discharged sheet thereon, a first transporting device for moving the sheet laid on the sheet-laid tray toward an alignment reference position and a space of an aligning portion, a staple unit for stapling the aligned sheet, a second transporting device for moving the sheet(s) aligned at the alignment reference position selectively to first and second positions for sorting the sheets, a pushing member for pushing the sheet toward the processing tray for alignment, a guide member guiding a leading end of the sheet to the space of the aligning portion, a guide member moving device for moving the guide member from a sheet guide position to a sheet pushing position when the pushing member is escaped from the sheet, as well as a sheet processing system including a combination of the sheet accommodating device and an image forming apparatus.

Sheet accommodating device and sheet processing system

A sheet accommodating device comprising a sheet-laid tray including a processing tray and a carrying tray; a discharge tray; a sheet accommodating unit; first, second and third sheet transporting paths for leading the discharged sheet to the sheet-laid tray, the sheet accommodating unit and the discharge tray, respectively; a transporting and aligning device for moving the sheet discharged onto the sheet-laid tray toward an alignment reference position; a detector for detecting a vertical position of an upper surface of the sheet on the carrying tray; a tray position adjusting device for adjusting the vertical position of the carrying tray based on a result of detection by the detector ; controller for raising or lowering the carrying tray; and others, the second sheet transporting path extending through the escape position of the processing tray, as well as a sheet processing system including a combination of the sheet accommodating device and an image forming apparatus.

Reciprocating tray for sheet finisher

A sheet handling apparatus which stores sheets ejected from an image forming apparatus in a bin, staples the sheets if necessary, takes the stapled or unstapled set of sheets out of the bin and transports the set of sheets up to a large-capacity tray nipping the set of sheets between rollers of a conveying gate to deliver the set of sheets onto the tray. While the conveyer gate is transporting the set of sheets upward, the set of sheets hangs down from the nipped portion, and the hanging-down portion is guided by a guide plate. A limit is set to the number of stapled sets of sheets which can be stacked on the large-capacity tray, and transportation of stapled sets of sheets to the tray by the conveyer gate over the limit is canceled. When a set of sheets is delivered onto the tray, pressing sticks press sets of sheets which have been stacked on the tray.

Stack transport for a sorter with pressing device

An image forming apparatus equipped with a monochrome mode and color mode, in which the transfer drum is made to rotate without any paper wrapped around it to clean the transfer drum each time a series of copy operations is completed. By controlling the cleaning period through increasing or decreasing the number of non-paper rotations in response to the last copy operation mode, the transfer drum may be adequately cleaned at all times, and the amount of wear on the transfer drum and cleaning device caused by the cleaning operation is reduced.

Image forming apparatus equipped with cleaning device

An image forming apparatus which performs image transfer on the rear side of a sheet by retransporting the sheet inverted via inverting section to a transfer drum in duplex copy mode. After an image has been transferred onto a rear surface of the sheet, the transfer drum is separated from an image bearing member, thereby separation agent, which is adhered to the transfer drum due to refeeding of the sheet that has once passed through fixing unit, is removed from the transfer drum without adhering to the image bearing member.

Image forming apparatus

A sheet sorting apparatus of a moving bin type for sorting sheets received successively from a sheet delivery station into collated sets, which apparatus comprises. This sheet sorting apparatus includes a plurality of trays stacked one above the other in a vertical direction, and vertically movably supported by a frame structure, first and second camming members extending in a direction parallel to a direction of movement of the trays and having helically continuing threads each having an upwardly oriented camming face engageable with any one of the trays, a sheet delivery mechanism for successively discharching the sheets towards the delivery station, and a drive motor drivingly coupled with the first and second camming members for driving the camming members about respective longitudinal axes of the camming members to move the trays up and down therealong. The helicatly continuing threads is divided into a low pitch region in which each neighboring threads are spaced a small pitch and a high pitch region in which the neighboring threads are spaced an increased pitch. The first and second camming members are so supported with their high pitch regions confronting the sheet delivery station, one of the trays supported on the thread in the high pitch region being permitted.

Sheet sorting apparatus with rotating cam member

A sheet sorting device having a plurality of bins arranged vertically for accommodating sheets transported by a sheet transporting device and a sheet adjusting member provided in a vertical direction with respect to the sheet transporting device. One of the bins which faces a sheet aligning member is slid horizontally thereto by a moving mechanism so as to align a sheet accommodated in each bin by the sheet aligning member by pushing the sheet to an aligning reference portion formed by adjacent two sides of each bin. The sheet sorting device further has a stapler in the vicinity of the sheet aligning member to staple the sheets aligned by the sheet aligning member. At least either the bins or the aligning member and sheet transporting device is capable of being elevated up and down so as to transport sheets to each bin by the sheet transport device while the sheet aligning member aligns the sheet transported to the bin one by one.

Sorter with sheet aligning member

A sorter-finisher wherein sheets discharged from an image forming apparatus are distributed among a plurality of bins in a sorter unit, and thereafter the sheets are taken out of each bin and transported to a finisher unit to be finished. The bins are put one upon another, and they are movable up and down. A take-out unit for taking sheets out of each bin in order to transport the sheets to the finisher unit is installed above the bins positioned for the distributing operation. Each bin is moved up to the position facing the take-out unit and further is laterally moved toward the take-out unit, and the sheets in the bin are taken out thereof nipped by a pair of rollers. Further, the sorter-finisher comprises a transporting unit which is a route from the discharge portion of the image forming apparatus to a receiving/take-out portion of the sorter unit, and sheets are transported to the bins and also transported to the finisher unit through the transporting unit.

Sorter-finisher provided for an image forming apparatus

A copying machine having a sorter and a finisher is capable of operating in three different modes: a copying mode with sorting, a copying mode without sorting, and a stapling finish mode. When the stapling finish mode is selected, an automatic magnification selecting mode (AMS mode) is automatically chosen, wherein only copies of one size are made during the copying operation such that unsatisfactory stapling caused by copy sheets of differing size is prevented. Also, if one of a number of sorting bins of the copying machine is not being used while the copying machine is operating in the stapling finish mode, a copying operation can be carried out in the copying mode without sorting, utilizing that bin.

Image forming apparatus having a finisher

In a sorter-finisher distributing sheets ejected from a copying machine among a plurality of bins and thereafter stapling the distributed sheets, the plurality of bins can move independently from each other within a first area where the sheets are distributed and a second area where the distributed sheets are stapled. Some of the bins among which the sheets are not distributed are continuously moved to said second area without actuating a stapler, and then the other bins among which the sheets are distributed are moved to the second area one by one actuating the stapler. Further, in the sorter-finisher, a finishing mode which allows an operation of the stapler after a distributing process can be selected in the middle of or even after as well as before the distributing process.

Sorter-finisher with a sheet binding function and a method of operating

In a sorter-finisher with a sorting and stapling functions, the sheets ejected from a copying machine are transported and stored one by one into bins which are movable in the vertical direction along a guiding member, after taking out from each of the bins, the sheets are stapled by a stapling device. The guiding member, for preventing sheets on the bins from sliding down, have a first opening through which sheets ejected from the copying machine are fed onto one of the bins located opposite to the first opening and a second opening through which sheets held on one of the bins located opposite to the second opening are taken out. A first gate member provided at the first opening is movable from a closing position where the first gate member closes the first opening to an opening position where the first gate member is out of the first opening. A second gate member provided at the second opening is movable from a closing position where the second gate member closes the second opening to an opening position where the second gate member is out of the second opening.

Sorter-finisher

In a copying apparatus having a sorter with a sheet stapling function; the sorter has a plurality of bins capable of independently moving up or down, wherein sheets are sorted into the bins sequentially from the top bin to the bottom bin; the bins are moved down to a position where sheets are taken by take-out rollers for transporting them to a stapling unit after the sorting operation; and the bins other than those assigned for the number of copy sets are moved down to the take-out position during the sorting operation. Further, a copying apparatus has a controller which inhibits a copying machine from starting to operate when both a non-sorting mode and a stapling mode are selected at a time and when the input number of copy sets is more than 2, and may cancel the stapling mode during the sorting operation in the stapling mode and continue the sorting operation even after canceling the stapling mode. The controller may inhibits the stapling operation when the size of sheet being stored into the bins differs from the size of sheet selected at the start of the copying operation.

Copying apparatus having a sorter with a sheet stapling function

A copying apparatus includes a sorter which has a plurality of bins, a binding unit for binding the sheets taken-out from each of the bins, a first path for transporting the sheets ejected from a copying machine to the sorter, a second path for transporting the sheets to the binding unit. Sheets are conducted to the first path when a sorting mode is selected, but to the second path regardless of the selection of the sorting mode when the input number of copy sets is 1. Further, the copying apparatus includes a first roller and a second roller for taking-out the sheets from the bins, wherein, the second roller is moved down to pinch the sheets on the bin in cooperation with the first roller when the bin reaches the sheet take-out position, and then the sheets on the bin are taken-out to the binding unit by the rotation of the rollers.

Copying apparatus having a sorter with a sheet binding function

A sorter-finisher system having a sorting unit comprising plural number of inclined bins arranged vertically at specified intervals and a transport unit for transporting bunches of sheets distributed among the bins to a sheet binding unit. When the sheets have been distributed among the bins, the bins move to a sheet receiving opening of the transport unit one by one. The bunches of the sheets in the bins are transported to the binding unit through the sheet receiving opening for binding. The angle of inclination of each bin at the position opposite to said sheet receiving opening is set larger than that of the bin at the position for the distribution of the sheets. In order to shift each bin from the position for the distribution of the sheets to the position where the sheet receiving opening is located, for example, a cam with a spiral groove designed to engage with a trunnion provided to each of the bins is used.

Growing community of inventors

Toyokawa, Japan

Kuniaki Ishiguro