Pfu Limited

Masaaki Yamashita

Satoshi Kuroda

Minoru Sugitani

Toshiki Satoji

Alvise Gangarossa

Hideaki Shibata

Yasuhiro Matsuda

Shoji Yoshida

Masanobu Hongo

Satoshi Ishida

Nobuhisa Yamazaki

Takumi Nakayama

Yuukichi Morita

Mitsuhiro Shikan

Yoshiki Saeki

Hideaki Taniguchi

Mituhiro Yashiki

An image reading apparatus includes a shooter where a first mounting surface that is inclined with respect to a horizontal plane is formed thereon, a stacker, a supporting unit that movably supports the stacker in such a manner that the stacker is arranged in a first region or a second region, a conveyance unit that conveys a document from the shooter to the stacker when the stacker is arranged in the first region, and a reading unit that reads an image from the document when the document is conveyed by the conveyance unit, wherein a surface area of a region of the first mounting surface that is covered by the stacker when the stacker is arranged in the first region is greater as compared with that when the stacker is arranged in the second region, and the stacker is formed to be capable of being lengthened or shortened.

Image reading apparatus

Scanner

A scanner device includes a scanner body enclosed by a housing and an external cover covering an outer side of the housing. The external cover is comprised of a plurality of external members. By spacing the adjacent external members apart from each other at the side edge parts of the housing, recesses are formed between the adjacent external members so as to constitute parts of the external design of the scanner body. Preferably, the side edge parts of the housing are exposed between the adjacent external members at the side edge parts of the housing, and information providing devices providing information on the scanner device are provided at the side edge parts of the housing exposed between the adjacent external members.

Scanner device with external cover

A scanner device includes a scanner body formed with a document insertion opening and a document ejection opening and is configured so that a document taken in from the document insertion opening is read and then ejected from the document ejection opening. The scanner device further includes an upper surface cover covering the upper surface of the scanner body and a front surface cover covering the front surface of the scanner body. The front cover is connected at a lower end side thereof to the lower front part of the scanner body and connected at an upper end side thereof to pivotably connected to the front end side of the upper surface cover. By opening the front surface cover from the front surface of the scanner body, the upper surface cover and front surface cover form a document ejection tray.

Scanner device

A paper feed apparatus of the present invention includes a pick mechanism for successively taking out, by use of a pick roller, a plurality of sheets of paper stacked on a chute from the bottom side thereof, leading ends of the sheets being aligned by means of a stopper blockin a state in which the sheets are stacked on the chute. Moreover, the apparatus includes a roller guideand an abutment guide. When the roller guideis raised to a paper setting position in a direction away from the pick roller, the roller guideraises the leading ends of the sheets stacked on the chute to thereby prevent contact between the sheets and the pick roller. The abutment guidealigns the leading ends of the sheets when the roller guideis raised. When a pick operation is started, prior to retraction of the roller guide, sheet pressing operation of a pick armand retraction of the abutment guideare performed, and then the sheets are taken out through a clearance formed between the distal end of the stopper blockand the pick roller

Device and method for feeding paper

In an image reader comprising a lower frame disposed below a document path, an upper frame pivotally fitted to the lower frame above the document path via a fulcrum shaft, an optical unit disposed above the document path; a motor for driving a document feeder, and/or the rotation transmission mechanism thereof being mounted on the upper frame, the optical unit has a unit frame as a separate member from the upper frame, and the unit frame and the upper frame are independently pivotally supported by a common fulcrum shaft supported by the lower frame in a non-contact state with each other, and independently engaged at their respective close positions via stopper provided on the lower frame.

Structure for supporting optical unit of image reader

To provide a high-speed paper-feeding device for feeding slips or papers from the hopper by using a pick roller, featuring reduced misoperation, reduced noise, a higher paper-feeding speed and compactness. In the high-speed paper-feeding device, the bouncing motion of the pick roller that may take place at the beginning of the paper-feeding operation is suppressed by using a buffer device, the end portions only of the slips or the papers are pushed up/restored by a push-up device, that moves the arm up and down being driven by a solenoid that is provided at the bottom of the hopper, in order to reduce the burden for moving the hopper up and down born by the motor and the rack-and-pinion mechanism. Besides, the motion of the pick roller is detected at a moment when the rear end of the slip separates away from the pick roller to control the continuous feeding of the papers while eliminating dead time between the papers that are fed and enabling the papers to be continuously fed at high speed.

Paper-feeding device

Growing community of inventors

Kahoku, Japan

Masaaki Yamashita