Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Nobuyuki Morii

Yoshihide Sugiyama

Goro Mori

Masahiro Minato

Takashi Komada

Masatoshi Hosoi

Yuji Ueno

Nobuyoshi Seki

Masashi Shimada

Tsutomu Ichinose

Toshiyuki Kikuchi

Shin Umeda

Atuhisa Hujiwara

Hirobumi Yoshino

Yuichi Fujii

Nobuo Koike

Kenji Mori

Katsumi Yoshii

Nobuyoshi Tomioka

A clamping device for clamping sheets stacked on a bin of a sorter is composed of a moving unit, on which clamp levers are mounted, and an unshakable unit, on which an opening and closing mechanism for the clamp levers and a moving mechanism for moving the moving unit in the state of keeping the clamping of the sheets, are mounted. Thereby, a solenoid for opening or closing the clamp levers mounted on the moving unit and a wire harness connecting electrical device mounted on the moving device with a connector mounted on the unshakable unit are omitted.

Stacked sheet clamping device for a stapler

A finisher for positioning stacks of paper sheets each being loaded on individual bins of a sorter and stapling the positioned stacks by a stapler one at a time. The finisher has a paper pulling device for pulling a stack of paper sheets to a stapling position of the stapler. The paper pulling device has an upper and a lower chuck which cooperate to grip the stack of paper sheets at a plurality of points of the latter. The upper and lower chucks are mounted on the free ends of an upper and a lower rotatable lever, respectively.

Finisher for finishing paper sheets

A paper handing apparatus having a plurality of bins, a chuck unit and a stapler unit movable up and down along the bins, and a sorting unit. The sorting unit distributes a number of paper sheets received from a copier or similar image forming apparatus to the bins, while the stapler unit binds an end portion of each of the stacks of paper sheets loaded in the individual bins. The stapler is movable between and lockable at a position for binding a paper stack and a position for supplying staples. The stapler unit is removable from the sorting unit. Doors such as a stapler door are provided on the housing of the apparatus. When a door other than the stapler door is opened when the stapler is performing a stapling operation, the stapling operation is continued until it completes.

Paper handling apparatus

A paper positioning device having a paper positioning member which is pivotable in abutment against one edge of a paper sheet loaded on a receptacle for moving the paper sheet to a positioning position for thereby positioning the paper sheet. By a simple mechanism and control, the movement of the paper positioning member is slowed down at the positioning position and accelerated until the positioning member reachines it. The paper positioning member performs a pivoting movement twice while a drive shaft associated therewith performs a reciprocating movement once. The device is, therefore, no only durable but also positions paper sheets efficiently and positively without damaging the paper sheets.

Paper positioning device

A paper handling apparatus having a plurality of bins and a chuck unit and a stapler which are movable along the bins and causing the stapler to bind an end portion of a stack of paper sheets which have been received from a copier or similar image forming apparatus, sorted, and then loaded on any one of the bins. The chuck unit has an upper and a lower chuck. After the stapler has bound a stack of paper sheets a push bar independent of the chucks of the chuck unit pushes the end of the stack to return it into the bin. Both the upper and lower chucks are movable up and down. The force which the chucks exert on a stack of paper sheets is controlled in matching relation to the thickness of the stack.

A stapling apparatus used with a sheet sorter having a plurality of bins comprises a stapler-head which is moved along one side edge of the bins toward one of predetermined positions at which the stapler-head confronts the one side edge of the bins. A sheet attracting unit is also moved along the one side edge of the bins toward one of predetermined positions at which the sheet attracting unit confronts the one side edge of the bins. The sheets stacked on one of the bins are chucked by the sheet attracting unit and moved by the sheet attracting unit outwardly from one side edge of the bin to a position at which the stapler-head becomes able to staple the sheet. The sheet attracting unit being movable along the one side edge of each of the bins and able to be stopped at each of predetermined positions at which the sheet attracting unit confronts the one side edge of the bins. Movable fences are provided on the bins, respectively, for aligning the sheets on the respective bins. A fence releasing mechanism is provided for releasing each of the fences in accordance with the movement of the stapler-head along the one side edge of the bins.

Sheet stapling apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Okazaki, Japan

Nobuyuki Morii