Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Shinichiro Hiraoka

Susumu Murakami

Yasumasa Morimoto

Tomohiko Okada

Yoshiaki Ibuchi

Kimihide Tsukamoto

Hideshi Izumi

Minoru Tomiyori

Takateru Yamamoto

Masakazu Suzuki

Motoaki Okitsu

Sohichi Takata

Yasushi Matsutomo

Michiaki Nishimura

Hirotoshi Iemura

Tadaaki Kawano

Takashi Makiura

Haruyoshi Migita

Akira Kohno

Kouichi Etoh

Kunihiko Sakaguchi

Atsushi Saito

Kouji Aoki

A drive transmission mechanism of a sheet transportation apparatus of the present invention comprises an upstream transportation roller gear and a planet gear for transmitting a first driving force from a driving source to the upstream transportation roller gear, and a release mechanism for preventing the upstream transportation roller gear and the planet gear from engaging with each other. The release mechanism prevents the engagement of the planet gear and the upstream transportation roller gear when the driven gear is driven to reversely rotate by a second driving force. The release mechanism prevents the engagement by moving a release member before the planet gear and the driven gear engage with each other. The release mechanism moves the release member by the driven gear being reversely rotated by the second driving force which is a driving force other than the driving source. This makes it possible to realize a drive transmission mechanism of a sheet transportation apparatus comprising a release mechanism capable of releasing the engagement of the driven gear and the drive gear for transmitting the driving force from the driving source to the driven gear, without the need of reversely rotating the driving source or the fear of impairing the driving force from the driving source.

Drive transmission mechanism of sheet transportation apparatus and document transportation apparatus

An image-forming apparatus is provided which includes a document reading section for reading image information from a document, and an image-forming section for forming an image on a sheet of paper based upon the image information of the document read by the document reading section. A space section is formed below the document reading section, which accommodates the image-forming section and serves as a discharge section to which the sheet of paper bearing the image formed in the image-forming section is discharged. The space section is surrounded by peripheral walls of an apparatus main body including the image-forming section. The image-forming apparatus further includes a paper post-treatment section that subjects the sheet of paper bearing the image to post-treatments, such as an adjustment process and a stapling process, in a virtually horizontal state, and that is placed between the document reading section and the space section.

Image forming apparatus with paper post-treatment device

A document is fed from a document tray to a reading station. When the document after being read is discharged by way of a discharge path, the document is halted by a control roller for discharging, instead of being discharged completely. That is, the document is discharged only when the read image is recorded on a sheet and the sheet after recording is discharged completely. When the sheet is not discharged and hence an anomaly is detected, the document set on standby at the discharge position is conveyed along an inverting path and conveyance path to a document registration roller in order to allow the document to be fed to the reading station with its image face presented on the reading position.

Document feeder for an image forming apparatus

An image fixing device is disclosed comprising a heating roll installed with a heater, a pressure roll rotatably pressing against the heating roll, and a thermistor for sensing the surface temperature of the heating roll, wherein a CPU is provided for controlling the surface temperature of the heating roll to an initial fixing control temperature of 1.1 times a normal fixing temperature, when the surface temperature of the heating roll sensed by the thermistor is below one-third of the normal fixing temperature.

Image fixing apparatus with graduated temperature control

Growing community of inventors

Yamatokoriyama, Japan

Shinichiro Hiraoka