Riso Kagaku Corporation

Omron Corporation

Tetsunobu Shibata

Takeshi Kakinuma

Masahiro Ueda

Takahiro Ono

Nobuyoshi Suzuki

Yasuhiro Fujimoto

Koichi Ohmae

Kazuhiko Hanaki

Akihiro Kamei

Norihito Ozeki

A sheet sorting apparatus which easily sorts sheets into groups, and makes these groups readily distinguishable on a single output tray. According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a sheet sorting apparatus located at the sheet outlet location of an image processing device, the sheet sorting apparatus including a marker attaching mechanism for attaching markers at a certain position on the output sheets. The marker attaching mechanism includes a tape feeding device in which the tape has an adhesive surface along one side edge, a cutter for making a marker by cutting the tape at a preset length, guides for positioning the marker in the proper location on the output sheet, a marker attaching roller, and a feeder for feeding the sheet and marker together. The feeder presses the marker against the sheet to attach it. The advantages of the invention include the markers for separating the groups being attached to the sheets, so they will not fall out if the sheets are removed from the output tray. In addition, there is no pause in feeding the sheets to add markers between the groups, so there is no time loss in feeding the sheets to add markers between the groups.

Sheet sorting apparatus

A sheet sorter includes an array of a plurality of sorting trays which are mounted on a sorter body and arranged in a vertical direction and a general-purpose tray which is mounted on the sorter body and is larger than each of the sorting trays in capacity so that it accommodates a larger number of sheets than each of the sorting trays. A tray drive mechanism provided in the sorter body moves up and down the sorting trays and the general-purpose tray so that sheets transferred by a transfer mechanism provided in the sorter body are selectively discharged onto the sorting trays or the general-purpose tray. The array of the sorting trays is positioned above the general-purpose tray. The sorting tray array and the general-purpose tray are normally held in a position where the sheet discharge port of the sheet transfer mechanism is positioned between the lowermost tray of the sorting tray array and the general-purpose tray as seen in a vertical direction.

Sheet sorter and method of controlling the sheet sorter

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Tetsunobu Shibata