Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Kabushiki Kaisha Ricoh

Toshihiko Misawa

Takaji Sue

Sakae Fujimoto

Masato Ogihara

Thutomu Kanai

A sheet feed apparatus for use with facsimile apparatus comprising an original table for inserting original sheets manually, a recording sheet cassette for holding a stack of recording sheets therein, sheet feed roller means disposed so as to be capable of receiving both original sheets and recording sheets to transport them individually to a reading and printing station of the facsimile apparatus, and sheet feed means for automatically separating recording sheet individually from a stack of recording sheets in the cassette.

Sheet feed apparatus

Two sheet trays are provided, one of which is fixed in position and carries copy sheets and the other of which is movable and carries original documents for transmission. The movable sheet tray is slidable over the fixed sheet tray between a retracted position and a sheet feed position. The trays are rockable in such a manner that a feed roller engages with the fixed sheet tray when the movable sheet tray is in the retracted position and with the movable sheet tray when the movable sheet tray is in the sheet feed position to feed copy sheets or original documents respectively. Movement of the movable sheet tray by the apparatus operator to the selected one of the retracted position and the sheet feed position automatically sets a facsimile transmission system in which the apparatus is incorporated to a receive mode or a transit mode respectively. A sensor is provided to the movable sheet tray to sense for the presence of original documents therein and automatically terminate multiple document transmission.

Sheet feed apparatus for facsimile system

A paper feeder is disclosed comprising a corner separator located on a paper tray on which a plurality of sheets are disposed in a stack and are fed one by one by means of a feed roller. The paper feeder is also provided with a second paper separator which operates, in the event of failure of paper separation by the corner separator to which results in a plurality of sheets being simultaneously fed from the paper tray, to separate the plurality of sheets into single sheets, thus assuring that the sheets are reliably fed into a sheet processing apparatus one by one. The second separator comprises an endless, sheet conveying belt which is disposed above a sheet passageway which connects the paper tray and the sheet processing apparatus, the belt cooperating with a frictional member which is disposed below the sheet passageway in opposing relationship with the sheet conveying belt.

Paper feeder

The transmitting and receiving sections are both energized, and the output of the transmitting section is connected to the input of the receiving section. The intensity of the transmitting section light source is varied, as by opening and closing a switch, and if the output of the receiving section is accurate in response to the light source variation, the transmitting and receiving sections are judged to be operating normally.

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Tokyo, Japan

Toshihiko Misawa