Fuji Photo Film Company, Limited

Other

Fuji Photo Film, Inc.

Tsukasa Ono

Takashi Koizumi

Yoshinori Kawamura

Kazuhisa Tazaki

Kazuhisa Okamoto

Takayuki Nakamura

Yoshihiro Koyanagi

Kazuoki Komiyama

Masaaki Tomimizu

An image recording material separating/removing device which, by using a single lift-out mechanism section, can lift image recording materials out from plural cassettes along simple loci of movement, and in which a space for providing and withdrawing the cassettes is kept as small as possible. In a cassette housing section, a plurality of cassettes are disposed one above another. Each cassette is offset in a horizontal direction. An amount of offset is set on the basis of a locus of movement of a printing plate at a time when the printing plate is sucked and held by suction cups and lifted up in a vertical direction. At least while the suction cups are moving in the vertical direction, the printing plate is not interfered with by cassettes thereabove, and an emulsion surface of the printing plate is not scratched. Space required for placement of the cassette housing section can be reduced. Moreover, because movement of the suction cups can be simplified, a control system can be simplified.

Image recording material separating/removing device

A sheet feeder for use, with a stack having plates and sheets alternating. Sheets are removed by being reliably suction adhered with a sucker. The sheet feeder includes a suction device, and the sucker and device are mounted at a supporting portion. In order to allow suction adhering of the plates and sheets alternately stacked in a magazine, the suction device is operated when the sucker is brought into contact with the sheet, and the sheet is raised separately from the plate. Thereafter, the sheet is suction adhered to the sucker by suction. This makes it possible to prevent the sucker from suction adhering to the plate together with the sheet, and only the sheet is reliably from the stack.

Sheet feeder and sheet feeding method

A pair of optical sensors are disposed above photopolymer plates and interleaf papers, which are alternately stacked with one another. These optical sensors basically have the same structure. However, the optical sensor is disposed so as to be inclined to an optical axis of reflected light, and therefore, a detection level of the optical sensor substantially becomes low. Accordingly, although the optical sensors each react to the reflected light from the photopolymer plate, the optical sensor does not react to the reflected light from the interleaf paper. As a result, it is determined whether the uppermost layer of the stack is the photopolymer plate or the interleaf paper. In a discriminating device of the present invention, general purpose optical sensors adapted to react to light having such a fixed intensity or greater, are used.

Device for discriminating among print media

A device for selecting and conveying printing plates is provided which can overcome complexity of work involved in so-called batch processing, and can realize operation of, for example, removing a printing plate from a cassette in a small space, such that operation efficiency can be improved and less space is required. Cassettes other than a lowest cassette are independently supported on sliding bases. The sliding bases move (slide) on rails with hardly any frictional resistance. The rails extend to a cassette withdrawing space section provided adjacent, and unnecessary cassettes are moved horizontally along the rails. Thus, a printing plate can be removed from a needed cassette at a reference position without the needed cassette being moved at all. In this way, there is no need to provide, at each cassette, space for removing the printing plate, and no need to move a printing plate removing device to positions at which the cassettes are disposed.

Device for selecting and conveying printing plates

A device for removing an image recording material is provided, which takes up little space and is used with printing plates and interleaf sheets set alternately in a cassette. An interleaf sheet and a printing plate are taken out simultaneously. In the midst of being conveyed along a conveying path leading to an exposure section, only the interleaf sheet is sucked by a fan or drawn-in between a roller pair so as to be peeled off from the printing plate. The peeled-off interleaf sheet is discarded, and the printing plate is conveyed reliably to the exposure section.

Device for removing image recording material

A sheet feeder for use with a stack having plates and sheets alternating. Sheets are removed by being reliably suction adhered with a sucker. The sheet feeder includes a suction device, and the sucker and device are mounted at a supporting portion. In order to allow suction adhering of the plates and sheets alternately stacked in a magazine, the suction device is operated when the sucker is brought into contact with the sheet, and the sheet is raised separately from the plate. Thereafter, the sheet is suction adhered to the sucker by suction. This makes it possible to prevent the sucker from suction adhering to the plate together with the sheet, and only the sheet is reliably removed from the stack.

An apparatus for extracting and conveying a printing plate. The apparatus includes separation plates disposed at corners of a cassette accommodating at least printing plates. Air enters between an uppermost printing plate that is extracted and an underlying printing plate or an interleaf sheet, thereby separating the uppermost printing plate from the underlying printing plate or the interleaf sheet. Guide rails disposed above the cassette are parallel to a bottom of the cassette. Movable/rotatable bodies are disposed on the guide rails so as to be movable along the guide rails and be rotated about 180&deg; within moving ranges, such that the uppermost printing plate is sent into an exposure section with an emulsion surface of the printing plate facing up.

Apparatus for extracting and conveying printing plates

An apparatus for feeding printing plate precursors is provided with a detecting sensor for detecting a position of a separation plate mounted on a cassette accommodating printing plate precursors, and a plate surface detecting sensor for detecting an uppermost plate of printing plate precursors stacked in the cassette. A relative position of the separation plate with respect to suction nozzles of a suction frame of the apparatus for feeding plates is controlled constant.

Apparatus and method for feeding printing plate precursors

A pressure switch is set in communication with suction cups of a suction adherence conveying device applied to an automatic exposure device. Further, a suction fan which can approach and move away from a photopolymer plate or an interleaf sheet accommodated within a magazine is set integrally with the suction cups By utilizing the fact that degrees of vacuum of the suction cups differ in accordance with materials to be suction-adhered, determination of a material to be suction-adhered is performed based on output signals of the pressure switch

Conveying device using suction adherence for printing plates

A sheet feeding method for plate-shaped members is disclosed. In a sucker unit, suction nozzles are move down from respective original positions toward a bottom plate of a cassette at a fixed speed, and time t1 until the bottom plate is detected by a contact sensor, and an amount by which the suction nozzles move, &Dgr;y, until the suction nozzles suction adhere to the bottom plate after the bottom plate is detected by the contact sensor are measured. Subsequently, separation positions of the suction nozzles with respect to the original positions are set based on an interval between the bottom plate of the cassette and separation plates, and an interval required by the photopolymer plate being bent between the suction nozzles and the separation plates at an appropriate curvature. Based on the result of the setting, the photopolymer plate is reliably taken out from the cassette.

Sheet feeder and sheet feeding method for plate-shaped members

A suction transport device capable of reducing manufacturing cost due to reduction of the number of suction mechanisms by which one of photopolymer plates accommodated in a magazine is taken out is attained. Also separability when the printing plate is taken out is improved, thus improving reliability of the suction transport device. Since, among suckers and suction fans, those located at positions corresponding to the widthwise direction ends of the printing plates are movable in the widthwise direction, and separating plates are movable in the same direction. When one of the printing plates of a different size is to be taken out, the leading end corner portions of the printing plate can always be curved at a fixed curvature, and separability is improved. Further, there is no need to increase the number of suckers thus decreasing cost.

Suction transport device of a printing plate

During an initial setting period, if there is a tendency for a belt to move sideways due to tolerance when components are assembled in the initial setting, inclination in the axial direction of a driven roller can be changed after the components are assembled, to adjust degree of tension at both end portions in the transverse direction of the belt wound at a driven roller. Accordingly, the tendency for the belt to move sideways caused during assembly of the components can be corrected. Further, when there are changes over time (reduced elasticity of the belt, changes in the positioned state of rollers, or the like), sideways movement may occur during operation. However, in these cases, since a tapered auxiliary roller is attached at each of end portions in the axial direction of the rollers so as to be able to rotate relatively to the respective roller that is the base body thereof, when the belt moves sideways onto the auxiliary rollers the belt can be promptly returned to its original position.

Belt conveying apparatus and image forming apparatus

A belt transmission mechanism has a crowned drive pulley, a crowned driven pulley, and a belt trained under tension around the crowned drive pulley and the crowned driven pulley. The crowned drive pulley and the crowned driven pulley are dimensioned to satisfy the equation:

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Kanagawa, Japan

Tsukasa Ono