Document handler jam clearance and job recovery system

Abstract

In a copying system utilizing a recirculating document handler (RDH) presenting documents to the platen of a copier for copying, with an RDH document stacking tray and an additional document input directly to the platen, and a three zone distributed drives feeding system for first feeding the documents from the stacking tray to the platen, secondly feeding the documents over the platen for copying, and thirdly feeding the documents from the platen back to the stacking tray after they have been copied, to normally form a complete document recirculation path, and sensors for sensing document jams and the position of jammed documents in the document paths connecting with a control system controlling the RDH, including stopping the RDH in response to sensing a jam and determining which documents have been copied before a jam and providing instructional displays to the operator for operator jam clearance (document removal) and job recovery; an improved jam clearance and job recovery system determining whether a document has resulted in a jammed document being present in a first, second, or third document path jam zone, corresponding to the three distributed drive zones, and automatically providing a preliminary job recovery operation before the RDH is fully stopped, by correspondingly selectably independently operating the document feeding zones to feed unjammed documents in the third jam zone to the stacking tray or feed unjammed documents in the first jam zone to the platen, so that documents are directerd to be operator removed from only one zone, if any. The operator is variably display instructed to place these removed documents either face up in the stacking tray, or face down in the separate document input, depending on the jam detection position and document removal position and copier operating condition, and the copier is restarted for job completion without manual document reordering.