The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 07, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 16, 2001
Glenn Gaarder, Ramona, CA (US);
Michael Gustafson, San Diego, CA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A single sheet feeder for moving individual sheets from the top of a stack includes a driven sheet separator roller mounted on an arcuately moveable support arm, the roller having an annular sheet engaging friction surface and a bottom sheet retard pad in opposed relationship to the separator roller. In a first embodiment the retard pad has a specially configured sheet engaging surface having a sheet retarding portion which is angled downwardly from the direction of sheet movement to reduce excessively high separator roller drive torque requirements. In a second embodiment, the sheet support surface has a recess proximate the sheet retard pad for receiving the driven separator roller to prevent contact of the driven roller with the sheet support to avoid excessively high separator roller drive torque. Arcuate movement of the roller toward the sheet support is arrested by contact of the roller support arm with any suitable part of the sheet feeder chassis such as the retard pad or stack. support surface before the driven roller contacts the support surface.