Patent Grant
7789382
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-149043 filed on Jun. 5, 2007 in Japanese Patent Office, the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to a bookbinding apparatus and an image forming system which accumulate a plurality of sheets so as to form a bundle of sheets (hereafter, referred simply as a sheet bundle) and join a cover sheet to one side of the sheet bundle so as to produce a booklet.
There have been well known bookbinding apparatuses and image forming systems which bind a plurality of sheets on which images are formed by copying machines, printers and the like into a booklet with a simple way. Here, the outline of a general bookbinding process in these bookbinding apparatuses is explained. First, a plurality of sheets on which images are formed are accumulated and aligned so as to form a sheet bundle. Next, an adhesive, such as a paste, is coated to one side of the sheet bundle. And, a cover sheet is conveyed and stopped at a specified position, and the cover sheet is joined to the adhesive-coated side of the sheet bundle. In this way, the plurality of sheets and the cover sheet are made into one body, whereby a booklet is produced.
In the image forming system described in Patent Document 1, an image forming apparatus and a bookbinding apparatus are connected to each other. Sheets on which images are formed by the image forming apparatus are conveyed from the image forming apparatus to the bookbinding apparatus, and then the bookbinding apparatus produces a booklet promptly.
[Patent documents 1] Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2004-209746
According to the present invention, a bookbinding apparatus which accumulates a plurality of sheets to form a sheet bundle and joins a cover sheet to one side of the sheet bundle with an adhesive so as to produce a booklet, comprises:
a coating section to coat an adhesive to the one side of the sheet bundle;
an information obtaining section to obtain printing speed information of an image forming apparatus connected to the bookbinding apparatus;
a selecting section to select at least one data table based on the printing speed information from a plurality of data tables in which the relationship between the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet and the working speed of the coating section is specified, and
a control section to control the coating section to change the working speed in accordance with the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet to be produced based on the data table selected by the selecting section.
Moreover, an image forming system which comprises an image forming apparatus to form images on sheets and a bookbinding apparatus to accumulate a plurality of sheets on which images were formed by the image forming apparatus, to form a sheet bundle, to join a cover sheet to one side of the sheet bundle with an adhesive, and to produce a booklet, comprises:
a coating section to coat an adhesive to the one side of the sheet bundle;
a selecting section to select at least one data table based on a printing speed information of the image forming apparatus from a plurality of data tables in which the relationship between a number of sheets per one copy of a booklet and a working speed of the coating section is specified, and
a control section to control the coating section to change the working speed in accordance with the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet to be produced based on the data table selected by the selecting section.
The image forming system according to the present invention comprises an image forming apparatus A and a bookbinding apparatus B.
The image forming apparatus A forms an image on a sheet with an electrophotographying technique, and the image forming apparatus A comprises an image forming section A1, a document conveying device A2, an image reading section A3, and a communicating section A4. In the image forming section A1, around a drum-like photoreceptor 1, a charging device 2, a light exposing device 3, a developing device 4, a transferring device 5A, a separating device 5B, and a cleaning device 6 are arranged, and these devices perform respective processes of electrically-charging, exposing, developing, and transferring, whereby a toner image is formed on a sheet S1. The sheet S1 is stored one of three sheet feeding trays 7A, fed out one by one from the sheet feeding trays 7A, and conveyed to the image forming section A1. The sheet S1 onto which a toner image has been transferred passes through a fixing device 8 so that the sheet S1 is subjected to a fixing treatment. After having been subjected to the fixing treatment, the sheet S1 is discharged by a paper ejecting roller 7B to the outside of the image forming apparatus A, or is conveyed to a sheet re-feeding passage 7C.
Incidentally, although the image forming apparatus A in this embodiment forms a monochrome image on a sheet with an electrophotographying technique, the image forming apparatus according to the present invention is not limited to this embodiment, the image forming apparatus A may be a color image forming apparatus as a matter of course, and further, image forming techniques applicable to the present invention include any one of image forming techniques in addition the electrophotographying technique.
The bookbinding apparatus B is an apparatus which bundles a plurality of sheets sent from the image forming apparatus A into a sheet bundle (a bundle of sheets), joins a cover sheet to one end side of the sheet bundle, and covers the sheet bundle with the cover sheet in the shape of the character “U”, thereby producing a booklet. The bookbinding apparatus B comprises a sheet reversing section 40, a accumulating section 50, a coating section 60, and a joining section 70 to join a cover sheet to a sheet bundle, and further comprises a conveying section 10, a sheet delivery tray 20, a cover sheet storing section 80, and the booklet discharging section 90. A sheet S1 conveyed from the image forming apparatus A to the bookbinding apparatus B is discharged through a discharging passage 12 to a sheet delivery tray 20 or is conveyed to a sheet reversing section 40 by a switching gate 11 provided in the conveying section 10. When a book is not bound in the bookbinding apparatus B, a sheet S1 is discharged to the sheet delivery tray 20. On the other hand, when a bookbinding process is performed in the bookbinding apparatus B, a sheet S1 is conveyed to the sheet reversing section 40 through a conveying passage 13, and after the sheet S1 is switch-backed in the sheet reversing section 40, the sheet S1 is conveyed to the accumulating section 50. In the accumulating section 50, sheets S1 are accumulated by the set number of sheets. When the sheets S1 have been accumulated by the set number of sheets, the accumulating section 50 rotates so as to hold a bundle of sheets S1 almost in the vertical condition. And then, the underside of the bundle of sheets S1 corresponding to the back side of the bundle of sheets S1 is coated with an adhesive by the coating section 60, and is brought in contact with a cover sheet S2 and pasted with it in the joining section 70, thereby producing a booklet S3. The booklet S3 produced by the process to paste the cover sheet S2 to the bundle of sheets S1 is discharged to a booklet discharging section 90.
Incidentally, although not shown in
A PC which is a terminal such as a personal computer and a bookbinding apparatus B are connected to the image forming apparatus A. However, in the present invention, the PC may not be connected.
A CPU (Central Processing Unit) 101 is to control actions of the whole image forming apparatus A, and is connected to ROM (Read Only Memory) 102, RAM (Random Access Memory) 103 and the like. This CPU 101 reads various control programs stored in the ROM 102, and develops them into RAM 103, and controls the action of each part. Moreover, CPU 101 performs various processes in accordance with the program developed into the RAM 103, and stores the processing results in the RAM 103. And the processing results stored in the RAM 103 are made to save in a predetermined storage destination.
Image data produced by the image reading section A3 and image data transmitted from a PC connected to the image forming apparatus A are applied with image processing by the image processing section 105. The image forming section A1 receives the image data applied with the image processing by the image processing section 105 and forms an image on a sheet.
A CPU 201 in the bookbinding apparatus B is to control actions of the whole bookbinding apparatus B, and performs a bookbinding process with a predetermined timing based on signals transmitted from the image forming apparatus A. The CPU 201 reads various control programs stored in a ROM 202, develops them to RAM 203, and controls actions each part of the coating section 60, the joining section 70 and the like. In the present embodiment, as mentioned later, the working speed to coat an adhesive on a bundle of sheets S1 is changeable in accordance with the printing speed of the image forming apparatus and the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet. Therefore, the CPU 20 controls a motor M3 to shift a coating roller 62 at changeable moving speed and a motor M1 to rotate the coating roller at changeable rotating speed.
The CPU 101 functions as a selecting section to select image forming processes and a control section to control the image forming processes in the image forming apparatus A. The CPU 201 functions as a control section of bookbinding actions, an information obtaining section, and a selecting section in the bookbinding apparatus B, and binds sheets discharged from the image forming apparatus A into a book with a selected booklet structure.
A sheet S1 conveyed in a conveying passage 13 is discharged once to a reversing guide 402 through a sheet ejecting roller 14 and a conveying roller 401. The sheet S1 discharged on the reversing guide 402 is aligned in the direction perpendicular to the conveying direction by an aligning member 403, and is temporarily accumulated by the action of a stopper 404. The stopper 404 can act between the position of a solid line and the position of a dotted line. While a preceding bundle of sheets S1 is in the accumulating section 50, the stopper 404 shifts to the position of the dotted line, and accumulates succeeding sheets S1 on the reversing guide 402 temporarily. After the preceding bundle of sheets S1 is taken out from the accumulating section 50, the stopper 404 shifts to the position of the solid line, the sheets S1 accumulated temporarily drop to the accumulating section 50. This accumulating section 50 has a supporting plate 502 and a receiving plate 506, and the sheets S1 are supported in an inclined state by the supporting plate 502 and the receiving plate 506. The sheets S1 currently supported on the inclined state are prevented from floating by a pressing member 504, and are aligned by an aligning plate 505. And the holding plate 503 operates so as to hold a bundle of sheets S1, and on the condition where the bundle of sheets S1 is held, the accumulating section 50 rotates around a shaft 501 as an axis of rotation, thereby changing the bundle of sheets S1 from the inclined state into the vertical state.
When the bundle of sheets S1 becomes the vertical state at the accumulating section 50, a second pinching plate 503 is moved towards a sheet S1 by a motor M4, and when the second pinching plate 503 presses the sheet S1 with a predetermined pressure, an increment of the driving torque of the motor M4 is detected by a driving-torque detecting sensor (not shown), and the movement of the second pinching plate 503 is stopped. The bundle of sheets S1 is firmly held between a first pinching plate 502 and the second pinching plate 503 with such a structure. The movement amount of the second pinching plate 503 is measured by an encoder 509 as information of thickness, and is memorized by memory means, such as RAM.
In the stage where the bundle of sheets S1 is held between the first pinching plate 502 and second pinching plate 503, the receiving plates 506 is rotates by 90 degrees by a driving mechanism (not shown), and is retracted as shown in
Next, as shown in
Incidentally, as mentioned above, although the embodiment is explained by the use of the roller as a means for coating an adhesive, as long as the intentions of the present invention are not disturbed, a belt and a brush, for example, may also be used here in place of the roller. However, the roller is desirable as a coating member, because the roller is advantageous at the point to supply a melt adhesion agent uniformly to a sheet end with the coating ability for an adhesive and the easiness in conducting heat to make an adhesive into a fully melted condition before being coated.
The coating action of the coating section 60 for the adhesive 63 is explained with reference to
The coating section 60 comprises a coating roller 62 to coat an adhesive 63 to a sheet bundle, the adhesive 63, an adhesive storing section 64 to store the adhesive 63, and a heater (not shown) to melt an adhesive in a solid state. The adhesive 63 is stored in an adhesive container 66 in a solid state, and when it is detected by a detecting section (not shown) that the remaining quantity of the adhesive 63 in the coating section 60 is little, a movable member 65 moves and the adhesive 63 is supplied to the coating section 60 from the adhesive container 66 in a solid state. And the adhesive 63 is warmed by a heater (not shown) in the coating section 60, and the adhesive in a solid state is melted in the coating section 60.
In the starting phase of a bookbinding process, the coating section 60 is in the right end position which is an initial position as shown in
As shown in
a) shows the condition that the coating of the adhesive 63 has been completed. In the state of
Next, the cover sheet supporting section 701 shifts upward by being driven by belts 79A and 79B (refer to
The cover sheet supporting section 701 shifts upward several millimeters further from the position sown in
Returning now to
However, there may be possibilities that various types of image forming apparatus A such as high-speed image forming apparatus may be connected to the bookbinding apparatus B, and also the number of sheets per one copy of booklet is variable to a large extent. Therefore, it may be considered that before the accumulating section 50 becomes the condition where the accumulating section 50 can receive succeeding sheets S1, the reversing guide 402 has accumulated a succeeding bundle of sheets S1 corresponding to one copy of a booklet S3, if a printing speed of the image forming apparatus A is high or the number of sheets per one copy of booklet is few.
Then, in the bookbinding apparatus B of the present invention, the rate of a coating action to coat an adhesive 63 to a bundle of sheets S1 structured to be changeable changed in accordance with the printing speed of the image forming apparatus A, or the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet, whereby the accumulating section 50 can be made the condition where the accumulating section 50 can receive succeeding sheets S1 before the reversing guide 402 accumulates a succeeding bundle of sheets S1 corresponding to one copy of the booklet S3. This technique will be explained in detail with reference to a flowchart shown in
The CPU 201 of the bookbinding apparatus B controls a series of operations shown in
Firstly, the bookbinding apparatus B obtains printing-speed information from the image forming apparatus A (Step S1). As an example of the printing-speed information, it is information about the number of sheets to be printed per a predetermined period of time, such as “40 cpm”. Alternatively, the printing-speed information may be a conveying speed for the printed sheet in the image forming apparatus A.
If the printing-speed information is obtained at Step S1, a data table is selected based on the printing-speed information (Step S2). Here, a plurality of data tables is memorized in the ROM 202 corresponding to a plurality of the printing-speed information. The bookbinding apparatus B select one data table from a plurality of the data tables based on the printing-speed information of the image forming apparatus A. A data table to be selected at Step S2 specifies the relationship between the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet and the working speed of the coating section 60. One example of a data table is shown in Table 1. Incidentally, the data table in the present invention is not limited to the data table shown in Table 1. As long as the relationship between the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet and the working speed of the coating section 60 is specified, any kind of data table may be used.
The working speed of the coating section 60 is the moving speed of the coating section 60 or the coating roller 62 to a bundle of sheets S1. Taking one example in
In the example shown in Table 1, the working speed of the coating section 60 is set as four steps.
According to the selection of data table, when the number of sheets per one copy of booklet is 31 or more sheets, the working speed of the coating section 60 is made an ordinary speed of X mm/s in order to establish the condition where the accumulating section 50 can receive a succeeding bundle of sheets S1 before the reversing guide 402 accumulates all sheets S1 corresponding to one copy of the booklet S3.
However, if the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet is 30 or less sheets, the number of sheets per one copy of booklet becomes few relatively to the printing speed of the image forming apparatus A. Therefore, if the ordinary speed of X mm/s is maintained as the working speed of the coating section 60, before the accumulating section 50 becomes the condition where the accumulating section 50 can receive a succeeding bundle of sheets S1, the reversing guide 402 has accumulated all sheets S1 corresponding to one copy of the booklet S3.
Then, when the number of sheets per one copy of booklet is 21 to 30 sheets as shown in Table 1, the working speed of the coating section 60 is set to 1.5×, that is, 1.5 times of the ordinary speed of X mm/s, thereby making the working speed of the coating section 60 faster. Likewise, when the number of sheets per one copy of booklet is 11 to 20 sheets, the working speed of the coating section 60 is set to 2.0×, and when the number of sheets per one copy of booklet is ten or less sheets, the working speed of the coating section 60 is set to 2.5×. In this way, as the number of sheets per one copy of booklet is decreasing, the working speed of the coating section 60 is made faster. As a result, the accumulating section 50 can be made on the condition where the accumulating section 50 can receive a succeeding bundle of sheets S1, before the reversing guide 402 has accumulated all sheets S1 corresponding to one copy of the booklet S3.
Incidentally, Table 1 shows only one data table corresponding to a certain printing speed. However, as mentioned above, a plurality of data tables are stored in the ROM 202. For example, in the case where image are formed with a printing speed faster than the printing speed in Table 1, a time necessary for accumulating all sheets of one copy of a booklet in the reversing guide 402 becomes shorter than that in the case where image are formed with the printing speed in Table 1. Therefore, in this faster printing speed, another data table is selected such that the working speed of the coating section 60 corresponding to the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet is increased than that in Table 1 or the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet corresponding to the working speed of the coating section is decreased than that in Table 1. In this way, the ROM 202 stores a plurality of data tables corresponding to a plurality of different printing speeds.
Returning now to
After a data table is selected at Step S2, at Step S3, the operation shifts to operations at the time of actually producing a booklet S3, and the bookbinding apparatus B obtain the information about the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet produced by the image forming system. This information about the number of sheets is obtained based on the attribute information of a print job to be performed by an image forming system. Here, the shifting distance (a thickness of a booklet) of the second holding plate 503 measured by the encoder 509 may used as the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet.
Next, the bookbinding apparatus B determines the working speed of the coating section 60 (the moving speed of the coating roller 62) based on the data table selected at Step S2 (Step S4). Taking the example of Table 1, when the number of sheets in one copy of booklet is 15 sheets, the working speed of the coating section 60 (the moving speed of the coating roller 62) is set to 2.0×, and the coating action for an adhesive 63 is performed more quickly than usual.
On the other hand, when the moving speed of the coating roller 62 is made faster than usual, and if the rotating speed of the coating roller 62 is not changed from ordinary speed, the coated amount of an adhesive 63 decrease. Therefore, when the moving speed of the coating roller 62 is made faster, the rotating speed of the coating roller 63 is also made to increase.
Thus, the coating action for the adhesive in the coating section 60 is performed with the working speed determined at Step S4 (Step S5), and the coating action for the adhesive in Step S5 is continued until the production of the last copy of the booklet is completed.
As explained above, in the bookbinding apparatus B of the present invention, a data table is selected based on the printing-speed information of the image forming apparatus A, and then the working speed of the coating section 60 is changed based on the number of sheets per one copy of a booklet. Therefore, even if any type of image forming apparatus A is connected to the bookbinding apparatus B, before all sheets S1 of one copy of a booklet are accumulated by the reversing guide 402, the accumulating section 50 can be made on the condition where the accumulating section 50 can receive a succeeding bundle of sheets S1. As a result, the productivity of a booklet can be enhanced without stopping the action of image forming apparatus.
Further, in the case where an image forming apparatus A can form both of a color image and a monochromatic image, the printing speed of the color image is different from that of the monochromatic image in many cases. Therefore, in the case where this type of the image forming apparatus A is connected to the bookbinding apparatus B, by selecting a data table in accordance with the printing speed of an image forming mode (color image or monochromatic image), the productivity of a booklet can be improved more.
Incidentally, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and even if there may be any modification and addition in the range which does not deviate from the concept of the present invention, such modification and addition are included in the scope of the present invention.
Although the image forming system shown in
Further, the present embodiment is structured such that a plurality of data tables are stored in the ROM 202 in the bookbinding apparatus B and one data table is selected based on the printing speed information from the plurality of data tables stored in the ROM 202. However, the plurality of data tables may not be stored in the ROM 202 in the bookbinding apparatus B, for example, the image forming system may be structured such that a server storing the plurality of data tables may be connected additionally to the image forming system. In this case, when the bookbinding apparatus B obtains printing speed information, the bookbinding apparatus B accesses the server and selects one data table from the plurality of data tables stored in the server.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-149043 | May 2007 | JP | national |
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5732315 | Inoue et al. | Mar 1998 | A |
| 20050238462 | Oota | Oct 2005 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20080272532 A1 | Nov 2008 | US |
