Patent Application
20220340384
This application claims priority to Japanese Patent Application No. 2021-073048 filed on Apr. 23, 2021, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.
The present disclosure relates to a conveyance device that conveys a sheet conveyed from an image forming apparatus to a post-processing device.
There is known an image forming apparatus that includes: an access cover capable of pivotally moving about a fulcrum, which is a lower edge of an opening formed in a housing, and thus exposing the interior of the housing; and a locking mechanism for locking the access cover. The locking mechanism is designed so that when the access cover is closed, two hook members provided at an upper end of the access cover engage around a shaft provided at the inside of the image forming apparatus to lock the access cover. The hook members are operatively connected to a manual lever. When the manual lever is pulled up, the two hook members are disengaged from the shaft to unlock the access cover.
A technique improved over the aforementioned technique is proposed as one aspect of the present disclosure.
A conveyance device according to an aspect of the present disclosure includes a conveyance unit, a housing, an access cover, and a locking mechanism. The conveyance unit is pivotally movable up and down about a horizontal axis and movable between a conveyance position where a sheet is horizontally conveyable and a maintenance position a predetermined amount pivotally moved down about the horizontal axis from the conveyance position. The housing contains the conveyance unit and has a maintenance opening which is formed in a side surface and through which the conveyance unit is accessible. The access cover is pivotally movable about a predetermined axis along an edge of the maintenance opening. When the conveyance unit is in the conveyance position, the locking mechanism locks the access cover against opening and closing movement. On the other hand, when the conveyance unit pivotally moves from the conveyance position to the maintenance position, the locking mechanism unlocks the access cover. Furthermore, the locking mechanism includes a locking groove, a cooperating lever, a lever supporting shaft, a locking shaft, and a biasing member. The locking groove is provided at an inner wall surface of the access cover. The cooperating lever has a root end facing the maintenance opening and a distal end located opposite to the maintenance opening. The lever supporting shaft extends in parallel with the predetermined axis and supports an intermediate portion of the cooperating lever located between the root end and the distal end of the cooperating lever to allow pivotal movement of the intermediate portion. The locking shaft is attached to the root end of the cooperating lever and extends in parallel with an inner surface of the access cover being in a closed position. The biasing member biases the cooperating lever, with the lever supporting shaft as a fulcrum, toward engagement of the locking shaft in the locking groove of the access cover being in the closed position. When the conveyance unit is in the conveyance position, the locking shaft is located in a locking position where the locking shaft engages in the locking groove. When the conveyance unit moves down from the conveyance position to the maintenance position, the distal end of the cooperating lever is pushed down by the conveyance unit to lift the root end of the cooperating lever and, thus, the locking shaft escapes upwardly out of the locking groove and moves to a first unlocking position. The locking shaft is supported by the cooperating lever slidably in an axial direction of the locking shaft between the locking position where the locking shaft engages in the locking groove and a second unlocking position located lateral to the locking groove. When in the second unlocking position, the locking shaft engages with an engaged portion provided at the housing to constrain the cooperating lever against downward movement of the distal end of the cooperating lever. The conveyance device further includes an operating member. The operating member is coupled to the locking shaft, includes a holding portion capable of being held from outside the housing, and is capable of moving the locking shaft through the holding portion between the locking position and the second unlocking position.
Hereinafter, a description will be given of a conveyance device according to embodiments of the present disclosure with reference to the drawings. However, the present disclosure is not limited to the following embodiments.
Specifically, the image formation system A includes an image forming apparatus 1, a sheet feeder 2, and the above-mentioned intermediary conveyance device 3. In the following description, the directional terms “front”, “rear”, “left”, and “right” follow the definitions of the directional axes shown in each of the figures.
The sheet feeder 2 is disposed to the right of the image forming apparatus 1 and feeds sheets to the image forming apparatus 1 in mass printing. The image forming apparatus 1 prints an image on a sheet fed from any one of sheet feed cassettes 1a loaded in a lower portion thereof or a sheet fed from the sheet feeder 2. The printing process that can be adopted in the image forming apparatus 1 is, for example, an electrophotographic process or an ink-jet process.
The intermediary conveyance device 3 is disposed to the left of the image forming apparatus 1, receives the printed sheet discharged from the image forming apparatus 1, and feeds it to a post-processing device (not shown) or so on. The intermediary conveyance device 3 contains a conveyance unit 20. The conveyance unit 20 forms a sheet conveyance path together with unshown conveyance members (for example, a conveying belt and a conveyance roller pair) disposed above the conveyance unit 20. The thick arrows in
The conveyance unit 20 is contained in a housing of the intermediary conveyance device 3. The housing is constituted by a framing 10 (see
The front frame sheet metal 13 has a maintenance opening 13a formed in a rectangular shape elongated in a right-and-left direction. The maintenance opening 13a is formed at a location corresponding to the conveyance unit 20 as viewed from the front.
The maintenance opening 13a is covered in an openable and closable manner by an access cover 14. The access cover 14 has shafts provided at respective lower ends of both right and left end surfaces thereof and is designed to be pivotally movable about the shafts serving as a fulcrum. The axis of the shafts of the access cover 14 extends in parallel with a lower edge of the maintenance opening 13a. The access cover 14 includes: a cover body 14a having a rectangular plate-like shape extending in the right-and-left direction; and stepped rectangular handles 14b connected to respective upper end portions of both right and left edges of the cover body 14a. An operator can perform the work of opening and closing the access cover 14 by holding the handles 14b. For example, in opening the access cover 14 being in a closed position (the position shown in
The conveyance unit 20 includes: a pair of rollers 21 disposed apart from each other in the right-and-left direction; and an endless conveying belt 22 looped around the pair of rollers 21. The upper surface of the conveying belt 22 functions as a conveyance surface on which a sheet is to be conveyed.
As shown in
Furthermore, the conveyance unit 20 is designed to be pivotally movable between a conveyance position (the position shown by the solid line in
For example, when receiving an operation signal indicating that an operator is about to do dejamming work from an operating panel disposed on the top surface of the image forming apparatus 1, the control device activates the drive motor to move the conveyance unit 20 from the conveyance position to the maintenance position. On the other hand, when receiving from the operating panel an end-of-operation signal indicating that the dejamming work is completed, the control device moves the conveyance unit 20 from the maintenance position to the conveyance position.
[Specific Structure of Locking Mechanism]
As shown in
In this embodiment, the intermediary conveyance device 3 further includes the locking mechanism 100 for the purpose of preventing the access cover 14 from opening while the conveyance unit 20 is running.
The locking mechanism 100 is designed to lock the access cover 14 during the conveyance unit 20 being in the conveyance position, and unlock the access cover 14 in conjunction with the transition movement of the conveyance unit 20 from the conveyance position to the maintenance position. Furthermore, the locking mechanism 100 includes a mechanism capable of unlocking the access cover 14 by a manual operation of the operator.
As shown in
The cooperating lever 101 is formed of a sheet-metal member that has a root end facing the maintenance opening 13a and a distal end located opposite to the maintenance opening 13a and has an approximately L-shape in plan view. The cooperating lever 101 includes: a basal portion 101a disposed with its widthwise direction oriented along the right-and-left direction and having a downwardly open, inverted U-shaped cross section; and an extension 101b extending from a distal end of the basal portion 101a. The extension 101b has a smaller width than the basal portion 101a. Right and left side walls of the basal portion 101a are provided, at their intermediate portions in the front-to-rear direction, with respective through holes 101c formed to allow the supporting shaft 102 to pass through them. The right and left side walls of the basal portion 101a are also provided at their root end portions with respective through holes 101d formed to allow the locking shaft 103 to pass through them. An escape slit 101e is formed at a root edge of the basal portion 101a.
The supporting shaft 102 is formed of a round bar member extending in the right-and-left direction and fixed at both ends against axial movement to the support case 107 with retaining rings 108.
The support case 107 is composed of: a main case portion 107a having a forwardly open, overturned U-shaped cross section and extending in a vertical direction; and respective mounting plate portions 107b connected to both right and left edges of the main case portion 107a and extending in the vertical direction. Each mounting plate portion 107b of the support case 107 has two mounting holes 107c formed therein for use in screwing the support case 107 to the front frame sheet metal 13. The supporting shaft 102 is disposed to span the right and left side walls of the main case portion 107a. A rectangular opening 107d is formed in a vertically intermediate portion of the main case portion 107a. The cooperating lever 101 passes through the opening 107d and its distal end extends to below the conveyance unit 20.
A torsion spring 105 is disposed about a right end portion of the supporting shaft 102. One end of the torsion spring 105 is anchored to a horizontal extension 13h (see
The locking shaft 103 is formed of a round bar member that passes through the through holes 101d formed in the root end portion of the cooperating lever 101 and extends in the right-and-left direction. The operating member 104 is mounted on an axially intermediate portion of the locking shaft 103. The compression coil spring 106 is disposed in a compressed state between the operating member 104 and the left side wall of the basal portion 101a of the cooperating lever 101. Thus, the compression coil spring 106 biases the operating member 104 to the left.
The operating member 104 (see
The operating member 104 is formed, for example, by bending a sheet-metal member in an overturned U-shape. One of both lateral end plate portions of the operating member 104 is formed longer than the other lateral end plate portion to form a holding plate portion 104a. The other lateral end plate portion of the operating member 104 is connected to a stopper plate 104b extending in a rectangular shape as viewed in a thickness direction.
As shown in
The lever through hole 13b is constituted by a first lower end slot 13c, a second lower end slot 13d, a rectangular hole 13e, and an upward slot 13f The rectangular hole 13e has a rectangular shape extending in the right-and-left direction. The first lower end slot 13c and the second lower end slot 13d are formed into slits extending downwardly from both lateral ends of the lower edge of the rectangular hole 13e. The upward slot 13f extends upwardly from the left end of the upper edge of the rectangular hole 13e and is located on the same line as the first lower end slot 13c with the rectangular hole 13e in between when viewed from the front.
The front frame sheet metal 13 further has a slit-shaped through hole 13g which is formed therein to the left of the lever through hole 13b and through which a locking plate portion 14c formed on the access cover 14 passes.
The locking plate portion 14c is a vertical plate portion connected to the inner wall surface of the cover body 14a of the access cover 14. The locking plate portion 14c has an upwardly open, rectangular locking groove 14d formed at the upper end thereof. When the locking shaft 103 engages in the locking groove 14d of the locking plate portion 14c, the access cover 14 is locked against opening. When the locking shaft 103 escapes out of the locking groove 14d, the access cover 14 is unlocked.
[Explanation of Operation of Locking Mechanism]
A description will be given of the operation of the locking mechanism 100 with reference to
When in this state the operator performs, through the operating panel (for example, a liquid-crystal touch panel) of the image formation system A, an operation for moving the conveyance unit 20 to the maintenance position, the control device having received an operation signal indicating the operation activates the drive motor for the conveyance unit 20. As a result, the conveyance unit 20 pivotally moves down from the conveyance position to the maintenance position (the position shown by the dash-double-dot-line in
As just described, when the conveyance unit 20 is in the conveyance position, the access cover 14 is basically locked against opening by the locking mechanism 100. However, in this embodiment, as will be described below, even when the conveyance unit 20 is in the conveyance position, the operator can unlock the access cover 14 to make the access cover 14 openable by moving the holding plate portion 104a of the operating member 104.
The arrows O1 to O3 in
In this relation, since the operating member 104, inclusive the holding plate portion 104a, and the locking shaft 103 are connected in an integrally freely rotatable manner to the cooperating lever 101, no change is caused by the pull-up operation (the operation shown by the arrow O1) and the push-down operation (the operation shown by the arrow O3) of the holding plate portion 104a.
However, since the operating member 104 is fixed to the locking shaft 103, the operation of sliding the holding plate portion 104a of the operating member 104 to the right (the operation shown by the arrow O2) causes the locking shaft 103 to be thrust to the right by the operating member 104. Thus, as shown in
As a result, the access cover 14 is unlocked and the cooperating lever 101 is, in a state shown in
Referring to
To cope with the above situation, in this embodiment, as shown in
It is conceivable that there may be some operators who perform the handling of forcibly moving the locking shaft 103 out of the locking groove 14d of the access cover 14, i.e., a so-called incorrect handling. Possible examples of the incorrect handling are the following two handlings.
A first possible incorrect handling is the handling of forcibly pushing down the holding plate portion 104a as shown by the unfilled arrow in
In this embodiment, in order to prevent the access cover 14 from being unlocked by the first incorrect handling, the upper surface of the locking shaft 103 and the upper surface of the holding plate portion 104a are previously intersected at an angle θ to form a convex-downward, V-shape. In other words, the operating member 104 is coupled to the locking shaft 103 so that the upper end surface of the holding plate portion 104a is at an angle closer to the horizontal than an angle parallel to the upper surface of the cooperating lever 101. Thus, even if the first incorrect handling is performed, the locking shaft 103 is difficult to move upwardly. Hence, it can be surely prevented that the access cover 14 is unlocked by the first incorrect handling.
A second possible incorrect handling is the handling of pivotally moving the holding plate portion 104a about the axis of the locking shaft 103 to lift it as shown by the unfilled arrow in
In this embodiment, in order to prevent the access cover 14 from being unlocked by the second incorrect handling, a stopper hole 13i is formed in the front frame sheet metal 13 so that when the operating member 104 pivotally moves upwardly to a predetermined angle, the stopper plate 104b of the operating member 104 abuts on the upper end (corresponding to the abutment portion) of the stopper hole 13i. The abutment of the stopper plate 104b on the upper end of the stopper hole 13i blocks further upward movement of the operating member 104. Hence, it can be prevented that the locking shaft 103 is escaped out of the locking groove 14d by the second incorrect handling and that thus the access cover 14 is unlocked.
A general image forming apparatus, an intermediary device for conveying a sheet discharged from the image forming apparatus to a post-processing device, or like device includes a housing and a conveyance unit contained in the housing. A side wall of the housing has an opening formed for access to the interior of the housing in performing dejamming or other works and the opening is provided with an access cover. If a locking mechanism capable of simply locking and unlocking an object to be locked is applied to this access cover, the locking mechanism can freely manually unlock the access cover even when the conveyance unit is in a conveyance position, which is undesirable because it may interfere with the operation of the apparatus.
As a solution to the above problem, it is conceivable to use a locking mechanism designed to lock the access cover during the conveyance unit being in the conveyance position and unlock the access cover upon movement of the conveyance unit to the maintenance position.
However, in this case, the access cover cannot be unlocked unless the conveyance unit moves to the maintenance position. This presents a problem that when the conveyance unit is in the conveyance position, the operator cannot perform the work of taking out components mounted under the conveyance unit or the work of looking at the conveyance unit from below for the purpose of checking for any failure.
To eliminate the above problem, it is conceivable to make the access cover freely unlockable, for example, by a manual operation. However, in this case, in order to avoid accidental downward movement of the conveyance unit while the operator performs the above works during the conveyance unit being in the conveyance position, it is necessary to provide various sensors and electric safety devices, which invites a cost rise.
In contrast, in the above embodiment, when the conveyance unit 20 is in the conveyance position, the access cover 14 can be easily unlocked and concurrently the conveyance unit 20 can be prevented from unintentionally moving down to the maintenance position.
Although the description of the above embodiment has been given of the intermediary conveyance device 3 as an example of the conveyance device, the present disclosure is not limited to such an intermediary conveyance device. For example, the conveyance device may be mounted in the image forming apparatus 1 or in the sheet feeder 2.
Although the description of the above embodiment has been given of the case where the access cover 14 to be locked is provided on the front frame sheet metal 13 located inside of the exterior cover, the present disclosure is not limited to this case. The access cover 14 to be locked may be provided, for example, on the exterior cover.
Although in the above embodiment the access cover 14 is designed to pivotally move up and down about the horizontally extending axis, the present disclosure is not limited to this structure. For example, the access cover 14 may be designed to pivotally horizontally move about a vertical axis.
Although in the above embodiment the locking hole 11c is formed in the right post member 11 (part of the housing), the present disclosure is not limited to this structure. In other words, the locking hole 11c may not necessarily be formed directly in the housing and, for example, may be formed in any other fixed member coupled to the housing.
As seen from the above, the present disclosure is useful for a conveyance device and useful particularly when applied to a printer, a facsimile machine, a copier, a multifunction peripheral (MFP), a post-processing device or an intermediary conveyance device.
While the present disclosure has been described in detail with reference to the embodiments thereof, it would be apparent to those skilled in the art the various changes and modifications may be made therein within the scope defined by the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-073048 | Apr 2021 | JP | national |
