This invention relates to a tray for holding a stack of media sheets for feeding into a printing mechanism. For convenience, the term “paper” throughout this specification is to be understood as encompassing all forms of print media including but not limited to paper, plastic transparency sheets, vellum, and the like which are storable in a tray for feeding into a printing mechanism.
Certain types of paper trays associated with printing mechanisms normally have at least a pair of paper guides for accommodating different paper widths and lengths. Each paper guide is slidably mounted on the tray for movements relative to a respective wall of the tray to vary the spacing between the paper guide and its respective wall. Conventionally, each paper guide has to be adjusted individually. This may not be convenient in that normally papers of different sizes have different widths and lengths. Thus, for a user of a printing mechanism using the conventional paper tray, the user has to adjust both paper guides when different sized papers are loaded. This may not be desirable, especially if one of the paper guides is not easily accessible due to the design of the paper tray. Furthermore, when the user fails to adjust one of the paper guides correctly, paper skew is likely to occur during the subsequent picking process, and consequently printing quality may be affected.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved paper tray, which allows easier adjustments of its paper guides.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a tray for holding a stack of media sheets for feeding into a printing mechanism. The tray has a first media guide movable relative to a first wall of the tray in a first direction to vary a first spacing therebetween for accommodating different media sizes in the first direction. The tray also has a second media guide manually adjustable relative to a second wall of the tray in a second direction to vary a second spacing there between for accommodating different media sizes in the second direction. The second direction is substantially perpendicular to the first direction. Furthermore, the movements of the first guide are synchronized with movements of the second guide so that adjustment of the first guide is automatically achieved through the manual adjustment of the second guide.
Other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings; the description illustrates by way of example the principles of the invention.
In
In the exemplary embodiment of the invention, movements of the paper width guide 103 is synchronized with the movements of the paper length guide 101. In this way, adjustments of the paper length guide 101 automatically adjust the position of the paper width guide 103
Shown in
Thereby, the spring 205 biases the paper width guide 103 towards the side wall 111 so that a portion of paper width guide 103 is always in contact with a cam 201, which has a predefined profile and is positioned between the gear 203 and the bottom support 105. The cam 201 is also mounted to the gear shaft 207 so that it rotates together with the gear 203.
Therefore, when the paper length guide 101 is manually slid relative to the front wall 109 along Y axis, the linear movements of the paper length guide 101 is transformed into the rotational movements of the gear 203 and consequently into the rotational movements of the cam 201. Since the paper width guide 103 is always held in contact with the cam 201, the cam profile determines the position of the paper width guide 103 relative the side wall 111 along Y axis. In this way, automatic adjustment of the paper width guide is achieved.
Positioning of the paper width guide is achieved through the orientation of the cam and the design of the cam profile. The cam 201 is designed so that when the paper length guide 101 moves to a desired position for accommodating a certain type of papers, the cam 201 is in contact with the paper width guide 103 at a pre-selected contacting point A, B (see
For example, the spacing between contacting point B and center O is designed so that the paper width guide can accommodate the width of B5 paper when it is in contact with the cam at point B. On the other hand, the spacing between contacting point A and center O is designed so that the paper width guide can accommodate the width of A4 paper when it is in contact with the cam at point A. Furthermore, contacting points A, B are spaced along the cam profile so that when the paper length guide moves from a position that accommodates the length of B5 paper to a position that accommodates the length of A4 paper, the cam is rotated to change its contacting point with the paper width guide from point B to point A. In this way, adjustment of the paper width guide is automatically achieved. In addition, as for two types of paper having different lengths but the same width, two contacting points spaced from center O at a same spacing can be provided along the cam profile and each corresponds to one of these two types of paper. Since these two points are spaced from center O at the same spacing, when the paper length guide moves from a position that accommodates the length of one type of paper to a position that accommodates the length of the other type of paper, the position of the paper width guide is not changed after such an adjustment.
In
This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/209,564 filed on Jul. 30, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,688,592, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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5172903 | Haneda et al. | Dec 1992 | A |
5297787 | Shirai | Mar 1994 | A |
5647588 | Stauber et al. | Jul 1997 | A |
5901952 | Hourtash | May 1999 | A |
6196539 | Lee | Mar 2001 | B1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20040080095 A1 | Apr 2004 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 10209564 | Jul 2002 | US |
Child | 10690722 | US |