Patent Application
20250011123
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus.
There has been proposed a printing apparatus including a stacking portion used to stack a printed print medium. A user can take out the print medium from an outlet port communicating with the stacking portion. The print medium may curl depending on its characteristics and use environment. Particularly in a case of a roll sheet, curling is likely to occur. When a curled print medium is conveyed onto the stacking portion, the stackability decreases, which may cause a jam or a projection of the print medium from the stacking portion. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2014-48530 discloses a technique of improving the stackability by providing a member that guides a print medium to be discharged onto a stacking portion. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2016-5983 discloses a technique in which a pivot member that suppresses a projection of a print medium from a stacking portion is provided.
As represented by a printing apparatus that cuts and discharges a roll sheet, in a printing apparatus that discharges a print medium longer than the total length of a stacking portion, the print medium is stacked on the stacking portion with a part thereof protruding from the stacking portion. In such a printing apparatus, for example, the end portion of a print medium riding on the top surface of the apparatus leads to a decrease in the stackability of the stacking portion. Therefore, there is room for improvement in terms of the stackability of a print medium.
The present invention provides a technique of improving the stackability of a printed print medium on a stacking portion.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing apparatus comprising: a stacking portion on which a print medium printed by a printing unit configured to perform printing is stacked; a discharge unit configured to convey the print medium printed by the printing unit to the stacking portion; a passage forming portion arranged above the stacking portion so as to face the stacking portion and configured to form a discharge passage of the print medium together with the stacking portion; and an outlet port located in a downstream end of the discharge passage in a conveying direction of the print medium, wherein in the outlet port, the passage forming portion extends to the downstream side of the stacking portion in the conveying direction.
Further features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of exemplary embodiments (with reference to the attached drawings).
Hereinafter, embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the attached drawings. Note, the following embodiments are not intended to limit the scope of the claimed invention. Multiple features are described in the embodiments, but limitation is not made an invention that requires all such features, and multiple such features may be combined as appropriate. Furthermore, in the attached drawings, the same reference numerals are given to the same or similar configurations, and redundant description thereof is omitted.
In the lower portion of the printing apparatus 1, a plurality of feeding units 2 are vertically arranged in a plurality of stages (two stages in this example). Each feeding unit 2 forms a storage portion that stores a roll sheet R as a print medium. Each feeding unit 2 includes a support portion 2a that supports the roll sheet R so as to be rotatable around the X-direction axis, and also includes a feeding mechanism (not shown) that pulls out a sheet from the roll sheet R and feeds it to a conveyance passage RT. The conveyance passage RT is a sheet passage defined by a guide structure (not shown), and extends from the feeding unit 2 to an outlet port 9 while curving in the midway. In the following description, an upstream side and a downstream side are the upstream side and the downstream side with respect to the sheet conveying direction, respectively.
In this embodiment, the outlet port 9 is located in the rear portion of the printing apparatus 1. The feeding unit 2 can be pulled out forward from the printing apparatus 1, so that the user can perform an exchange operation of the roll sheet R from the front of the printing apparatus 1. Note that in this embodiment, the roll sheet R is exemplified as the print medium, but the print medium may be a cut sheet.
The sheet pulled out from the roll sheet R is supplied via a conveying unit 3 to a position facing a printhead 4. The conveying unit 3 includes a conveying roller 3a, which is a driving roller, and a nip roller 3b, which is a driven roller pressed against the conveying roller 3a. While being nipped by the conveying roller 3a and the nip roller 3b, the sheet is conveyed on the conveyance passage RT in the arrow direction by rotation of the rollers.
The printhead 4 is arranged on the downstream side of the conveying unit 3. The printhead 4 in this embodiment is an inkjet printhead which prints an image on a sheet by discharging ink. The printhead 4 uses a discharge energy generating device such as an electrothermal transducer (heater) or a piezoelectric device to discharge ink from the discharge port. The printing apparatus 1 according to this embodiment is a serial scanning inkjet printing apparatus, and the printhead 4 is mounted on a carriage 5. The carriage 5 is configured to be reciprocated in the X direction (the widthwise direction of the sheet) by a driving mechanism (not shown). In the vicinity of the printhead 4, the sheet is conveyed in the Y direction. By alternately repeating intermittent conveyance of the sheet by the conveying unit 3 and an operation including moving the carriage 5 and ink discharge by the printhead 4, an image is printed on the sheet.
Note that the serial scanning printing apparatus is exemplarily shown in this embodiment, but the present invention is also applicable to a full-line printing apparatus. In this case, a long printhead extending in the widthwise direction of a sheet is used as the printhead 4. Then, by discharging ink from the printhead while continuously conveying the sheet, an image is printed on the sheet. Further, although the inkjet printing apparatus is exemplarily shown in this embodiment, the present invention is also applicable to printing apparatuses of other printing types.
A cutting unit 6 is arranged on the downstream side of the printhead 4. The cutting unit 6 cuts the sheet, which has been pulled out from the roll sheet R and has an image printed thereon, in the widthwise direction of the sheet. Further, a discharge unit 7 is arranged on the downstream side of the cutting unit 6. The conveyance passage RT extending from the printing unit 4 to the discharge unit 7 has a U-shape (an inverted C-shape in the side view shown in
The discharge unit 7 includes a discharge roller 7a, which is a driving roller, and a nip roller 7b pressed against the discharge roller 7a. A stacking portion 8 is arranged on the downstream side of the discharge unit 7, and the discharge unit 7 conveys, to the stacking portion 8, the sheet with the image printed thereon by the printhead 4. The sheet is cut into a cut sheet by the cutting unit 6 in the process of conveyance to the stacking portion 8 by the discharge unit 7, passes through the discharge unit 7, and is stacked on the stacking portion 8. The stacking portion 8 forms a tray which receives a plurality of sheets discharged from the discharge unit 7. The stacking portion 8 is arranged inside the printing apparatus 1.
A passage forming portion 10 is arranged so as to face the stacking portion 8 in the Z direction and forms, together with the stacking portion 8, a discharge passage RT0 (a part of the conveyance passage RT) extending from the discharge unit 7 to the outlet port 9. The both side portions of the discharge passage RT0 in the X direction are closed, so the user cannot access the discharge passage RT0 from the outside. The outlet port 9, which is the downstream end of the discharge passage RT0, is formed by a gap between the downstream end of the passage forming portion 10 and the downstream end of the stacking portion 8 in the rear portion of the printing apparatus 1. The passage forming portion 10 also forms the top portion (top) of the printing apparatus 1. The passage forming portion 10 is formed so as to guide the sheet to the downstream side of the discharge passage RT0 while suppressing floating of the sheet discharged from the discharge unit 7 and occurrence of a jam thereof. The passage forming portion 10 and the stacking portion 8 form the discharge passage RT0 which is almost horizontal in the rear portion in the Y direction and slopes upward toward the rear portion in the front portion in the Y direction.
The gap between the stacking portion 8 and the passage forming portion 10 is related to the number of sheets stackable on the stacking portion 8. For example, in a specification in which a hundred of sheets each having a thickness of 0.1 mm are stacked, the gap between the stacking portion 8 and the passage forming portion 10 is formed to be equal to or larger than 10 mm. Particularly, the sheet pulled out from the roll sheet R and cut tends to curl in the leading end. The gap between the stacking portion 8 and the passage forming portion 10 is designed in consideration of such curling. For example, the gap between the stacking portion 8 and the passage forming portion 10 can be designed to be equal to or smaller than the radius of the winding core of the roll sheet R so the sheet does not curl on the stacking portion 8.
Refer to
Each of the fixed portion 11 and the extending portion 13 is an immovable part which cannot be opened and closed. The opening/closing portion 12 is a movable part that is connected to the fixed portion 11 via a hinge portion 12a. The hinge portion 12a forms a pivot axis in the X direction, and the opening/closing portion 12 can pivot around the pivot axis of the hinge portion 12a. The opening/closing portion 12 is provided with a handle 12b, and the user can perform an opening/closing operation of the opening/closing portion 12 by grasping the handle 12b. When the opening/closing portion 12 is caused to pivot to the open position, the discharge passage RT0 is exposed, and the user can perform a maintenance operation such as cancellation of a jam. The extending portion 13 extends obliquely upward from the fixed portion 11 toward the downstream side.
The stacking portion 8 includes an inclined portion 8b, a horizontal portion 8a, and extending portions 8c from the upstream side to the downstream side. When viewed in the Y direction, the inclined portion 8b, the horizontal portion 8a, and the extending portions 8c are arranged in this order from the front side to the rear side. Each of the horizontal portion 8a and the inclined portion 8b is continuously formed in the X direction, and the extending portions 8c are intermittently formed in the X direction. In this embodiment, the extending portions 8c are formed at three positions. Note that the extending portion 8c may also be continuously formed in the X direction. The horizontal portion 8a, the inclined portion 8b, and the extending portions 8c form the bottom wall of the discharge passage RT0, and guide the sheet S in the conveying direction thereof.
The inclined portion 8b is located at a position facing the opening/closing portion 12, and inclined upward from immediately after the discharge unit 7 toward the rear in the Y direction. The horizontal portion 8a is located at a position facing the fixed portion 11, and extends almost horizontally in the Y direction. The three extending portions 8c are located at positions facing the three extending portions 13 so as to correspond to them, respectively, and extend upward toward the rear in the Y direction.
The discharge passage RT0 formed by the passage forming portion 10 and the stacking portion 8 as described above is a passage which is obliquely inclined in the upstream-side portion and the downstream-side portion and almost horizontal in the central portion, and its downstream end DE is located at a higher position than its upstream end UE in the Z direction. Accordingly, as exemplarily shown in
Note that the gap between the extending portion 13 and the extending portion 8c may be larger than the gap between the fixed portion 11 and the horizontal portion 8a and the gap between the opening/closing portion 12 and the inclined portion 8b. In other words, the spacing in the Z direction in the downstream-side end portion of the discharge passage RT0 may be larger than in the remaining portion. In the case in which the leading end of the sheet S hangs down to the outside of the printing apparatus 1 as in the example shown in
As has been described above, according to this embodiment, even the long sheet S can be stably discharged, and the stackability of the sheet S on the stacking portion 8 can be improved.
In the discharge process of the sheet S, the projection amount of the sheet S from the outlet port 9 may be large depending on the state of the sheet S.
In the printing apparatus 1 according to this embodiment, guide members 20 are provided in the downstream-side end portion of a passage forming portion 10. In the illustrated example, each guide member 20 is provided in the downstream end of each extending portion 13. The guide member 20 is a flat plate member, and its upper end portion is supported in the extending portion 13 by a hinge portion 21 so as to be pivotable in the vertical direction. The hinge portion 21 forms the pivot axis in the X direction. The guide member 20 is provided so as to cover an outlet port 9 and is separated from an extending portion 8c in the Y direction. Therefore, the guide member 20 can guide a sheet S discharged from a discharge passage RT0 and abutting against the guide member 20. A Z-direction position Z1 of a lower end 22 of the guide member 20 is lower than a Z-direction position Z0 of the downstream end of the extending portion 8c, so that the sheet S discharged from the outlet port 9 can be guided downward without interruption.
The extending portion 13 includes a guide surface 13a directed upward from the upstream side to the downstream side. The guide member 20 includes a guide surface 20a, which is a vertical surface in a natural state (a state in which no sheet abuts against it) and forms an acute angle θ with the guide surface 13a. Since the guide surface 13a and the guide surface 20a form the acute angle θ, the leading end of the curled sheet S can be guided inward on these guide surfaces. This can suppress that the sheet S projects rearward from the outlet port 9.
As has been described above, in this embodiment, it is suppressed that the sheet S largely protrudes behind the printing apparatus 1. This can improve the stackability of the sheet S on the stacking portion 8.
Embodiment(s) of the present invention can also be realized by a computer of a system or apparatus that reads out and executes computer executable instructions (e.g., one or more programs) recorded on a storage medium (which may also be referred to more fully as a ‘non-transitory computer-readable storage medium’) to perform the functions of one or more of the above-described embodiment(s) and/or that includes one or more circuits (e.g., application specific integrated circuit (ASIC)) for performing the functions of one or more of the above-described embodiment(s), and by a method performed by the computer of the system or apparatus by, for example, reading out and executing the computer executable instructions from the storage medium to perform the functions of one or more of the above-described embodiment(s) and/or controlling the one or more circuits to perform the functions of one or more of the above-described embodiment(s). The computer may comprise one or more processors (e.g., central processing unit (CPU), micro processing unit (MPU)) and may include a network of separate computers or separate processors to read out and execute the computer executable instructions. The computer executable instructions may be provided to the computer, for example, from a network or the storage medium. The storage medium may include, for example, one or more of a hard disk, a random-access memory (RAM), a read only memory (ROM), a storage of distributed computing systems, an optical disk (such as a compact disc (CD), digital versatile disc (DVD), or Blu-ray Disc (BD)™), a flash memory device, a memory card, and the like.
While the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments. The scope of the following claims is to be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent structures and functions.
This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No. 2020-166107, filed Sep. 30, 2020, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-166107 | Sep 2020 | JP | national |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 17484353 | Sep 2021 | US |
| Child | 18890332 | US |
