Patent Application
20110215515
Embodiments described herein relate generally to a sheet finishing apparatus and an image forming apparatus.
Typically, a sheet finishing apparatus is known which is installed on the downstream side of an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a printer, or a multi-functional peripheral (MFP) and performs finishing, such as sorting or stapling, on a printed sheet.
Such kind of sheet finishing apparatus may include a manual stapling mode. The manual stapling mode is an operation mode in which a user manually inserts a bundle of sheets through the sheet discharge opening of the sheet finishing apparatus and thereafter, when the user presses a staple button, a stapler included in the sheet finishing apparatus binds one corner of the bundle of sheets. In the manual stapling mode, as long as the user inserts the bundle of sheets to the position of the stapler inside the discharge opening, thereafter, the bundle of sheets is bound by the force of the stapler itself without the user adding force. Accordingly, even a relatively thick bundle of sheets can be simply and quickly bound.
However, in general, it is difficult for light to travel to the inside of the discharge opening of the sheet finishing apparatus. Particularly, recently, for the purpose of energy saving or the like, there are more and more situations where unnecessary lighting is discouraged on work in the office, so that there is a high possibility that insufficient brightness is ensured at the inside of the discharge opening of the sheet finishing apparatus and thus the inside of the discharge opening is typically dark. Accordingly, even though the user tries to insert the bundle of sheets to the inside of the discharge opening and align the corner of the bundle of sheets with the position of the stapler, accurate position alignment cannot be achieved. In addition, before the user is accustomed to using the machine, there are possibilities that the user cannot perform stapling at all or makes mistakes in stapling, such as stapling at an unintended position.
Therefore, a sheet finishing apparatus which, even when ambient lighting is dark, can reduce mistakes in stapling and enhance operability of the manual stapling mode is desired.
On the other hand, in the manual stapling mode according to the related art, in most cases, binding one point of one corner of the bundle of sheets with staples, so called “one-point binding” is performed. Binding two points near the center of one side of the bundle of sheets with staples, so-called “two-point binding” is studied. However, only one size of sheet can have two-point binding applied and, for example, is limited to A4 size.
Therefore, a sheet finishing apparatus capable of performing the two-point binding on a bundle of sheets with various sheet sizes in the manual stapling mode is desired.
Embodiments of a sheet finishing apparatus and an image forming apparatus will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The sheet finishing apparatus according to an embodiment includes a discharge opening from which a sheet is discharged in an operation mode other than a manual stapling mode, and through which a bundle of sheets is manually inserted inside the discharge opening in the manual stapling mode, a stapler that is disposed inside the discharge opening and binds the bundle of sheets inserted from the discharge opening with staples, and a transverse alignment plate that aligns the sheet discharged from the discharge opening in a sheet discharge direction in the operation mode other than the manual stapling mode, and guides the bundle of sheets inserted from the discharge opening to a position of the stapler in the manual stapling mode. The transverse alignment plate emits light or exhibits fluorescence.
The main body 2 includes a scanner 3 that reads out an original document, and a printer 4 that prints an image read out by the scanner 3 on a sheet. The main body 2 also includes a control panel 5 having a display panel and various operating keys.
The sheet finishing apparatus 1 includes a fixed tray 10 in which sheets printed by the main body 2 and then discharged are stacked, and a movable tray 11 which is movable in a vertical direction as indicated by the arrow and in which a large amount of printed sheets are stacked. The sheet finishing apparatus 1 has, in addition to typical operation modes having a function of sorting a plurality of printed sheets (a bundle of sheets) and a function of binding them with staples, a manual stapling mode for manually stapling the bundle of sheets by an operation of a user.
As indicated by the outline type arrows of
A discharge opening 13 is provided between the fixed tray 10 and the movable tray 11 such that sheets and a bundle of sheets stacked in the movable tray 11 are discharged from the discharge opening 13. In the manual stapling mode, a user manually inserts a bundle of sheets into the discharge opening 13, and the bundle of sheets is bound with staples by a stapler 40 provided in the corner of the discharge opening 13.
At the lower part of the discharge opening 13, a processing tray 30 that will be described later is provided. Transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b are provided on the rear side and the front side of the processing tray 30, respectively. In
At the upper part of the front side of the sheet finishing apparatus 1, an operation display unit 12 is provided. By operating the operation display unit 12 by the user, the typical operation modes are switched to the manual stapling mode. In addition, in the operation display unit 12, guidance for assisting an operation performed in the manual stapling mode is displayed.
The sheets printed by the main body 2 are input to the sheet finishing apparatus 1 from an intake opening 14 illustrated in
At a position opposed to an outlet roller 101 of the main body 2, an inlet roller 21 is provided, and on the downstream side thereof, a gate flap 22 is provided. A fixed tray roller 23 is provided above the gate flap 22. A carriage guide plate 24 which is bent downward and a carrying roller 25 are provided below the gate flap 22, and in front of the carrying roller 25, a standby tray 26 is provided.
As illustrated in
The processing tray 30 is disposed below the standby tray 26. Similar to the standby tray 26, the processing tray 30 is also inclined so that the height of the main body side end is lower than that of the discharge side end. A shutter 41 is provided between the processing tray 30 and the movable tray 11 along an outer wall 50 of the discharge side of the sheet finishing apparatus 1.
As shown in
The divided portion of the processing tray 30 is provided with a bundle claw belt 34 and eject belts 32a and 32b adjacently on both sides thereof.
A bundle claw 35 is fixed to the outer periphery of the bundle claw belt 34. The bundle claw belt 34 continuously rotates so that the bundle claw 35 is moved from the main body side to the discharge side on the surface of the processing tray 30 and is returned to the main body side from the discharge side on the rear surface of the processing tray 30.
On the other hand, ejectors 33a and 33b are respectively fixed to the outer peripheries of the eject belts 32a and 32b. The eject belts 32a and 32b are connected to the drive source similar to the bundle claw belt 34 by an electromagnetic clutch (not shown) and thus are substantially in synchronization with the movement of the bundle claw 35 to move the ejectors 33a and 33b to the vicinity of the center portion of the processing tray 30. Thereafter, the electromagnetic clutch is turned off to pull the ejectors 33a and 33b back to a position (the home position of the ejectors) illustrated in
The home position of the ejectors 33a and 33b is substantially at the same position as the rear stoppers 31a and 31b.
The processing trays 30a and 30b are respectively provided with the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b. The transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b are configured to be movable in the rear and front directions by a drive mechanism. In addition, in the manual stapling mode, one or both of the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b can be manually moved in the rear and front directions.
The single stapler 40 is provided on the main body side of the processing tray 30. The stapler 40 is used for automatically stapling the bundle of sheets printed by the main body 2 and is also used for stapling a bundle of sheets inserted through the discharge opening 13 of the sheet finishing apparatus 1 by the user in the manual stapling mode.
The typical mode of the sheet finishing apparatus 1 having the above-described configuration will be described first.
The typical mode of the sheet finishing apparatus 1 is roughly classified into two typical modes including a simple stacking mode and a processing stacking mode.
The simple stacking mode is an operation mode of simply discharging and stacking printed sheets as they are, and as a tray to which the sheets are discharged and stacked, the user may select one from the fixed tray 10 and the movable tray 11. The movable tray 11 is slowly lowered as the number of sheets stacked increases and thus can stack a large number of sheets (for example, 2,000 sheets or more). Accordingly, when the number of printed sheets is great, the movable tray 11 is selected by the user as a discharge destination.
In the simple stacking mode when the movable tray 11 is selected, the shutter 41 is lifted, so that the opening portion between the standby tray 26 and the processing tray 30 in the middle of the discharge opening 13 is closed. By the shutter 41, the sheet discharged to or stacked in the movable tray 11 is prevented from being pulled back to the processing tray 30 through the discharge opening 13.
A sheet printed by the main body 2 <1> is pulled by the inlet roller 21 of the sheet finishing apparatus 1 from the outlet roller 101, is then moved downward along the gate flap 22, and is temporarily loaded on the standby tray 26. Here, the standby trays 26a and 26b are closed as illustrated in
Thereafter, the standby trays 26a and 26b are opened in the front and rear directions as illustrated in
A predetermined number of sheets are stacked on the processing tray 30 and are subjected to longitudinal alignment and transverse alignment as illustrated in
On the other hand, the transverse alignment is performed by pressing the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b against the edges of the both sides of the sheet P (the arrows A and B of
The sorting is performed by alternately offsetting the bundle of sheets after being subjected to the longitudinal alignment to the front side and the rear side in order to process the positions for the transverse alignment.
The stapling is performed using the stapler 40 after the longitudinal alignment and the transverse alignment are finished.
The interval between the two staples 41 is typically common in any sheet size. However, a movement distance from the initial position (home position) of the stapler to a position where a staple is initially driven is different depending on the sheet size. Thus, the sheet finishing apparatus 1 receives information on the sheet size, which is set by a user or detected by the main body 2, from the main body 2 and determines the movement distance from the home position.
The sheet finishing apparatus 1 has the manual stapling mode. The typical mode and the manual stapling mode are switched by, for example, a switch in the operation display unit 12 of the sheet finishing apparatus 1. In addition, in the manual stapling mode according to the first embodiment, it is possible to select a binding position from the front side and the rear side when the rear edge of the bundle of sheets P is bound at one point. The selection is performed through the operation display unit 12.
After performing such operations, the user inserts the bundle of sheets P through the discharge opening 13 as illustrated in
Guidance display for the manual stapling mode similar to the display shown in
However, in general, it is difficult for light to travel to the inside of the discharge opening of the sheet finishing apparatus. Particularly, recently, for the purpose of energy saving or the like, there are more and more situations where unnecessary lighting is discouraged on work in the office, so that there is a high possibility that insufficient brightness is ensured at the inside of the discharge opening of the sheet finishing apparatus and thus the inside of the discharge opening is typically dark. Accordingly, even though the user tries to insert the bundle of sheets P to the inside of the discharge opening 13 and align the corner of the bundle of sheet P with the position of the stapler, accurate position alignment cannot be achieved. In addition, before the user is accustomed to using the machine, there are possibilities that the user cannot perform stapling at all or makes mistakes in stapling such as stapling at an unintended position. Further, since the inside of the discharge opening 13 is dark, the existence of the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b cannot be recognized at all, and there may be a case where stapling is performed without completely aligning the side edge of the bundle of sheets P with the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b.
Thus, in the sheet finishing apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment, in order to eliminate or reduce such mistakes in stapling, the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b are configured to emit light, or the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b are provided with fluorescence, thereby enhancing visibility of the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b.
For example, as illustrated in
In addition, with regard to the light-emitting element 60, it is preferable that from the viewpoint of energy saving or in order to prevent light from unnecessarily leak, the light-emitting element 60 be configured to emit light only when the manual stapling mode is set and not to emit light in the other modes.
The light-emitting elements 60 are not necessarily embedded in the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b, and may also be fixed to the outsides of the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b at positions that do not cause problems during the transverse alignment. In this case, the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b do not need to be provided with light transmitting property and may be made of a resin with no light transmitting property.
In addition, as illustrated in
As such, by giving light-emitting property and fluorescence to the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b, as illustrated in
In addition, when the light-emitting elements 60 are embedded, light-emitting colors of the rear side and the front side thereof may be different from each other. For example, the red light-emitting element 60 is embedded in the rear-side transverse alignment plate 38a, and the blue light-emitting element 60 is embedded in the front-side transverse alignment plate 38b.
In addition, for example, when the one-point binding of the rear side is performed, the same color as the light-emitting color of the rear side (in this case, red) may be displayed on the operation display unit 12, and guidance to urge the side edge of the rear side of the bundle of sheets to be aligned with the rear-side transverse alignment plate 38a may be displayed.
By contrast, when the one-point binding of the front side is performed, the same color as the light-emitting color of the front side (in this case, blue) may be displayed on the operation display unit 12, and guidance to urge the side edge of the front side of the bundle of sheets to be aligned with the front-side transverse alignment plate 38b may be displayed.
Accordingly, the guidance in relation to the light-emitting colors of the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b is displayed, so that the operability of the manual stapling mode can further be enhanced.
In addition, when one or both of the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b are manually moved to the rear side or the front side to be aligned with the side edges of the sheet, operability can further be enhanced when the guidance is displayed on the operation display unit in relation to the light-emitting colors of the moved transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b.
When the two-point binding is to be performed at symmetrical positions with respect to the center of the rear edge of a bundle of sheets with various sizes, information on the sheet size is needed. For the case in which the sheet printed by the main body 2 is automatically subjected to the two-point binding, it is possible to input, from the main body 2, information on the sheet size detected by the main body 2 or set to the main body 2 by a user. However, in a manual stapling mode according to the related art, the one-point binding is mainly performed, so that the two-point binding of the bundle of sheets with various sizes cannot be properly performed.
When the two-point binding is performed in the manual stapling mode, an operation of inputting a sheet size by the user is needed. However, this operation is too much of a bother. Moreover, an operation of aligning the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b with the bundle of sheets is needed in addition to the operation of inputting the sheet size.
Thus, in the manual stapling mode of the sheet finishing apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment, a measure for simultaneously performing detection of the sheet size and alignment with the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b is provided.
In the second embodiment, as illustrated in
In the manual stapling mode, it is possible to manually move one or both of the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b in the rear and front direction.
In this case, the rear-side transverse alignment plate 38a which is movable is configured to include a conduction plate 65 having electrical conductivity. The conduction plate 65 is fixed to the transverse alignment plate 38a so as to move in the rear and front direction integrally with the transverse alignment plate 38a.
In a movable range of the transverse alignment plate 38a on the rear-side processing tray 30a, a sheet size detecting substrate 61 is provided.
The plurality of patch areas on the conduction plate 65 are short-circuited by the conduction plate 65 moving integrally with the transverse alignment plate 38a. The patch region to be short-circuited is determined depending on the movement position of the conduction plate 65 in the rear and front direction. Therefore, the short-circuited or opened state of each patch region is detected by an external contact point detection unit, so that the position of the conduction plate 65, that is, the position of the transverse alignment plate 38a in the rear and front direction can be detected.
Since the position of the front-side transverse alignment plate 38b is fixed, when the front side edge of the bundle of sheets is aligned with the front-side transverse alignment plate 38b, the position of the rear-side transverse alignment plate 38a is moved to align with the rear-side edge of the bundle of sheets and the position of the transverse alignment plate 38a is detected, the size of the bundle of sheets can be simply detected. In addition, by aligning the rear-side transverse alignment plate 38a with the edge of the bundle of sheets, transverse alignment can be simultaneously performed.
As long as the sheet size is detected, it is possible to obtain the movement distance from a reference position of the stapler 40 when the two-point binding is performed.
In the example of the above description, the rear-side transverse alignment plate 38a is moved. However, reversely, the front-side transverse alignment plate 38b may be configured to move while the rear-side thereof is fixed. In this case, the sheet size detecting substrate 61 is provided on the front-side processing tray 30a. Furthermore, the positions of both the transverse alignment plates 38a and 38b may be configured to be detected.
In addition, in the example described above, the position of the transverse alignment plate 38 is detected by the conduction plate 65 and the sheet size detecting substrate 61. However, the invention is not limited to the example, and any units known by those skilled in the art, which are capable of detecting the position of the transverse alignment plate 38 in the rear and front direction on the processing tray 30, can be incorporated into the invention.
As described above, according to the second embodiment, in the manual stapling mode, the two-point binding of the bundle of sheets with various sizes can be easily performed simultaneously with the operations of the transverse alignment.
While certain embodiments have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. Indeed, the novel apparatuses and units described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the apparatuses and units described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope and spirit of the invention.
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from: U.S. provisional applications 61/311,253 filed on Mar. 5, 2010, and 61/311,242 filed on Mar. 5, 2010, the entire contents of each of which are incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61311242 | Mar 2010 | US | |
| 61311253 | Mar 2010 | US |
