Sheet feeding apparatus and image forming apparatus
AssigneeNisca Corporation
InventorSachiko Aizawa
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A sheet feeding apparatus has three sheet feeding units stacked vertically and is detachably mounted to an image forming apparatus. The upper most sheet feeding unit includes a tray for stacking and storing a sheet; a pick-up roller for feeding the sheet one at a time; a feed roller; a retard roller; a pair of register rollers; a curl forming portion for abutting against a leading edge of the sheet fed by these rollers in the sheet feeding direction to remove skew of the sheet by curling the sheet and for allowing the sheet to move further downstream; and a cylindrical cutter for punching a hole in the sheet. The sheet is transferred in a short distance and the sheet is fed one at a time.
Claims19
A sheet feeding apparatus detachably mounted to an image forming apparatus for feeding a sheet one at a time, comprising:
- storage means for stacking and storing the sheet;
- sheet feeding means for feeding the sheet one at a time from the storage means;
- register means for abutting against a leading edge of the sheet fed by the sheet feeding means in a sheet feeding direction, and for allowing the sheet to move toward downstream after removing skew of the sheet by curling the sheet;
- and
- hole punching means for punching a hole in the sheet with the skew removed by the register means.
A sheet feeding apparatus detachably mounted to an image forming apparatus for supplying a sheet one at a time, comprising:
- storage means for stacking and storing the sheet;
- sheet feeding means for feeding the sheet from the storage means one at a time;
- register means for abutting against a leading edge of the sheet fed by the sheet feeding means in a sheet feeding direction, and for allowing the sheet to move toward downstream after removing skew of the sheet by curling the sheet;
- a sheet feed path for guiding the sheet fed by the sheet feeding means substantially vertically;
- hole punching means for punching a hole in the sheet guided by the sheet feed path;
- and
- scrap receptacle means disposed along the sheet feed path for receiving a hole punch scrap of the sheet with the hole punched by the hole punching means.
A sheet feeding apparatus detachably mounted to an image forming apparatus, comprising:
- a plurality of sheet feeding units arranged to be stackable in a vertical direction, each of said sheet feeding units having storage means for stacking and storing the sheet;
- sheet feeding means for feeding the sheet from the storage means one at a time;
- and a sheet feed path for guiding the sheet fed by the sheet feeding means to the image forming apparatus, at least one of said sheet feeding units being situated at farthermost downstream in a sheet feeding direction and comprising hole punching means for punching a hole in the sheet guided in the sheet feed path.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- storage means for stacking and storing a sheet;
- sheet feeding means for feeding the sheet from the storage means one at a time;
- register means for aligning the sheet fed by the sheet feeding means;
- transfer means for transferring the sheet aligned by the register means toward downstream;
- image forming means for forming a desired image on the sheet transferred by the transfer means;
- and
- hole punching means disposed between the register means and the image forming means for punching a hole in the sheet aligned by the register means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.