US 4,211,483 AGranted

Copy production machines having job separation and collation capabilities

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsNoreen A. Hannigan, Terence Travis

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A copy production machine selectively interleaves copy separation sheets between successive copy jobs, subjobs or job portions. The copy separation sheets can be from the same copy sheet supply source or from an alternate source. The supplied copy separation sheets need not be operated upon by the copy production machines for receiving an image. Such sheets may have been preimaged under certain situations. Before and after a copy job, the number of separation sheets supplied has a predetermined relationship to the number of copy receiving bins in an output portion receiving the copy separation sheets. The number of separator sheets supplied intermediate successive runs of a copy job equals the number of copies to be produced in the next succeeding copy run. The effective capacity of a collator is extended by such interleaving plus a programmable control that tallies copies made versus copies selected greater than the capacity of a collator such that the collator job is automatically segmented.

A copy production machine having a copy producing portion, plural output portions for receiving produced copies from said copy production portion, and an image input section for supplying images to said copy producing portion for use in producing copies of said supplied images on copy sheets, one of said output portions having a given number of copy receiving bins (capacity) having different images carried thereby, for receiving said produced copies, means indicating an end of a copy producing run, means storing copy sheets, said copy producing portion having copy producing and standby modes, and capable of switching between said modes;

the improvement including in combination:
a control means having,
a copy select register for indicating a first number of copies to be produced, said first number capable of indicating a number of copies greater than said given capacity,
a copy count register for indicating the total number of copies of one image produced in a given copy production job;
said copy production job being one or more copy producing runs of each image to be reproduced as said copies,
separation initiating means indicating completion of a job segment, said job segment including one or more of said copy producing runs,
separation sheet transporting means responsive to said separation initiating means to activate said copy production portion to transfer from said means for storing copy sheets as job segment separation sheets intermediate any two successive copy runs of a given copy producing job to said one output portion in accordance with a number of copies of each said image to be produced in a next successive given one of said job segments, and
accumulating means operative in response to said separation indicating means indicating a job segment for accumulating a count from all prior job segments and supplying same to said copy count register whereby said total number of copies indicated is for all job segments produced.

5 more elements

Abstract

Claims11