Ink jet printer
AssigneeThe Mead Corporation
InventorGeorge Marinoff
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An ink jet printer includes a rotatable support for supporting a sheet of paper, a rotary drive for rotating the support, and an ink jet print head mounted adjacent the support for printing on a sheet of paper supported thereon during a plurality of successive rotations of the support. A paper supply loads a sheet of paper onto the support such that the sheet of paper is supported thereby. A paper ejector removes a sheet of paper from the support. A control is provided which controls operation of the paper supply and the paper ejector such that as a sheet of paper is removed, after a plurality of rotations on the support, another sheet is concurrently loaded onto the support, whereby the time required for loading and unloading a sheet of paper is minimized and the overall speed of the printer enhanced.
Claims11
A sheet handling system for transporting a sheet of material past a work station, comprising:
- rotatable support means including a sheet supporting drum, mounted adjacent said work station, for supporting a sheet of material,
- rotary drive means for rotating said support means,
- sheet supply means for loading a sheet onto sid support means such that said sheet is supported thereby, said sheet supply means including
- a pair of sheet supply rollers for engaging a sheet therebetween and transporting the sheet so engaged toward said sheet supporting drum,
- a sheet stop between said supply rollers and said drum, movable into a sheet engaging position for positioning a sheet prior to engagement by said supply rollers,
- a sheet deflector positioned adjacent said drum such that a sheet transported towards said drum by said supply rollers is directed into a path substantially tangential to the periphery of said drum, and
- a drum contacting roller, mounted for movement into contact with said drum, for pressing a sheet against said drum as the sheet is loaded onto said drum,
- sheet ejector means for removing said sheet from said support means, and
- control means, driven by said rotary drive means in fixed relation to rotation of said rotatable support means, for controlling operation of said sheet supply means and said sheet ejector means such that a sheet is supplied to said rotatable support means, rotated for a predetermined number of rotations thereon, and thereafter removed from said support means after transportation of said sheet past said work station a predetermined number of times.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.