Corner separator paper feed method and cassette which prevents paper jams during manual feeding
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorNoriaki Sekine
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method for feeding paper into an image forming device which allows sheets of paper to be manually fed without becoming jammed. The paper feeding cassette uses one or more corner separators which hold down the corner(s) of the paper in the cassette while a feed roller rotates. The rotation of the feed roller in combination with the corner separators causes one sheet of paper to be removed from the paper cassette. During a manual feed operation in which a user manually feeds a single sheet of paper, a guide plate deflects the manually fed sheet of paper above the corner separators, thus preventing the sheet of paper from becoming jammed under the corner separators.
Claims14
A mechanism for feeding single sheets of paper manually, and automatically from a stack of papers, comprising:
- a paper tray for holding the stack of papers,
- at least one corner separator mounted within the tray;
- a guide plate which deflects manually fed papers from being caught under the at least one corner separator;
- a feed roller which engages with a top sheet of paper from the stack of papers and feeds the top sheet of paper out of the stack of papers, wherein
- the guide plate is mounted to guide a stack of papers under the corner separator when paper is being inserted into the paper tray.
A mechanism for feeding single sheets of paper manually, and automatically from a stack of papers, comprising:
- a paper tray for holding the stack of papers,
- at least one corner separator mounted within the tray;
- a guide plate which deflects manually fed papers from being caught under the at least one corner separator;
- a feed roller which engages with a top sheet of paper from the stack of papers and feeds the top sheet of paper out of the stack of papers, wherein
- the paper tray includes an upper cover;
- and
- the at least one corner separator is pivotally mounted to the paper tray and the at least one corner separator is linked to the upper cover such that an opening of the upper cover causes a tip of the at least one corner separator to be raised in order to accommodate stack of papers inserted into the paper tray.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.