Sheet feeding control for image reading device
AssigneeEastman Kodak Company
InventorsThomas W. Ebert, Robert M. Westcott, Randall R. Maysick
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention relates an image reading device and a sheet feeding method for feeding sheets or documents to the image reading device. In the device and method of the present invention, a controller which is associated with at least one of a sheet feeder or a feed sensor, controls an engagement and disengagement of the sheet feeder based on a comparison of a length of a first document fed into the image reading device with subsequent documents. With the device of the present invention, it is possible to increase document throughput rates by controlling the gap between documents.
Claims7
An image reading device comprising:
- a sheet feeder for feeding a document to be read into a document travel path;
- a feeder sensor located in said document travel path which senses a lead edge and a trail edge of a first document in said travel path to determine a length of said first document;
- and
- a controller associated with at least one of said sheet feeder and said feeder sensor, said controller controlling an engagement and disengagement of said sheet feeder based on a length of subsequent documents introduced into said document travel path with respect to said first document.
A sheet feeding method comprising the steps of:
- feeding a first sheet into a document travel path of an image reading device;
- sensing a leading edge and a trailing edge of said first sheet;
- determining a length of said first sheet based on said step of sensing the leading and trailing edges of said first sheet;
- and
- controlling a feeding of subsequent sheets based on a length of the subsequent sheets with respect to the length of said first sheet.
A sheet feeding method comprising the steps of:
- feeding a first sheet by a sheet feeder into a document travel path of an image reading device;
- sensing a leading edge of said first sheet by a first sensor;
- sensing a leading edge of said first sheet downstream of said first sensor by a second sensor and disengaging said sheet feeder in response thereto;
- engaging said sheet feeder and calculating a length of said first sheet when a trailing edge of said first sheet is sensed by said first sensor, such that a length of said first sheet is used as a basis for an overlength threshold for subsequent sheets;
- feeding a second sheet by said sheet feeder into said document travel path and starting a sheet overlength timer based on said overlength threshold when a leading edge of said second sheet is sensed by said first sensor, said second sheet being fed in a fixed gap mode in which a fixed gap is provided between subsequently fed sheets;
- disengaging said sheet feeder and starting a sheet feeder timer when said leading edge of said second sheet reaches said second sensor;
- determining if said sheet feeder timer has expired, such that if said sheet feeder timer has expired, said second sheet is longer or of the same length as said first sheet, and said method comprises the further step of engaging said sheet feeder;
- and
- determining if said overlength timer has expired, such that if said overlength timer has expired, said second sheet is longer than said first sheet, and said method comprises the further steps of disabling said fixed gap mode, disengaging said sheet feeder, and engaging said sheet feeder when a trailing edge of said second document is sensed by said first sensor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.