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US 7,744,081 B2Granted
Image forming apparatus
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorTaro Ikeda
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A sheet surface detecting mechanism, which detects the upper surface of sheets stacked on a tray, including: a sensor disposed in a position spaced apart from a conveying portion; a pivotal sensor flag turning the sensor ON/OFF; and a sheet surface detecting member being disposed in parallel with the sheets stacked on the tray, moving in a vertical direction while causing the sensor flag to pivot in contact with the upper surface of the sheets, and turning the sensor ON/OFF via the sensor flag.
Claims4
An image forming apparatus, which forms an image on a sheet fed from a sheet feeding device in an image forming portion,
- the sheet feeding device comprising:
- a tray which supports sheets;
- an air blowing portion which blows air to an end portion of the sheets supported by the tray;
- a conveying portion which sucks and conveys the sheet blown upward with air blown by the air blowing portion;
- and
- a sheet surface detecting mechanism, which detects a position of an upper surface of the sheet blown upward,
- the sheet surface detecting mechanism including:
- a sensor portion disposed at a position spaced apart from the conveying portion and upstream of the conveying portion in a sheet conveying direction;
- a sensor flag which turns the sensor portion ON and OFF;
- a sheet surface detecting member connected to the sensor flag and being disposed to right below the conveying portion, the sheet surface detecting member being extended in parallel with a sucking surface of the conveying portion from a side on which the sensor portion is disposed toward a downstream in the sheet conveying direction,
- wherein a sheet in contact with any longitudinal position of said sheet surface detecting member will move said sheet surface detecting member in a parallel state with the sheets.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.