Sheet conveying apparatus
AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorShinichi Ito
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A sheet conveying apparatus for OCR/VSC integrated systems, which selectively delivers postal items to upper- and lower-side stackers, includes at least one pair of conveyor belts bifurcating from a bifurcation gate to the down-side stackers, and at least one pair of conveyor belts bifurcating from the bifurcation gate to the upper-side stackers. The conveyor belts include a first twisted section, an S-shaped ascending portion, and a second twisted portion. Each postal item is tilted by the first twisted portion, then raised by the S-shaped ascending portion with its tilted attitude maintained, and returned to upright by the second twisted portion.
Claims5
A sheet conveying apparatus for conveying paper sheets to a different level in a direction along surfaces of the paper sheets, comprising:
- a first conveyor section configured to convey the paper sheets in an upright orientation along a first path of a first level;
- a second conveyor section configured to tilt the paper sheets at an acute tilt angle and convey the tilted paper sheets along a curved conveyance direction to guide and shift the tilted paper sheets to a second path of a second level that is at a different height than the first level;
- a third conveyor section configured to restore the tilted paper sheets back to the upright orientation, upon reaching the second level, and convey the upright paper sheets along the second level;
- and
- at least one pair of conveyor belts provided along the first to third conveyor sections to hold the paper sheets therebetween and convey the paper sheets, the conveyor belts including a first twisted portion configured to tilt the paper sheets in the second conveyor section, and a second twisted portion configured to return an attitude of the paper sheets to upright in the third conveyor section.
A sheet conveying apparatus comprising:
- a first reference surface, a second reference surface, and a third reference surface which are continuously arranged in sequence, wherein
- the first reference surface is substantially horizontal and configured to keep in contact with lower edges of paper sheets that are conveyed in an upright orientation,
- the second reference surface has a tilted configuration in which the second reference surface is tilted with respect to the first reference surface along a direction substantially perpendicular to a direction in which the first, second and third reference surfaces are arranged, and
- the third reference surface is substantially parallel to the first reference surface at a different height from the first reference surface;
- and
- at least one pair of conveyor belts extending substantially perpendicular to the first to third reference surfaces, the conveyor belts holding the paper sheets therebetween and permitting the lower edges of the paper sheets to be kept in contact with the first to third reference surfaces while running to convey the paper sheets, the conveyor belts enabling the orientation of the paper sheets to be varied during conveyance thereof,
- wherein, the tilted configuration of the second reference surface operates to tilt the paper sheets that have an upright orientation from the first reference surface at an acute tilt angle, and then restores the tilted paper sheets back to the upright orientation when the paper sheets are conveyed and shifted to the third reference surface that has a different height than the first reference surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.