A sheet feeding apparatus includes: a placer that allows a plurality of sheets to be placed on the placer; an air feeder including a front-end fan that generates an airflow from a front-edge side in a sheet feeding direction of a bundle of sheets placed on the placer toward the bundle of sheets; an attracting conveyor that attracts an uppermost sheet separated by the air feeder from the bundle of sheets placed on the placer and conveys the uppermost sheet; a detector that detects, in the conveyance of the uppermost sheet by the attracting conveyor, an amount of co-feeding of a next sheet together with the uppermost sheet; and a hardware processor that executes air-volume control to the front-end fan such that an air volume of the front-end fan increases with an increase in the amount of co-feeding detected by the detector.

A sheet feeder includes a lift table, a first sheet-side restricting member, a second sheet-side restricting member, a suction conveyor, a rear-end restricting member, an upper distance-measuring sensor, a lower distance-measuring sensor, and processing circuitry. The first sheet-side restricting member and the second sheet-side restricting member restrict first ends and second ends opposite to the first ends, respectively, of sheets. The suction conveyor sucks and conveys a sheet floated. The rear-end restricting member restricts the sheets from moving in a longitudinal direction of the sheets. The upper distance-measuring sensor and the lower distance-measuring sensor measure a first distance and a second distance, respectively, to the first sheet-side restricting member or the second sheet-side restricting member. The processing circuitry compares measurement results of the first distance and the second distance to determine whether a distance between the first sheet-side restricting member and the second sheet-side restricting member is adequate.

A sheet conveying device includes a sheet stacker, an air blower, and a guide. The sheet stacker stacks a plurality of sheets. The air blower blows air onto the plurality of sheets. The guide faces an uppermost sheet of the plurality of sheets on the sheet stacker and contacts the uppermost sheet at a plurality of positions of the guide spaced apart from each other in a sheet conveyance direction.

A sheet conveying device conveys a sheet from an image forming apparatus which forms an ink image on the sheet by ejecting ink onto a surface of the sheet to a drying device which dries the ink image on the sheet. The sheet conveying device includes a suction conveying portion and an auxiliary suction portion. The suction conveying portion conveys the sheet along a guide surface while sucking the sheet onto the guide surface. The auxiliary suction portion is arranged on a downstream side of a conveying direction as viewed from the suction conveying portion on the guide surface, and sucks the sheet onto the guide surface.

A sheet conveying device conveys a sheet from an image forming apparatus which forms an ink image on the sheet by ejecting ink onto a surface of the sheet to a drying device which dries the ink image on the sheet. The sheet conveying device includes a suction conveying portion and an auxiliary suction portion. The suction conveying portion conveys the sheet along a guide surface while sucking the sheet onto the guide surface. The auxiliary suction portion is arranged on a downstream side of a conveying direction as viewed from the suction conveying portion on the guide surface, and sucks the sheet onto the guide surface.

The present invention relates to a feeder module for discharging sheets into a converting machine. The feeder module comprises a movable discharge conveyor comprising a plurality of belt conveyors which are configured to move between a discharge position (DP) in which the belt conveyors are contacting the lowermost positioned sheet in the stack and discharges said sheet, and a clearing position (CP) in which the conveyor belts are located underneath the loading surface.

The invention discloses a sheet processing machine with an alignment plate at the input. The sheets are piled against the plate, and during each machine cycle, the bottommost sheet is extracted and delivered to a gripper bar of the machine. The alignment plate can move precisely longitudinally and diagonally to adjust the position and the skew of the sheet for correct positioning in the gripper bar. The alignment plate is guaranteed to be kept vertical by using a pair of synchronized linear actuators on each side of the plate. The machine can adapt to varying sheet thickness by adjusting the gap below that plate thanks to a motorized gauge. To even better position the sheets, a set of abutments is provided after the plate, and at a fixed distance to the plate. The abutments are pivoting to get out of the way of the gripper bar when needed.

A sheet feeding device includes a sheet stacker, a conveyor, a sensor, circuitry, and a changing unit. The conveyor conveys a sheet from the sheet stacker by suction. The sensor detects a state of the sheet before the sheet is conveyed from the sheet stacker. The circuitry determines the state of the sheet based on a detection result of the sensor. The changing unit changes a passage to convey the sheet based on a determination result.

A feeding device includes: a loading portion that is disposed on a downstream side of a transporting path in a transporting direction and that loads a transporting target, which is transported through the transporting path, on a loading surface inclined with respect to a horizontal direction; and a feeding unit that feeds the transporting target, which is in contact with the loading surface, obliquely upward along the loading surface.