A medium processing apparatus includes an intermediate stacker on which media recorded by a recording apparatus are stacked, the recording apparatus including a liquid ejection head which performs recording by ejecting liquid to media and a maintenance apparatus which performs maintenance of the liquid ejection head, and a processor which executes a process on the media received by the intermediate stacker. The medium processing apparatus executes the process after a medium which is last recorded before the maintenance is stacked on the intermediate stacker.

A sheet conveyance apparatus includes a conveyance roller, an abutment member including an abutment surface, an obliquely conveying roller configured to convey the sheet such that the side edge portion is moved toward the abutment surface, a sheet side-edge detection portion, and a controller. The controller is configured to control the conveyance force of the obliquely conveying roller at a first conveyance force until a predetermined time has elapsed, in an abutment operation in which the sheet is abutted against the abutment surface by the obliquely conveying roller, and control the conveyance force of the obliquely conveying roller at a second conveyance force larger than the first conveyance force if the predetermined time has elapsed and the position of the side edge portion of the sheet detected by the sheet side-edge detection portion is out of a predetermined range.

In steady control, a shaft control unit (922) adjusts rotation speed of a first support shaft (31) to cause a first roll (R1) to have peripheral speed equal to predetermined conveyance speed by maintaining a sheet storage amount in a storage mechanism (5) in a first storage amount as a reference. In storage amount adjustment control, the shaft control unit (922) accelerates the rotation speed of the first support shaft (31) to increase the peripheral speed of the first roll (R1) higher than the conveyance speed, until the sheet storage amount in the storage mechanism (5) reaches a predetermined second storage amount that is larger than the first storage amount. A calculation unit (911) calculates an outer diameter of the first roll (R1) based on the conveyance speed when the steady control is performed, and calculates the outer diameter of the first roll (R1) based on the sheet thickness calculated from a decrease amount of the outer diameter of the first roll (R1) in the steady control when the storage amount adjustment control is performed.

A dispenser comprising a body, a dispensing device having an orifice, a gate configured to move between a first position and a second position with respect to the orifice, a biasing device to bias the gate towards the first position, and a dampener coupled to the gate and configured to impede the biasing device from biasing the gate towards the first position to delay, in time, the gate from moving from the second position to the first position; and wherein in the first position the gate engages the sheets passing through the orifice with enough force to break a perforation separating two contiguous sheets of the series to cause single sheet dispensing; and the delay allows multiple sheets of the series of interconnected sheets to pass through the orifice, when pulled at a given rate, before the gate moves from the second position to the first position.

A conveyance device includes a conveyance roller, a registration roller, a sensor, a mode setting part, a storage, a conveyance state determination part and a drive control part. The mode setting part sets the mode to either a plain paper mode or a tab paper mode. The storage stores threshold information corresponding to the mode. The conveyance state determination part determines, when the plain paper mode is set, whether the conveyance state of the recording medium is a skew conveyance state or a tab paper conveyance state, based on the detection result of the sensor and the plain paper mode threshold information. The conveyance state determination part determines, when the tab paper mode is set, whether the conveyance state of the recording medium is the skew conveyance state or the tab paper conveyance state, based on the detection result of the sensor and the tab paper mode threshold information.

An image recording apparatus including: a recording unit; an accommodation part configured to accommodate therein a plurality of recording media including first and second recording medium and having a support surface on which the plurality of the recording media is supported; a conveying path; a feeder roller contacting the recording medium in the accommodation part from above; a reversing path; a recording medium detection unit located above the support surface and between the feeder roller and a downstream end of the support surface in the conveying direction; and a controller configured to control the feeder roller so as to feed the second recording medium in a manner that a front end portion of the second recording medium overlaps a rear end portion of the first recording medium, when the recording medium detection unit detects the rear end portion of the first recording medium fed by the feeder roller.

The present invention is to provide a sheet binding apparatus capable of performing stable pressure-bonding binding processing. A sheet binding apparatus includes a moving means configured to move at least one of the first binding portion and the second binding portion to bring the first binding portion and the second binding portion into pressure contact with each other, and a plurality of peeling members configured to apply peeling force in a direction opposite to a pressure-bonding direction to peel off a bound portion of the sheets stuck to the surface when the first binding portion and the second binding portion are separated by the moving means after pressure-bonding binding processing is performed. Here, the peeling force is applied by the plurality of peeling members at different timings.

Splicing method and unit for a packaging machine, whereby a first film is spliced to a second film which is a spare film. The splicing is performed by means of an adhesive element with two opposing adhesive surfaces, one for each film, and a longitudinal adhering element. First an adhesive surface is adhered to the adhering element and said adhering element moves so that the other adhesive surface comes into contact with the second film and adheres to it. Then the adhering element is separated from said second film, the adhesive element being adhered to said second film, and the first film is caused to come into contact with said adhesive element already adhered to the second film.

An object processing machine for processing a plurality of objects, the machine comprising: a plurality of processing modules, each processing module having a modular structure co-operable with the modular structure of another processing module to form a modular assembly constituting the object processing machine; each processing module being operable to perform a corresponding processing operation on an object and being provided with at least one transfer unit located at a respective port of the processing module; each transfer unit being arranged to transfer an object to or from the corresponding processing module and/or to or from a transfer unit of another processing module of the modular assembly; the transfer units being arranged to co-operate with one another and/or with another processing unit such that objects can be guided from an input of the machine to an output of the machine via a plurality of different transport pathways through the machine, wherein the transport pathway taken by a said object being processed corresponds to the pre-determined processing operations to be performed on the said object. A method of processing a plurality of objects using such a machine is also described.

An object processing machine for processing a plurality of objects, the machine comprising: a plurality of processing modules, each processing module having a modular structure co-operable with the modular structure of another processing module to form a modular assembly constituting the object processing machine; each processing module being operable to perform a corresponding processing operation on an object and being provided with at least one transfer unit located at a respective port of the processing module; each transfer unit being arranged to transfer an object to or from the corresponding processing module and/or to or from a transfer unit of another processing module of the modular assembly; the transfer units being arranged to co-operate with one another and/or with another processing unit such that objects can be guided from an input of the machine to an output of the machine via a plurality of different transport pathways through the machine, wherein the transport pathway taken by a said object being processed corresponds to the pre-determined processing operations to be performed on the said object. A method of processing a plurality of objects using such a machine is also described.