There is provided a feed apparatus including a support unit, a feed roller, a swingable arm to support the feed roller, a guide unit, a movable member movable to a retracted position and a protruding position at which the movable member can abut against the sheet supported by the support unit, a driving source, driving transmission units; and a contact-separating mechanism to move the feed roller to a separated position and an abutment position at which the feed roller abuts against the sheet supported by the support unit. In a state in which the movable member is the protruding position and the feed roller is the separated position, a time required to start feeding of the sheet by the feed roller moved from the separated position to the abutment position is longer than a time required to shift the movable member from the protruding position to the retracted position.

The present invention provides an image forming apparatus that reduces image artifacts caused by the back tension of a separating unit. A control unit decreases the number of rotations (the rotational speed) of a resist roller pair after the leading edge of a sheet reaches a transfer position.

A winding device includes a winding shaft that rotates and winds a print medium conveyed from a printing device having a conveyance roller that conveys the print medium, a gear, and a motor driving the conveyance roller and the gear. The winding device also includes a power transfer mechanism to connect to the gear and transfer power to the motor, and a lever disposed between the winding shaft and the conveyance roller in a conveyance path in a configuration in which the winding device is connected to the printing device. The lever may be moved between a first position in which the print medium bends and a second position in which the print medium bends at a shallower angle than at the first position.

There is provided a stacking apparatus capable of stably conveying and stacking sheets without occurrence of damage or buckling of the sheets in the structure of discharging the curled sheets one by one. In regard to each of a plurality of clamp guides which project toward stacking trays from a conveyor to guide sheets S, the projecting position varies in accordance with a size and an amount of stacked sheets on the stack trays. The stacking tray comprises an inclined surface and a curved surface. An upper guide is located to face the inclined surface by a predetermined interval, and the upper guide is located not to face the curved surface or is located to face it by an interval larger than a predetermined interval.

A recording material feeding device includes a stacking portion, a driving source, a holding member, a torque limiter for limiting transmission of a driving torque from the driving source to the stacking portion in a case that the driving source rotates in a state in which the holding member holds the position of the stacking portion; a storing portion for storing information on a holding state of the holding member; and a controller for controlling the driving source to rotate at a rotational speed slower when the information is information indicating that the holding member holds the position of the stacking portion than when the information is information indicating that the holding member does not hold the position of the stacking portion.

In an example, a torque key may include a body to mate with a wheel, a plurality of driving lugs extending radially outward from the body, and a plurality of key lugs extending radially into the body. The body may have an inner bore to receive a shaft, each driving lug may engage with a driven lug protruding from an axial face of the wheel, and each key lug may engage with a slot of the shaft.

A control method of a paper sheet storage mechanism that can wind or feed out tape while preventing the tape from becoming loose while maintaining a certain level of tension of the tape. A drum control unit controls a drum driving source in such a manner that a tape speed detected by a tape speed detection unit is constant. When a drum winds a paper sheet, a reel driving source rotatably drives a pair of reels in the direction of feeding out a pair of pieces of tape. A reel control unit controls the reel driving source in such a manner that reeling speeds detected by reeling speed detection units are lower than a tape speed. Further, rotation shafts of the reels are provided with a torque limiter that causes the rotation shafts to idle when a torque greater than a prescribed value is applied to the rotation shafts.

A winding device includes a winding shaft that rotates and winds a print medium conveyed from a printing device having a conveyance roller that conveys the print medium, a gear, and a motor driving the conveyance roller and the gear. The winding device also includes a power transfer mechanism to connect to the gear and transfer power to the motor, and a lever disposed between the winding shaft and the conveyance roller in a conveyance path in a configuration in which the winding device is connected to the printing device. The lever may be moved between a first position in which the print medium bends and a second position in which the print medium bends at a shallower angle than at the first position.

A pickup roller is moved to a retracted position by rotating a feeding motor in reverse by a first predetermined amount and is moved to a contact position by rotating the feeding motor forward by a second predetermined amount.

The medium winding device includes a winding shaft, a drive unit for winding the medium around the winding member, a rotating member rotatably disposed, a tension applying member which moves as the drive unit is driven or stopped, a position detecting unit for detecting the position of the tension applying member, an output changing unit, a control unit that determines whether slippage occurs between the winding shaft and the winding member based on the position of the tension applying member and the result of output change by a rotation of the winding shaft. Further, the drive unit includes a torque limiter.