Provided is a document conveying apparatus that properly discharges documents regardless of the amount of documents stacked on a discharge tray without complicated construction of a transmission mechanism for transmitting a driving force to conveying rollers. A conveying roller pair is provided at an end portion on an upstream side. A swing mechanism swings a discharge mechanism centered around a drive shaft of the conveying roller pair. An upper surface height measuring unit measures the height of the upper surface of documents stacked on the discharge tray. A control unit, by causing the swing mechanism to swing the discharge mechanism according to the height measured by the upper surface height measuring unit, performs control so that the difference between a discharge port and the upper surface of the documents stacked on the discharge tray is within a specified range.

A sheet feeding apparatus includes a supporting portion to support a sheet, a feeding portion to feed the supported sheet, and a base member opposed to the supporting portion so the sheet is supported by the supporting portion between the supporting portion and the base member. A regulation unit includes a regulation portion to regulate a position of an edge portion of the supported sheet and moves in a moving direction, and a sensor outputs an output value that changes in accordance with an amount of movement of the regulation unit. The sensor and the regulation unit are supported by the base member, and the sensor is supported by the base member at a position above an abutment position between the sheet supported by the supporting portion and the feeding portion in a gravity direction.

A sheet conveyance apparatus includes a receiving member to hold a sheet pressing portion and receive a reaction force of an urging portion for urging the sheet pressing portion toward the first sheet guide, a detection unit having a first detection portion disposed on a first sheet guide, and a second detection portion facing the first detection portion and disposed on a second sheet guide. The detection unit changes an output value based on presence and absence of the sheet at a detection position in a sheet conveyance path, wherein the second guide provided with the second detection portion, and a receiving member are movably disposed with respect to the first guide provided with the first detection portion respectively, and are positioned with respect to the first guide independently from each other, and wherein the receiving member is pivotably supported around the pivot axis independently from the second guide.

A sheet pile supporting assembly (24) for a sheet material processing machine is presented. It comprises a plurality of sheet pile supporting bars (28) and a movable guiding means for selectively moving one or more of the sheet pile supporting bars (28) from a retracted position to an extended position. Additionally, an automatic selection unit (30) is provided for automatically selecting the sheet pile supporting bars (28) to be moved to the extended position and for coupling the selected sheet pile supporting bars (28) to the movable guiding means. Moreover, a method for operating a sheet pile supporting assembly (24) for a sheet material processing machine is explained.

According to one embodiment, a sheet conveying device includes a tray, a pickup roller, a movement mechanism, a holder, a biasing unit, and a detecting mechanism. The movement mechanism moves the tray between a raised position and a lowered position. The raised position is a position where sheets come into contact with the pickup roller. The holder holds the pickup roller so that the pickup roller is displaceable when pushed up by the sheets. The biasing unit applies a biasing force to the holder pushing down the pickup roller. The detecting mechanism detects when the sheets push up the pickup roller. The detecting mechanism includes a detection unit and a sensor. The detection unit is switchable between a reference position and a detection position according to displacement of the holder accompanying the movement of the tray. The sensor detects when the detection unit reaches the detection position.

The invention relates to a method for detecting a traverse winding defect when winding a link (L) on a spool (1) rotatably driven about a longitudinal axis (X), the link (L) being alternately translationally guided relative to the spool (1) by a guide pulley (2) along said longitudinal axis (X) between two reversal positions, comprising: measuring the position of the guide pulley (2) relative to the spool (1) along the longitudinal axis (X) over time, measuring the position (P2) of a regulation device for regulating the advance speed of the link on the guide pulley over time, from said measurements, determining a deviation between the position (P3) of the regulation device and a reference position (P3r) at each reversal position (Pi1,Pi2), and from said deviation, detecting the formation of a hollow or bump in the winding.

The present disclosure provides an apparatus to support a sheet and configured to stably detect a presence of the sheet with a simple arrangement, and an image forming apparatus including such apparatus. A sheet discharging apparatus includes an apparatus body, a discharge member provided in the apparatus body and configured to discharge a sheet, a movable tray movable with respect to the apparatus body and including a sheet supporting surface configured to support the sheet discharged by the discharge member, a movable member supported by the movable tray and configured to move by being pressed by the sheet supported on the sheet supporting surface, and a detecting portion provided in the apparatus body and configured to detect a presence of the sheet supported on the sheet supporting surface in response to a position of the movable member.

An automated system for coiling a large (e.g., >1000 km) length of cable in a cable tank. In an example embodiment, the system comprises a gantry positioned above the cable tank and a swarm of robots deployed on the floor of the tank. The gantry operates to controllably move a touchdown point of the cable, which is being fed into the tank by a cable engine. Each of the robots is equipped with a rake that can be used to push or pull downed sections of the cable on the floor of the tank. An electronic controller operates to control the speed of the cable engine and movements of the gantry and individual robots to coil the cable in the tank in spirally wound, vertically stacked layers. Different embodiments of the system may be used for cable coiling at the cable factory and on the deck of a cable-laying ship.

Systems and methods can be used in connection with a wellbore environment for automatically controlling wire being spooled around a drum. A system comprising a spooler, a sensor assembly, and a communication link can be used to adjust the position of wire being spooled around a drum. A first motor can control the spooler and a second motor can control the sensor assembly. The spooler can be positioned to control spooling of wire around the drum as the drum rotates to reel in wire. The sensor assembly can be configured to detect a distance between the sensor assembly and the wire being spooled. A communication link can communicatively couple the sensor assembly with the first motor and the second motor to control movement of the spooler and the sensor assembly relative to the drum based on the distance detected by the sensor assembly.

A sheet conveying device, which is included in an image forming apparatus, includes a plurality of position detectors, a leading end detector, and a position adjuster. The plurality of position detectors is configured to detect a position of a sheet. The leading end detector is configured to detect a leading end of the sheet. The position adjuster is configured to, based on a detection result obtained by the plurality of position detectors, rotate in a rotation direction of the sheet within a plane of conveyance of the sheet to change the position of the sheet the position adjuster grips the sheet under conveyance to cause the leading end detector to rotate with the position adjuster in the rotation direction of the sheet within the plane of conveyance of the sheet.