SHEET STACKING SYSTEM FOR FLIMSY SHEETS

Abstract

A sheet stacking tray that includes a single pneumatic baffle which uses the pressure differential caused by the flow of air across a horizontal planar surface of the pneumatic baffle to hold the lead edge of sheets driven by an input nip into the sheet stacking tray above a stack especially for longer and lighter weight sheets as they are driven by the input nip to a registration wall.

Claims

1. A sheet stacking system with a sheet stacking area for sequentially stacking printed sheet output of a reproduction apparatus being sequentially fed to said sheet stacking area, the improvement in high speed sheet stacking and improved flimsy sheet control, comprising: a sheet stacker for receiving sheets therein, said sheet stacker including a registration wall where sheets are registered thereagainst and form a stack within said sheet stacker; a continuously engaged input nip for capturing said sheets and maintaining control of said sheets until immediately before they reach said registration wall; a pneumatic baffle that includes a horizontal bottom surface positioned parallel to and above sheets within said sheet stacker, said horizontal bottom surface including air nozzles having outlets configured to direct air at acute angles from a sheet process direction in order to balance the flow by allowing for a flow vector in the sheet process direction along with a flow vector away from the sheet process direction and to the edge of the sheet to provide for flow at the edges of the sheet, said pneumatic baffle using a pressure differential caused by the flow of air across said horizontal bottom surface to hold a lead edge of each incoming sheet above said stack including longer and lighter weight sheets as they are driven by said input nip to said registration wall while simultaneously maintaining said sheets out of contact with said horizontal bottom surface of said pneumatic baffle; and a controller, said controller being configured to shut off air into said pneumatic baffle immediately before each sheet impacts said registration wall to allow each sheet to drop onto said stack without impacting said registration wall.

2. The sheet stacking system of claim 1, wherein said pneumatic baffle includes a cut-off valve and wherein said cut-off valve is triggered by said controller to shut off air flow to said pneumatic baffle based upon sheet length.

3. The sheet stacking system of claim 1, wherein said horizontal surface of said pneumatic baffle includes air nozzles angled with respect to said horizontal surface.

4. (canceled)

5. The sheet stacking system of claim 3, wherein said sheet stacking system is part of a xerographic device.

6. (canceled)

7. (canceled)

8. A printing machine adapted to print an image on a sheet, comprising: an output device for receiving said sheet from said printing machine and stacking said sheet against a registration wall thereof, said output device including an input nip for driving said sheet into and through said output device with said input nip being adapted to maintain control of said sheet until said sheet reaches said registration wall, and a pneumatic baffle configured to maintain said sheet above compiled sheets within said output device while simultaneously preventing said sheet from contacting said pneumatic baffle, said pneumatic baffle having nozzles positioned therein that are configured to direct air flow in a sheet processing direction and at acute angles with respect to said sheet process direction and towards outer edges of said sheet thereby adding a cross process velocity vector to support side edges of varying sheet widths.

9. The printing machine of claim 8, wherein said pneumatic baffle includes a horizontal planar bottom surface that is parallel to said compiled sheets within said output device, and wherein said pneumatic baffle is configured to apply a thin layer of high velocity air between a top side of said sheet and said horizontal planar bottom surface of said pneumatic baffle.

10. The printing machine of claim 9, wherein said thin layer of high velocity air follows said horizontal planar surface of said pneumatic baffle.

11. (canceled)

12. The printing machine of claim 10, wherein said thin layer of high velocity air in corporation with said input nip maintains height of said sheet above said compiled stack until said sheet reaches said registration wall.

13. A sheet stacking method for high speed sequentially stacking printed sheets output of a reproduction apparatus with improved sheet control, comprising: providing a sheet stacker for receiving sheets therein, said sheet stacker including a registration wall where sheets are registered thereagainst and form a stack within said sheet stacker; providing an input nip for capturing said sheets and maintaining control of said sheets until immediately before they reach said registration wall; providing a pneumatic baffle that includes a horizontal bottom surface positioned parallel to and above sheets within said sheet stacker, said pneumatic baffle using a pressure differential caused by the flow of air across said horizontal bottom surface to hold a lead edge of each incoming sheet above said stack as they are driven by said input nip to said registration wall while simultaneously maintaining said sheets out of contact with said horizontal bottom surface of said pneumatic baffle; and providing said horizontal bottom surface of said pneumatic baffle with air nozzles having outlets configured to direct air at an acute angle from a sheet process direction in order to balance air flow by allowing for a flow vector in the sheet process direction along with a flow vector away from the sheet process direction and toward the edges of the sheets to provide for air flow at the edges of the sheets and thereby prevent drooping of sheet edges.

14. The sheet stacking method of claim 13, including providing a controller for controlling the timing and velocity of air flow of said pneumatic baffle.

15. The sheet stacking method of claim 14, including using said controller to control lift of said sheets based upon sheet weight and allow sheets to fall into said sheet stacker due to gravity.

16. The sheet stacking method of claim 14, including providing said pneumatic baffle with an air cut-off valve.

17. The sheet stacking method of claim 16, including moving said air cut-off valve to an OFF position immediately before said sheets impact said registration wall to allow said sheets to drop onto said stack.

18. The sheet stacking method of claim 16, including controlling non-pulsing air flow velocity and thereby lift of said sheet based upon sheet length input from said controller.

19. The sheet stacking method of claim 13, including adjusting said registration wall based upon sheet length and weight.

20. (canceled)

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0011] The disclosed printer system may be operated by and controlled by appropriate operation of conventional control systems. It is well known and preferable to program and execute imaging, printing, paper handling, and other control functions and logic with software instructions for conventional or general purpose microprocessors, as taught by numerous prior patents and commercial products. Such programming or software may, of course, vary depending on the particular functions, software type, and microprocessor or other computer system utilized, but will be available to, or readily programmable without undue experimentation from, functional descriptions, such as, those provided herein, and/or prior knowledge of functions which are conventional, together with general knowledge in the software of computer arts. Alternatively, any disclosed control system or method may be implemented partially or fully in hardware, using standard logic circuits or single chip VLSI designs.

[0012] The term ‘printer’ or ‘reproduction apparatus’ as used herein broadly encompasses various printers, copiers or multifunction machines or systems, xerographic or otherwise, unless otherwise defined in a claim. The term ‘sheet’ herein refers to any flimsy physical sheet or paper, plastic, or other useable physical substrate for printing images thereon, whether precut or initially web fed. A compiled collated set of printed output sheets may be alternatively referred to as a document, booklet, or the like. It is also known to use interposers or inserters to add covers or other inserts to the compiled sets.

[0013] As to specific components of the subject apparatus or methods, or alternatives therefor, it will be appreciated that, as normally the case, some such components are known per se' in other apparatus or applications, which may be additionally or alternatively used herein, including those from art cited herein. For example, it will be appreciated by respective engineers and others that many of the particular components mountings, component actuations, or component drive systems illustrated herein are merely exemplary, and that the same novel motions and functions can be provided by many other known or readily available alternatives. All cited references, and their references, are incorporated by reference herein where appropriate for teachings of additional or alternative details, features, and/or technical background. What is well known to those skilled in the art need not be described herein.

[0014] Several of the above-mentioned and further features and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the specific apparatus and its operation or methods described in the example(s) below, and the claims. Thus, they will be better understood from this description of these specific embodiment(s), including the drawing figures (which are approximately to scale) wherein:

[0015] FIG. 1 is an enlarged partial elevational schematic view showing relevant elements of an exemplary printing machine including a sheet stacker;

[0016] FIG. 2 is an enlarged partial schematic side view of an improved sheet stacker apparatus for use in the printing machine of FIG. 1 that includes a pneumatic baffle; and

[0017] FIG. 3 is an enlarged partial schematic bottom view of the pneumatic baffle of FIG. 2.

[0018] A sheet stacker 30 is shown in FIG. 1 receiving sheets 12 from printer 10 that form a stack 11 therein. Sheet stacker 30 includes a conventional movable platform (not shown) that is indexed periodically in order to maintain a predetermined stack height. Controller 20 actuates printer 10 to output imaged sheets 12 for compiling in stacker 30 that includes a support frame 32, a conventionally vertically movable registration wall 34 and a scuffer drive that includes a drive roll 37 and idler roll 38 drivingly connected by belt 39. As shown, sheet 12 is driven by a nip formed between drive roll 36 and driven or idler roll 35 onto stack 11. In stacking systems of this type which stack incoming sheets 12 directly on top of previously stacked sheets, a problem sometimes arises due to the interaction of the lead edge of the incoming sheet contacting the sheet stack. Build-up of the sheet stack becomes uneven due to curl or toner build-up and can cause an incoming sheet to roll over as it jams against the sheet stack. And sheets of longer length can droop soon after leaving the input drive nip and can roll over and jam.

[0019] A solution to this problem is shown in FIG. 2 that comprises a single upper pneumatic baffle 50 that uses the pressure differential caused by the flow of air across a flat horizontal surface 55 to hold the lead edge of the sheet above the stack, especially for longer and lighter weight sheets, while they are driven by the input nip rolls 35 and 36 to the registration wall 34. Pneumatic baffle 50 has an air chamber 51 that includes a sensor controlled valve 60 through controller 20 that either allows air into the chamber of closes off the chamber to the inflow of air. Air cut-off valve 60 is moved from ON to and OFF position immediately before each sheet impacts registration wall 34 to allow the sheets to drop onto the sheet stack. Opening and closing of cut-off valve 60 is triggered based upon sheet length while registration wall 34 is adjusted based upon sheet length and weight. Air chamber 51 has a series or plurality of nozzles 52 that channel air flow from the chamber as represented by arrows 31 to an outer planar and horizontally extending surface thereof 55. Pneumatic baffle 50 maintains the height of nip driven sheet 12 above compiled stack of sheets 11 through high velocity of air through nozzles 52 that attracts each sheet to one side by lowering the pressure of the side of the sheet where the air is moving across the sheet. This unique method of controlling the height of sheets coming into a stacker with respect to sheets already in the stacker is especially useful when feeding long flimsy sheets onto a compiled stack since the sheets may lose their beam strength and cause the lead edges of the sheets to dive into the stack and roll over before reaching the registration wall.

[0020] FIG. 3 shows a bottom view of the horizontal surface 55 of pneumatic baffle 50 with a sheet 12 positioned there against and conveyed in the direction of arrow 57. A matrix of oval shaped outlets 53 of nozzles 52 are shown positioned at acute angles towards the outer edges of sheet 12 as indicated by arrows 54. Outlets 53 of nozzles 52 are positioned to cover a variety of sheet lengths and widths. The laminar stream of air across the sides of the chamber surface 55 will keep wider sheets from drooping.

[0021] In recapitulation, the embodiment of the present disclosure addresses a problem encountered when feeding sheets, including flimsy sheets, into a stacker. Namely, sheets stubbing against a compiled stack and thereby causing the incoming sheets to roll over and cause jams. This is especially true of flimsy sheets and longer length and wider widths of flimsy sheets. The present disclosure solves this problem by providing a pneumatic baffle system that uses an air pressure differential caused by high velocity air (Bernoulli Effect) to keep an incoming sheet elevated above a collated stack or tray while the sheet is simultaneously driven by an input drive nip. Thus, a boundary layer of air along the underside of a horizontally extending surface of the pneumatic baffle keeps incoming sheets to a finisher or stacker supported above the stack without the need for a second baffle.

[0022] The claims, as originally presented and as they may be amended, encompass variations, alternatives, modifications, improvements, equivalents, and substantial equivalents of the embodiments and teachings disclosed herein, including those that are presently unforeseen or unappreciated, and that, for example, may arise from applicants/patentees and others. Unless specifically recited in a claim, steps or components of claims should not be implied or imported from the specification or any other claims as to any particular order, number, position, size, shape, angle, color, or material.