Patent ID: 8528895
Filing Date: 2013-09-10
Classification: B65H

Abstract:
1. A sheet feeder, comprising: a feeding mechanism for feeding a sheet along a sheet feeding route; a supporting body; a stopper member located in the sheet feeding route and rotatably supported about a first rotational pivot point on the supporting body; and a holder for rotatably supporting the supporting body for rotation about a second rotational pivot point; wherein: the stopper member includes a contact end portion; and the stopper member changes its posture among: (i) a restricting posture in which the contact end portion comes into contact with a leading end of the sheet in a feeding direction to restrict the position of the leading end in the feeding direction before a feeding operation of feeding the sheet by the feeding mechanism; (ii) a feed allowing posture which is assumed during the feeding operation and in which the contact end portion is separated from the position of the leading end of the sheet in the feeding direction in the restricting posture in a first direction in which the sheet is fed; and (iii) a rotational posture reached from the feed allowing posture by rotation of the stopper member about the first rotational pivot point so that the contact end portion faces in a second direction opposite to the first direction; the second direction being a direction in which the sheet is pulled out from the feeding mechanism when a jam occurs in the feeding mechanism, wherein the supporting body: has a rotational preventing piece to prevent the stopper member from rotating in a first rotational direction about the first rotational pivot point, rotates in the first rotational direction about the second rotational pivot point as the posture of the stopper member is changed from the restricting posture to the feed allowing posture due to the rotation preventing piece preventing the rotation of the stopper member in the first rotational direction about the first rotational pivot point, and rotates in a second rotational direction opposite to the first rotational direction about the second rotational pivot point as the posture of the stopper member is changed from the feed allowing posture to the rotational posture due to the stopper member rotating in the second rotational direction about the first rotational pivot point; wherein, the holder further includes a third contact portion which comes into contact with the supporting body to prevent the rotation of the supporting body in the second rotational direction about the second rotational pivot point; and the third contact portion comes into contact with the supporting body when the stopper member is in the rotational posture.