Patent ID: 7665723

Claim:
A sheet feeder apparatus for feeding sheets in a conveyance direction, the apparatus comprising: a sheet hopper for orienting sheets-to-be-fed in a stack, the sheets of the stack lying essentially parallel to a conveyance direction while lying undeflected in the sheet hopper; a sheet deflector for deflecting a top sheet-to-be-fed from the sheet stack from a sheet undeflected acquisition position to a sheet deflected position, the sheet deflector having a major axis oriented essentially parallel to a trailing edge the top sheet-to-be-fed from the sheet stack, the sheet deflector having a port through which suction is selectively applied to the top sheet-to-be-fed, the sheet deflector being adapted for: selective rotation about the major axis for moving the top sheet-to-be-fed from the sheet undeflected acquisition position to the sheet deflected position while the suction is applied through the port; selective translation in a direction perpendicular to the conveyance direction for selectively lifting the top sheet-to-be-fed from the sheet stack in the sheet deflected position and selectively resting on the sheet stack; a sheet extractor for engaging at least a leading edge of the top sheet-to-be-fed when in its sheet deflected position and for directing the top sheet-to-be-fed in the conveyance direction; a holding arm positioned for selectively contacting a next sheet-to-be-fed when the sheet extractor engages the top sheet-to-be-fed; a deflector carriage for carrying the sheet deflector and pivotally connected to the holding arm; an actuator for providing relative pivotal movement about a pivot axis of the holding arm and the deflector carriage.