Patent ID: 7523933

Claim:
An adjustable force driving nip assembly for use in a sheet handling system of a document creating apparatus having a control panel for sheet media data entry by an end user, comprising: a plurality of individual driving nips aligned and spaced transversely across a sheet transport path of said sheet handling system, each individual driving nip of said driving nip assembly having an idler roller mounted on a pivotable cam follower and mated against a driven roller, each of said idler rollers having an associated spring, said springs providing a force on said idler rollers to produce a normal force for said idler rollers that biases said idler rollers toward said driven rollers, wherein said cam follower further comprises a pair of identical cam follower members, each of said cam follower members having an opening intermediate opposite ends thereof with each of said opposing ends of said idler roller shaft being rotatably mounted in an opening in a respective one of said cam follower members, so that said idler rollers are located between respective pairs of cam follower members and wherein each of said cam follower members have a recess therein that is located above said cam follower opening and is in communication therewith, said recesses in said cam follower members each have a slider adapted to slide therein towards and away from said openings; and wherein each of said air of cam follower members have a compression spring to provide said force on said idler rollers rotatably mounted therein to produce said normal force for said idler rollers wherein a one of said compression springs is located in a respective recess in each of said sliders, said compression springs urging said sliders into contact with said idler roller shafts that reside in said openings of said cam follower members; said driven rollers of said driving nip assembly being mounted on a common drive shaft having two ends; a first stepper motor coupled to one end of said common drive shaft and adapted to interact concurrently with said cam followers upon actuation and thereby vary said force of said springs on said idler rollers to adjust said normal force thereof; a memory for storing a plurality of algorithms, each algorithm being representative of a predetermined number of incremental steps from said stepper motor to achieve a desired normal force for said idler rollers; and a controller for selecting an algorithm from said memory in response to said sheet media data entered into said control panel by an end user and actuating said stepper motor in accordance with said selected algorithm to effect automatically an adjustment of said normal force of said idler rollers, thereby prevent marking of sheets transported by said sheet handling system.