Patent ID: 7651090

Claim:
A paper conveyance apparatus comprising: a stacking portion on which paper can be stacked; a feeding mechanism portion configured to extract the paper stacked on said stacking portion one sheet at a time and to feed said paper; and an intermediate conveyance portion configured to convey said paper fed from said feeding mechanism portion to a vicinity of a feeding port faced by a main body feeding portion, on an image forming apparatus main body side, wherein said intermediate conveyance portion comprises a plurality of paper conveyance devices disposed at intervals from an upstream side to a downstream side of an intermediate conveyance path, and configured to convey said paper fed from said feeding mechanism portion, and a plurality of paper detecting devices, each paper detecting device being disposed at intervals from the upstream side to the downstream side of said intermediate conveyance path, and each paper detecting device being configured to detect at least a leading edge of said conveyed paper from among said leading edge and a trailing edge of said paper, said plurality of paper detecting devices includes a first paper detecting device located at said upstream side of said intermediate conveyance path, a second paper detecting device located 96 mm on said downstream side of said of said intermediate conveyance path from said first paper detecting device, a third paper detecting device located 52 mm on said downstream side of said of said intermediate conveyance path from said second paper detecting device, a fourth paper detecting device located 52.5 mm on said downstream side of said of said intermediate conveyance path from said third paper detecting device, a fifth paper detecting device located 48 mm on said downstream side of said of said intermediate conveyance path from said fourth paper detecting device, a sixth paper detecting device located 39.5 mm on said downstream side of said of said intermediate conveyance path from said fifth paper detecting device, a seventh paper detecting device located 32.5 mm on said downstream side of said of said intermediate conveyance path from said sixth paper detecting device and an eighth paper detecting device located 48.5 mm on said downstream side of said of said intermediate conveyance path from said seventh paper detecting device, and said paper conveyance apparatus further comprises a control device configured to reduce a paper conveyance speed of said plurality of paper conveyance devices when the leading edge of said paper is detected by one of said paper detecting devices disposed at least one device further toward said upstream side than said eighth paper detecting device, which is disposed furthest downstream of said plurality of paper detecting devices and nearest to said main body feeding portion.