Patent ID: 8480074

Claim:
A sheet feeding device comprising: a tray that supports sheets; an air blowing portion that blows air at an upper portion of the sheets on the tray to blow upward the sheets; a plurality of endless adsorption conveyance belts that is arranged to be parallel to a sheet feeding direction and that adsorbs and conveys the blown-upward sheet; a guide member that is disposed downstream of the plurality of the adsorption conveyance belts in the sheet feeding direction and under the plurality adsorption conveyance belts, thereby guiding the underside of a sheet conveyed by the plurality of the adsorption conveyance belt; a suction duct that generates an adsorption force with respect to the plurality of the adsorption conveyance belts; a lever that is installed to be movable up and down between the plurality of adsorption conveyance belts, and that moves upward to a position higher than an adsorbing surface of the plurality of the adsorption conveyance belts that adsorbs a sheet from a position below the plurality of the adsorption conveyance belts by being pushed up by the blown-upward sheet; a sheet surface detecting mechanism that detects a position of the top surface of the blown-upward sheet based on the position of the lever; and an abutting portion against which the lever pushed up by the blown-upward sheet is abutted so that when the abutting portion abuts upper surface of the lever pushed up by the blown-upward sheet, the abutting portion regulates a position of the lever that is pushed up by the blown-upward sheet such that a difference in height between the adsorbing surface of the plurality of the adsorption conveyance belts and a lower surface of the lever pushed up by the blown-upward sheet is smaller than a difference in a height direction between the adsorbing surface of the plurality of the adsorption conveyance and the guide member.