Patent ID: 8109501

Claim:
A sheet feeding device, comprising: a pickup device which feeds a sheet by rotating while the pickup device comes in contact with a sheet located at an outermost position of a loaded stack of sheets; and a separation device which separates the sheet fed by the pickup device from another sheet and conveys the sheet; the separation device comprising: a conveying device for conveying the sheet in a conveyance direction; and a removing device for providing conveyance resistance on a lower surface of the sheet, the sheet feeding device further comprising, a guide member for guiding the sheet from a point upstream of the separation device to a point downstream of the separation device in the conveyance direction, wherein the guide member comprises a sloping guide surface which is a slope inclined with respect to a conveyance surface of the sheet in the conveyance direction of the sheet so as to form a conveyance gap which is wider on an upstream side and narrower on a downstream side in the conveyance direction, wherein the guide member extends toward both sides from a center in a width direction perpendicular to the conveyance direction, wherein, at an end portion of the sloping guide surface in the width direction, the sloping guide surface is formed so that an uppermost stream point of the slope is positioned on an upstream side of a separation point which is formed by the conveying device and the removing device in the conveyance direction and a lowermost stream point of the slope is positioned on a downstream side of the separation point in the conveyance direction, and wherein, at the center in the width direction, the sloping guide surface is formed so that both an uppermost stream point and a lowermost stream point of the slope are positioned on the upstream side of the separation point.