Patent ID: 7588245

Claim:
An apparatus adapted to separate and advance media sheets from a stack of media sheets, comprising: a media sheet advancing device including a drive roll and a retard roll wherein the drive roll and the retard roll include a feed nip therebetween for driving the media sheets from a stack of media sheets in a feed tray at a velocity; a first drive system to selectively drive the drive roll at a first velocity in a forward direction; a second drive system to maintain the retard roll at a second velocity through a slip clutch having a torque when only one sheet is in the feed nip; a motion sensor for detecting when the retard roll stops rotating at the second velocity corresponding to when a plurality of sheets are in the feed nip; the second drive system selectively varies the second velocity of the retard roll when the plurality of sheets are in the feed nip; a control system varies the velocity of the retard drive system between the second velocity and a third velocity; the second velocity is substantially zero; the third velocity is in a reverse direction for sequentially feeding each bottommost sheet from the plurality of sheets back into the feed tray until only one sheet is in the feed nip; and, the control system returns the retard drive system from the third velocity to the second velocity after the more than one sheet is removed from the feed nip.