Patent ID: 7458571

Claim:
A sheet feeding apparatus comprising: a main body; a housing cassette that has a loading section on which a sheet is loaded and is provided to be movable in a vertical direction, the housing cassette being attached to the main body to be drawable therefrom; a delivery roller that is provided to be movable in the vertical direction relative to the main body and rotates while remaining in contact with an upper surface of the sheet loaded on the loading section to deliver the sheet downstream with respect to a conveying direction of the sheet; an elevation mechanism that elevates the loading section on condition that a moving position of the delivery roller is a predetermined height or less while the delivery roller stays in a feed position where the delivery roller contacts with the sheet loaded on the loading section; a position switching mechanism that switches between an initial position where the delivery roller is separated from the loading section and the feed position; a drive unit that causes the position switching mechanism to perform switching operation for switching the delivery roller from the initial position to the feed position in accordance with a sheet feeding start signal and subsequently rotationally drives the delivery roller; a determination unit that determines whether or not operation for attaching the housing cassette to the main body is performed; and a timing control unit that controls a timing, at which the rotational driving is started from the switching operation, to be later in each case where it is determined by the determination unit that the attachment operation is performed, compared to a timing when it is determined by the determination unit that the attachment operation is not performed.