Sheet supply apparatus and image forming apparatus

摘要

A sheet supply apparatus includes: a tray on which a stack of sheets can be placed, an air blowing section that blows air towards the stack of sheets to float at least a topmost sheet, a sucking and conveying section, above the tray, that sucks said floating sheet(s) and conveys said sheet(s) in a prescribed direction, and a first light source that emits a first stripshaped slit light having a vertically extending component such that the slit light crosses at least a first edge of a first floating sheet and a second edge of a second floating sheet. An image capture section captures an image of the first slit light, a calculating section calculates a vertical clearance between the first and second sheets, and an air amount adjusting section adjusts an amount of air to be blown by the air blowing section based on the calculated vertical clearance.

主权项

1. A sheet supply apparatus comprising:
a tray on which a stack of sheets, which is formed with a plurality of vertically stacked sheets, is capable of being placed; an air blowing section that blows air toward the stack of sheets placed on the tray to float at least a topmost sheet; a sucking and conveying section that sucks the topmost sheet floated by the air blowing section and conveys the topmost sheet in a prescribed conveying direction, the sucking and conveying section being disposed above the tray; a first light source that emits a first slit light which is a stripshaped light having a component extending vertically, wherein the first slit light is emitted toward a face which is a side face of the stack of sheets and which is orthogonal to the prescribed conveying direction, so that the stripshaped first slit light crosses at least a first edge of a first sheet and a second edge of a second sheet below the first sheet, the first sheet and the second sheet being part of a plurality of floated sheets; an image capture section that captures an image of the first slit light emitted to the first sheet and the second sheet, the image capture section being oriented in an image capture direction that is different, in a plane parallel to the first sheet and the second sheet, from a direction in which the first slit light is emitted from the first light source; a calculating section that calculates a vertical clearance between the first sheet and the second sheet according to the image of the first slit light captured by the image capture section; and an air amount adjusting section that adjusts an amount of air to be blown by the air blowing section according to the vertical clearance between the first sheet and the second sheet calculated by the calculating section.