Magnetic ball-on-belt transport

摘要

A ball-on-belt transport includes a belt (71) with a steel ball (77) positioned on top of the belt and a magnet (79) on the back side of the belt with the ball forming a nip with the belt to provide necessary normal force against a conveyed sheet and thereby allowing easy lateral pulling of sheets in clearing jams from the nip. Alternatively, a steel ball (85) is retained while in contact with a belt to apply a normal force to a sheet on the belt equal to the weight of the steel ball. The ball (85) is encased in a housing (81) that is surrounded by a solenoid coil (84) such that when current is applied to the coil, it acts as a solenoid and raises the ball off the belt surface and thus releases the nip pressure.