SINGLE SHEET FEEDING DEVICE AND A SCANNER EQUIPPED WITH SUCH A DEVICE

摘要

The invention relates to a sheet feeder for feeding paper sheets one by one. The sheet feeder includes one or more sheet feeding belts (2) and a sheet restraining or retarding element (7). The sheet restraining or retarding element has a friction surface that faces towards a sheet feeding plane defined by the upper side of the belt (8). The friction surface and the feed plane define therebetween a feed opening whose gape decreases in the feed direction. According to the invention, the feed belt (2) runs on a rigid and flat belt support (1) which extends along the greater part of the sheet feed opening in the sheet transporting direction. This provides simple and reliable feeding of sheets one by one, even when the thickness of the sheets varies.