Paper feeder including auxiliary belts for improving paper feeding

摘要

A paper feeder comprising a roller-belt feeder unit for feeding sheets of paper or the like one by one from a stack thereof to a utilization device and further comprising an auxiliary belt in contact with the feed roller of the feeder unit on its upper half circumferential surface for pressing the leading edge of the lowermost sheet of paper down to the feed roller. The auxiliary belt is substantially parallel at the area of contact to the main belt comprised by the feeder unit to feed the superposed sheet back to the stack and forms at the area of contact with the lowermost sheet an acute angle smaller than another angle similarly formed by the main belt with the lowermost sheet. The coefficient of friction is the greatest for the roller and smallest for the auxiliary belt. The auxiliary belt may be kept still, passively driven by the roller, or positively driven either in the same or in the reversed sense as the main belt.