Copying apparatus

Claim 1

A copying apparatus comprising: sheet feeding means (2b) for feeding one sheet after another from a stack (2) of sheets in a feed direction and to a first sheet feed path (5); image forming means (12,13) disposed in said first path for receiving a sheet and for forming an electrostatic latent image, for developing the image and for transfer printing the image on the sheet; fixing means (15) for fixing the image on the sheet, downstream of said image forming means and in said first path; sheet ejecting means (27) at an end of said first path for ejecting the sheet with image and having an ejected sheet tray (28); sheet resupply means (35) with an intermediate tray (34) for receiving the sheet with image and for supplying the sheet with image again to said image forming means over said first path for effecting dual surface copying of the sheet and for forming a multiple image on one side of the sheet; sheet reversing means (17) located downstream of said fixing means and upstream of said sheet ejecting means and said sheet resupply means with respect to the feed direction; a first sheet deflection switch (24) for selectively leading a sheet from said first path to a second path intersecting said first path in which the sheet is subjected to a reversing action by said sheet reversing means, and along said first path in which the sheet is not subjected to a reversing action; and a second sheet deflection switch (25) for selectively leading the sheet from said first and second paths to one of said sheet ejecting means and said sheet resupply means; said first switch positioned upstream of said second switch in the feed direction; said first switch having a first direction for deflecting sheets from said first path to said second path and a second direction for maintaining feeding of sheets along said first path; said second switch having a first position for leading sheets along said first path to said ejected sheet tray whereby sheets are stacked in said tray face down and in order of copying, and for leading sheets that have passed from said first path to said second path and then back to said first path, to said ejected sheet tray whereby the sheets are stacked face up, said second switch means having a second position for leading sheets from said first path to a third path; sheet conveying means for conveying sheets in a feed direction on said third path; a third sheet deflection switch movable to intersect said third path for deflecting sheets into an intermediate tray whereby sheets are resupplied to said image forming means by said resupply means, said third sheet deflection switch movable into a position away from said third path for supplying sheets out of the copy apparatus; whereby sheets deflected by said first switch to remain in said first path and by said third switch to be supplied to said intermediate tray receive dual surface copying and sheets deflected by said first switch to said second path and then back to said first path, and then to said intermediate tray by said third switch have multiple images formed on one surface thereof.