Sheet conveyance apparatus

Claim 1

An electrophotographic copying machine comprising: at least one sheet tray for holding a plurality of sheets; a light source for generating exposure light; a photoreceptor for receiving a toner image; scanning exposure means for scanning the exposure light onto a document to be copied, and for forming an image of the exposure light reflected from the document onto the photoreceptor, said scanning means performing the scanning operation for each of the plurality of sheets; means for moving said photoreceptor at a predetermined line speed; registration means disposed along said sheet path for transporting a sheet to said photoreceptor with a registration timing so that a toner image disposed on the photoreceptor is transferred onto the sheet; transport means disposed along said sheet path for transporting a sheet to said registration means; feed means disposed along said sheet path for feeding a sheet out of said sheet tray to said transport means, at a desired feed timing; means for coordinating the sequential operation of said feed means, said transport means and said registration means to transport the sheet at a speed equal to said line speed of said photoreceptor so that a plurality of sheets serially fed out by said feed means are concurrently transported along said sheet path; timing means for generating a timing reference signal in response to the scanning operation of said scanning exposure means; and control means for controlling the feed timing of said feed means and the registration timing of said registration means in response to the timing reference signal of said timing means so that said feed means feeds a sheet out of said sheet tray in response to the timing reference signal generated in response to the scanning operation for a previously fed out sheet, said control means including an initial timing means for supplying the timing reference signal before a predetermined number of sheets are fed to said sheet path at an initial stage of continuous copy operation.