Common Conveyance Roll Pair for Compact Image Forming Apparatus

The patent merges the internal conveyance roll pair and manual conveyance roll pair into a single common conveyance roll pair. This common conveyance roll pair receives sheets from both the internal feeding device and the manual feeding device, eliminating the need for separate conveyance roll pairs and thereby reducing the housing width while maintaining both sheet conveyance functions.

The common conveyance roll pair is designed to perform multiple functions: it conveys sheets from the internal feeding device and also conveys sheets from the manual feeding device. This multi-functional design allows a single conveyance roll pair to replace what would traditionally require two separate roll pairs, thus reducing the overall housing width.

By merging the conveyance functions into a single common conveyance roll pair, the patent achieves compactness without sacrificing sheet handling capacity. The common conveyance roll pair is positioned to receive sheets from both feeding devices, ensuring that the narrowed housing can still handle multiple sheet sources efficiently.

The patent arranges the common conveyance roll pair and the feeding devices in a multi-dimensional configuration within the narrowed housing. The first sheet tray is arranged inside the housing and faces the manual feed tray such that at least a part of the first sheet tray overlaps one end portion of the manual feed tray in a gravity direction, allowing compact integration of multiple functions within the reduced width.