GB1242667A - Apparatus for automatically reading and sorting documents - Google Patents

Abstract

1,242,667. Feeding and delivering sheets. ING. C. OLIVETTI & C. S.p.A. 15 July, 1969 [30 July, 1968], No. 35663/69. Heading B8R. [Also in Division G4] General.-In a document sorting-machine, documents are fed from the front of a pile by a stripping belt 11 which is tensioned across a front plate 92, Fig. 2a, a belt 14 prevents double feeding, and the pile is supported on a platform which is vibrated by an electromagnet 94. Pile supports.-Inclined platform 13 is mounted on rubber blocks and is vibrated transverse to the pile 3 by magnet 94. Thrust plate 91 slides along a rod 98 under the action of a constant thrust spring 99. Sheet separators.-The stripping belt 11 is accommodated in a groove of a roller 107, the periphery of which stands proud of the belt on each side and has a higher coefficient of friction than the belt 11 so that it takes over feed of the documents and accelerates them. Roller 107 may have a rubber surface with transverse incisions. Both roller 107 and belt 11 are driven intermittently so as to feed another document only when the preceding document has reached a given position (see Controlling &c.). Preventing double feed.-A pair of bands 14 are fixed at one end and are tensioned and held against the raised edges of roller 107 by springs and pulleys, the friction between bands 14 and the documents being less than that between roller 107 and the documents. In Fig. 7, bands 14 are manually wound from a supply spool 125 to a take-up spool 126 to replace a worn section. A pawl and ratchet 132, 133, releasable by a handle 135, prevent unwinding of spool 125 by rotation of roller 107. Sheet forwarding.-Drive rollers 15-19 (which could be replaced by a drum) act through apertures in a curved guide 25. Aligning rollers 20-24 are mounted on spindles which are normally oblique to the feed direction to bias the documents towards an aligning slot in guides 25, 26. Each roller 20-24 is mounted in a fork 138, Fig. 5, the pivot 139 of which is urged towards the associated roller 15-19 by a lever 142 and spring 143. The angular position of fork 138 is determined by a cam 152 on a manually-adjustable slider 147. When a document edge has been aligned against the guide slot, forks 138 tend to rotate against the action of spring 32 to align rollers 20-24 with rollers 15-19 and prevent damage to the document edge by sustained pressure. Delivering sheets, Fig. 2b.-Each pocket 70, 71 has a continuously-driven conveying belt 186, 187, and the pocket length is manually adjustable by a knob 74 coupled to belts 166, 167 to which walls 72, 73 are attached. Each end plate 171, 172 is attached at one end to a spring-biased slidable bearing 175, 176 and at the other end to a roller 173, 174. Filling of pocket 70 is detected by a microswitch 182. Pocket 70 includes a spring 189 to decelerate documents as they enter the pocket, and a spring blade 188 which slightly raises the stack above base-plate 88. Bars 168, 169 space the inserted documents away from belts 186, 187 to avoid wear. Controlling &c.-A switch 170, Fig. 2b is actuated in accordance with the length of pocket and document selected by knob 74 (see above) so as to operate solenoid 183, Fig. 2a, so that pressure roller 20 is disengaged for long documents, and to select one or other of document-detecting photo-cells 75, 76. These photo-cells control a document feed clutch so that when the selected photo-cell is obscured by a document, the belt 11 is stopped until the document trailing edge has passed cell 77. A timing circuit signals a jam condition if a document does not reach the cell 75 or 76 within a given time from the preceding document, a counter checks the allowed number of documents, depending on length, between cell 75 or 76 and a cell 77, and, depending on the document length and the pocket 70 or 71 selected by the sensing station 7, a time check is also made on each document as it travels between cell 77 or 78 and cell 79 or 80. Cells 79, 80 also serve to detect jamming of a document as it enters the selected pocket. Overlapping documents are detected by an amplifying lever system 44, 45 and a photo-cell 47.