GB2330578A

GB2330578A - Apparatus for orientating tickets

Info

Publication number: GB2330578A
Application number: GB9722352A
Authority: GB
Inventors: George David Day
Original assignee: THORN TRANSIT SYSTEMS INT
Current assignee: THORN TRANSIT SYSTEMS INT
Priority date: 1997-10-24
Filing date: 1997-10-24
Publication date: 1999-04-28
Also published as: GB9722352D0

Abstract

Apparatus for orientating used tickets comprises a surface 2 and a barrier 1 overlying the surface, a drive 3 for rotating the surface relative to the barrier, and a housing 4 having an inlet 5 and an outlet 6 which houses the barrier and the surface. Tickets fed from a hopper in a jumbled fashion into the inlet engage with the surface and rotate with it until they encounter the barrier, only tickets having a major surface in the plane of rotation of the surface pass between the surface and the barrier to the outlet, tickets having other orientations being hindered by the barrier. The barrier preferably comprises resilient brush members (Fig 2) having ends in light contact with the surface.

Description

APPARATUS FOR ORIENTING LAMINAE This invention relates to apparatus for orienting laminae, and particularly, though not exclusively, to orienting rectangular tickets or cards to be parallel to a reference plane with one of the long edges parallel to a reference surface.

As the world population grows it becomes increasingly more important to conserve natural resources and minimise waste. As an example, instead of simply disposing of tickets after making a journey on public transport or visiting a cinema it is desirable to be able to recycle (preferably to reuse) old tickets.

Old tickets or cards are usually recovered from receptacles jumbled up with an almost random orientation. The task for persons wishing to reuse such tickets is first to perform an initial sort so that the randomly oriented tickets can be stacked parallel to a given plane with one of their long edges against or close to a reference surface.

One known way of performing this sorting/orienting operation is to feed the jumbled tickets into a large hopper which has a wide opening at the top and which tapers to a narrow opening at the bottom. The tickets are encouraged to assume the preferred orientation by vibrating the hopper until one or more tickets have the correct orientation to pass through the narrow opening in the correct orientation.

This known apparatus has the disadvantage however, that jamming occurs on a regular basis. When a jam occurs the apparatus must be cleared manually which is costly to perform. The vibrating hopper is also noisy.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided apparatus for orienting laminae as defined in the claims. The apparatus can provide the advantages of reduced jamming and quiet operation compared with known vibrating conical hoppers.

Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying schematic drawings, in which Figure 1 shows a plan view along the axis of rotation of a first embodiment of the apparatus.

Figure 2 shows a cross-section of the apparatus of Figure 1 along the line XX', Figure 3 shows a cross-section of the apparatus of Figure 1 along the line YY'.

Figure 1 shows apparatus for orienting laminae (20) comprising a surface (2) and a barrier means (1) adjacent and overlying a part of the surface, drive means (3) for rotatably moving the surface relative to the barrier, and a housing (4) having an inlet (5) and an outlet (6) which houses the barrier and the surface, the inlet being arranged relative to the surface such that laminae which are fed in an un-oriented condition into the inlet are caused or permitted to rotate with the surface towards the barrier means, the barrier means being arranged to co-operate with the surface to cause or permit laminae oriented generally parallel to and in engagement with the surface to pass between the barrier and the surface towards the outlet, the barrier being adapted to hinder the passage of laminae having other orientations.

In the present example the rotatable surface is provided by a flat circular turntable (21) having a spindle (10) which is supported by a bearing (not shown) and is driven to rotate by an electric motor (12). The spindle is preferably centrally mounted and is preferably inclined at an angle to the horizontal. Angles of between 20 and 60 degrees are particularly convenient. In the present example the angle chosen is 45 degrees to the horizontal, the turntable is 45 cm in diameter, and the surface rotates at 1.6 Hertz. The angle is preferably chosen such that tickets moving towards the outlet have a component of their velocity in an upward vertical direction. This arrangement helps to prevent laminae building up at the barrier as laminae not in engagement with the surface will tend to fall back from the barrier in use.

The inlet (5) is preferably positioned adjacent the outlet (14) of a bulk hopper (15) for receiving oriented laminae such as tickets or cards from the hopper in operation, as shown in Figure 3. In the present example the laminae are urged into the inlet by gravitational force.

The rotatable surface of the turntable in the present example is coated with a layer of a material (2) which has a high coefficient of friction, such as rubber provided with a matt finish. The rotatable surface is mounted in the housing. The outlet comprises an opening in the housing which lies in the plane of rotation of the surface. In the present example the opening is located at the end of an elongate exit passage located tangentially with respect to the direction of rotation of the rotatable surface. The passage is fabricated from material such as stainless steel ducting having a low coefficient of friction. The cross-sectional area of the passage tapers towards the outlet such that at the outlet the opening has a lateral dimension in the plane of the exiting lamina comparable to the width of the lama.

The barrier means in the present example comprises a brush having resilient bristles, the free end of the bristles being in light contact with the rotating surface in use. The barrier means preferably extends along a radius of the circular turntable. Alternative embodiments of the barrier means include a dam or squeegee or wiper, or a comb or rake. The barrier may be rigid or resilient, but the use of a resilient barrier is preferred. The barrier may be spaced a small distance from the rotating surface, for example by a gap generally equal to the thickness of the laminae to be oriented. The gap may be adjustable to suit laminae having different thicknesses or other properties. The barrier means and surface may be biased towards one another in use, either resiliently or otherwise (for example by using a weight on the barrier). The barrier means may comprise more than one barrier. For example, the barrier means may comprise two brushes each lying along a radius of the turntable with an angle of about 30 between them.

In the embodiment shown in Figure 1 guide means (16) is provided between the barrier means and the outlet at a given location adjacent the surface, the guide means co-operating in use with a rectangular lamina rotating with the surface which has passed the barrier means to orient the lamina such that a longer edge of the lamina lies along a tangent to the direction of rotation at the given location, and to direct the motion of the lamina along said tangent towards the outlet. In the present example this guide means comprises a comer of the wall forming a passage 17 leading to the outlet 6. As an alternative this guide means may comprise one or more resilient members each having a free end adjacent the surface in use. For example, the guide means may comprise a brush as described above being used as a barrier, the guide means extending approximately parallel to a tangent to the edge of the rotatable surface and partly overlying the surface.

In use, not all the tickets or cards which pass under the barrier will actually exit via the outlet during a given revolution of the rotatable surface. If they fail to enter the exit passage first time they will continue to rotate with the rotating surface, sliding progressively further towards the edge of the rotating surface until they eventually enter the exit passage and leave the apparatus.

In a practical lamina sorting arrangement the apparatus described above would typically only form a first subsystem of the complete system. After the laminae are sorted as previously described they may for example be guided towards a ticket carriage which keeps the sorted rectangular laminae parallel to one another and having a long edge parallel to a reference surface. In such an arrangement there are only four possible orientations possible for a lamina - orientations obtainable from a given orientation by a rotation of a half turn about either a) the long axis of the lamina, or b) the short axis of the lamina, or a combination of the two turns in succession, starting with either turn a) or turn b) and followed by the other. There are many known sub-systems which are commercially available which can perform this last part of the process to give rectangular laminae of a desired single orientation.

Claims

CLAIMS 1. Apparatus for orienting laminae, comprising a body having a surface and a barrier means adjacent and overlying a part of the surface, drive means for rotating the surface relative to the barrier, and a housing having an inlet and an outlet for housing the barrier and the surface, the inlet being arranged relative to the surface such that laminae which are fed in an oriented condition into the inlet are caused or permitted to rotate with the surface towards the barrier means, the barrier means being arranged to co-operate with the surface to cause or permit laminae oriented generally parallel to and in engagement with the surface to pass between the barrier and the surface towards the outlet, the barrier being adapted to hinder the passage of laminae having other orientations.
2. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which the barrier means comprises one or more resilient members each having a free end adjacent the surface in use.
3. Apparatus as claimed any preceding claim in which the outlet comprises an opening in the housing, which opening lies in the plane of rotation of the surface.
4. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim for orienting rectangular laminae in which guide means is provided between the barrier means and the outlet at a given location adjacent the surface, the guide means co-operating in use with a rectangular lamina rotating with the surface which has passed the barrier means to orient the lamina such that a longer edge of the lamina lies along a tangent to the direction of rotation at the given location, and to direct the motion of the lamina along said tangent towards the outlet.
5. Apparatus as claimed in claim 4 in which the guide means comprises one or more resilient members each having a free end adjacent the surface in use.
6. Apparatus as claimed in claim 4 in which the guide means comprises a part of the housing.
7. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim in which the coefficient of friction between a given lamina and the surface is sufficiently low and/or the speed of rotation of the surface is sufficiently high that the lamina slides towards the edge of the rotating surface in use after passing between the barrier means and the surface.
8. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim in which the housing tapers towards the outlet.
9. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim in which the barrier means comprises a brush having a plurality of bristles, the free end of at least some of the bristles being in light contact with the surface in use.
10. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim in which the barrier means and the surface are spaced apart from one another and adapted such that their relative spacing may be set to given values.
11. Apparatus as claimed in any previous claim in which the barrier means and the surface are biased towards one another in use.
12. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim in which the inlet is connected to a feed hopper for un-oriented laminate.
13. Apparatus for sorting un-oriented laminae having an apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim and means to further sort the resulting oriented laiidnae.
14. Apparatus for sorting and/or orienting laminae substantially as described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings.