GB317147A - Apparatus for sorting letters, packets and other articles - Google Patents

Abstract

317,147. Strathern, A. G. May 18, 1928. Letters and the like, systems of transmitting and delivering. -Apparatus for sorting letters comprises superposed endless bands upon a driving pulley, the upper flights of the bands being spaced apart and extending horizontally within a housing opposite sorting stations where letters are placed upon the bands to pass to delivery shoots at the return bends of the bands. Fig. 1 shows the front end, and Fig. 2, the delivery end, of a double-sided apparatus. Fig. 3 is a central section, and Fig. 6 shows details of the delivery shoots to which the letters pass. Superposed bands 2 are wrapped on driving pulleys 1, and the upper flights of the bands diverge over anti-friction rollers, extending to the delivery end of the apparatus over vertically spaced shelves 3, Fig. 3. At the delivery end the bands pass vertically downward between rollers 5, 12, jockeyrollers 14 carried by nuts being movable by keyactuated spindles 21 to tighten or slacken the bands, Fig. 7. The return flights 2a pass horizontally over shelves 6, Fig. 3, The sorting stations comprise grids 7 at spaced points opposite the upper flights, the grids 7 presenting staggered rows of slots 8. Each slot 8 registers with a band so that letters passed through the slots are carried by the bands to delivery shoots 24 at the delivery end of the apparatus. The bars above the slots have inclined front faces imprinted with the destination of the letters. Each shoot 24 is formed with an endless conveyer 25 which draws the letters to fingers 28 or discs 27 carried by the lower conveyer rollers. As the letters fall on to the conveyers 25, projections 30, Fig. 6, on the delivery nozzle of the shoot, engage them as shown and turn them over so that all the letters are deposited flat on the conveyers 25. The letters are stacked at the bottom of the shoot, and the rotating fingers 28 lift the stack so that the last arriving letters pass to the bottom of the stack. Belts 37, moving in troughs 38 at each side of the apparatus, are geared to the main drive, and convey the letters to the sorters working at the grids 7, and letters &c. which are too bulky for insertion in the slots 8 are placed by the sorters on an overhead conveyer belt 40 working in a trough 41. These letters are returned by the belt 40 to the front end of the apparatus through a shoot 42. Glass panels 48 are arranged at the sides of the grids 7. In a simpler construction than that shown, a single set of superposed bands pass over a single driving pulley, the sorting stations being preferably arranged at both sides of the apparatus.