GB483665A - Improvements in or relating to printing mechanism, applicable to statistical and like machines - Google Patents

Abstract

483,665. Statistical machines. BRITISH TABULATING MACHINE CO., Ltd. Oct. 23, 1936, No. 28842. Convention date, Oct. 25, 1935. [Class 106 (i)] [Also in Group XVI] Relates to a machine for printing on a perforated record card the information represented by the perforations. The cards are fed from a stack by a picker 23, Fig. 1, operated from a driven main shaft 12. Worm gear on the shaft 12 drives a shaft 17 which through a crank 19 and lever 21 operates the picker. The cards pass between driven feed rollers 25 and operate a feeler lever 29 which closes contacts 31, thus initiating the card-reading circuit. Feed rollers 34 then press the card into contact with the drum 33 and as it passes over the drum it is read by brushes 32. Brushes 32 and rollers 34 are mounted on a latched frame 36 and may be swung out of the way. The card is gripped to the drum 33 by fingers 40, Fig, 3, pressed into action by spring plungers 42, and cammed into and out of action by cam faces 43 secured to the machine frame. The drum is rotated by a gear 45, Fig. 2, which is loosely mounted on the axle 44 of the drum and carries a spring-pressed pawl 51 adapted to engage any of three notches in a disc 52 fast to the axle 44. The gear is rotated by a slidably mounted rack 46, reciprocated by a cam 48 on the axle 17. If it is desired to give an extra feed to the card to present the second, rather than the first line for printing, an auxiliary cam 48a is protruded by the action of a cam 54 which has two positions of adjustment on the axle 17. A fixed guide plate 82, Fig. 1, and a moving plate 83 are provided. The plate 83 is carried by a bell-crank and is swung back to leave a gap, through which impression may take place, through a gear 87, Fig. 2, by a cam-operated toothed bell-crank 89. The shaft 44 drives, through gearing, feed rollers 67, Fig. 1, which pass the card from the drum 33 to a stacker, comprising a cam-reciprocated pusher plate 71, and a backing plate 72, urged to the left by a wire 73 and weight 74. When the stacker is full contacts 76 in the motor circuit are opened by a projection 75. A cam-operated brake arm is arranged to arrest the drum 33 at the end of its movement.