GB963620A - Improvements in and relating to devices for automatically assembling sheets of paper - Google Patents

Abstract

963,620. Collating sheets. R. DEZOPPY. March 16, 1962 [March 23, 1961], No. 10110/62 Headings B6B and B6H. A sheet collating machine comprises a number of compartments a, Fig. 1, each of which carries a stack f of identical sheets. The compartments are formed of telescopically arranged upper and lower portions which can be relatively adjusted so as to accommodate different lengths of sheet. The sides of the compartments are also adjustable so as to accommodate sheets of different widths. Fingers 21 connected at their lower ends to a bar 23 and actuated through a lever 26 by a cam 30 reciprocate within the compartments a and skids 25 at the upper ends thereof carrying friction strips 34, Fig. 4, engage the topmost sheets of the stacks in the compartments so as to feed the sheets upwards out of the compartments, the skids 25 swinging about pivots 33 and thereafter sliding over the surface of the adjacent sheet when the fingers make their downward strokes. If a skid fails to pivot owing to its not having fed a sheet from the corresponding compartment or to the sheet not having been engaged in a sheet assembling device mounted above the compartments, the continued engagement of a feeler 37, Fig. 4, carried by the skid with a contact 36 carried by the corresponding finger 21 causes the machine to stop and the emission of a warning signal. The machine is similarly stopped and a warning emitted if two or more sheets are fed simultaneously from a compartment, this being detected by a feeler-roller 65, Fig. 8. Separation of sheets from the stacks f may be facilitated by air blasts intermittently directed at the edges of those sheets at the tops of the stacks, means being provided to ensure that the blasts remain so directed as the height of the stacks decreases. As a sheet leaves its compartment its leading edge is directed by guides 41, Fig. 8, into the nip 46 between a roller 40 located above the compartment and the lower run of a set of driven endless belts 47 which is urged into contact with the rollers 40 by downwards biased rollers 48. The belts 47 carry the sheet to the left, Figs. 1 and 8, over a platform formed by the upper surfaces 45 of the guides 41 and substantially tangent to the upper parts of the peripheries of the rollers 40. As the sheet passes over the next roller 40 it overlaps the trailing end of the sheet which has been fed from the adjacent, left-hand compartment so that an overlapped stream comprising one sheet from each compartment is formed on the platform. On leaving the left-hand end of the platform the stream passes between an upward biased roller 56 and the belts 47 and is delivered into a jogging device shown only in Fig. 14. The roller 56 may be replaced by two wheels 62, Fig. 9, in which case an end roller 55 supporting the belts 47 carries a series of blades 61 which co-operate with the wheels longitudinally to bend and thereby to stiffen the stream. Receivers; knocking up devices; delivering in counted batches.-The jogging device comprises a pair of horizontal shelves 80, 81 which carry vertical walls 83, 86 respectively, and fixed end and side walls 84, 85. The stream of sheets is delivered into the jogging device in the direction indicated by the arrows 82, the leading edge of the stream abutting the end wall 84 so that the stream is formed into a small stack 94, representing a collated booklet, resting on the shelves 80, 81. The shelves 80, 81 and the corresponding walls 83, 86 are given small lateral movements indicated by the arrows 92 by cam-actuated means so as to jog the stack 94 and are then swung apart, as indicated by the arrows 93 so as to allow the jogged stack to fall into a receiver d, Figs. 1 and 8. The shelves are mounted on a carriage 90, Fig. 14, which is movable on the machine frame between left and right hand positions as seen in that Figure. The carriage is moved automatically in the interval between depositing one stack 94 in the receiver d and receiving another so that the pile of stacks in the receiver is staggered. A feeler detects the height of the pile in the receiver d and controls a motor which lowers the receiver as the pile increases. The receiver is counterweighted and, so that the weight to be counterbalanced remains constant, has a number of strings carrying lead beads suspended beneath it; as the receiver descends more weights rest on the ground and their mass is compensated by the mass of the addition to the pile of stacks or booklets in the receiver.