US3674142A - Collating and collecting apparatus - Google Patents
Collating and collecting apparatus Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- US3674142A US3674142A US58938A US3674142DA US3674142A US 3674142 A US3674142 A US 3674142A US 58938 A US58938 A US 58938A US 3674142D A US3674142D A US 3674142DA US 3674142 A US3674142 A US 3674142A
- Authority
- US
- United States
- Prior art keywords
- receptacles
- article
- collating
- rotation
- bins
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Expired - Lifetime
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Classifications
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F7/00—Methods or arrangements for processing data by operating upon the order or content of the data handled
- G06F7/06—Arrangements for sorting, selecting, merging, or comparing data on individual record carriers
Definitions
- Microforms is the general term for many kinds of film carriers having greatly reduced images thereon.
- Aperture cards are business machine type cards on stiff paper stock having a window therein within which or over which a piece of film for carrying images is affixed.
- Still another microform is what has come to be known as microfiche, a piece of film having a plurality of images therein or a transparent plastic carrier having strips of film affixed thereto or enclosed within double sheets of the carrier.
- a standard microfiche has begun to receive wide acceptance. This is a COSA'I'I microfiche having dimensions of 105 mm X 148 mm.
- Reproduction equipment for microfiche of the COSATI type has only recently become available. For large scale reproduction the microfiche must be sorted and collated so that the reproduction equipment operates at optimum efficiency.
- the present invention is designed to be useful in the collating and collecting of microfiche from a microfiche reproducing apparatus although the principles embodied in the invention make it useful for the collecting and/or collating of any kind of article.
- the apparatus of the present invention accomplishes the collating and collecting operations in connection with a reproducing apparatus by means of a novel arrangement of receptacles, bins, or article receiving units in a uniform array substantially helically.
- 100 receptacles or bins are arranged in columns and mounted on a circular platform with the openings of the bins facing outward.
- the bins are arranged so that there is a vertical displacement of one-tenth the height of a bin between the bins in a column and each of the adjoining bins in the adjacent column.
- a helical path on a column at the center of the circular array of bins with the platform or supporting structure connected to the central column so that upon rotation of the platform it will move upward or downward along the helical path, as well as circumferentially.
- the pitch of the helical path or thread is equivalent to the full height of the bins.
- the collator of the present invention is provided with an extremely accurate indexing mechanism of novel design.
- the indexing mechanism is related to the well known Geneva type drive but is so constructed that the drive is fully positive whether the direction is clockwise or counter-clockwise and further the construction of the indexing mechanism is such that there are virtually no alignment problems during assembly. I
- helical arrangement of receptacles or storage bins is not intended to be the sole embodiment of the present invention. It is contemplated that other arrangements of receptacles than circular or helical may be employed, movable together along an axis to permit registry with an article discharge station.
- FIG. 1 is an elevational view in partial section of the collator of the present invention
- FIG. 2 is a plan view of the arrangement of the collecting receptacles
- FIG. 3 is a fragmentary elevational view of the collecting receptacles showing the relationship of adjacent receptacles
- FIG. 4 is a plan view of the indexing plate for the collator.
- FIG. 5 is a fragmentary elevational view of the drive mechanism for the indexing plate.
- the collator of the present invention comprises a series of vertical stacks of bins A arranged in circular form.
- the corresponding bins in the adjacent stacks are displaced vertically from each other so that corresponding compartments in the stacks form a helically tiered arrangement.
- the displacement of adjacent bins is shown more clearly in FIG. 3.
- the bins of compartments 12 will have a face to face spacing S of 1 inch and the displacement between adjacent bins will be S/ 10 since there are 10 vertical stacks A of bins.
- the spacing S is one inch and thus the vertical displacement between adjacent bins is one-tenth inch.
- the stacks A of bins 12 are mounted on a platform 14 which is carried on a central column 16 having a helical thread or track 18 formed on its outside surface.
- the pitch of the helical track 18 is one inch so that one revolution of the platform 14 will raise or lower the platform and its bins one inch.
- the platform is provided with a central ring 20 within which three followers 22 are mounted to extend inwardly to engage the helical thread 18.
- the followers 22 extend from studs 24 equidistantly spaced around the column for maximum support of the platform.
- Extending radially from the central ring 20 are three support arms 26 carrying roller guide assemblies 28 at their outboard ends.
- the roller guide assemblies comprise an inner roller unit 30 and an outer roller unit 32 disposed on either side of vertical guide posts 34. The inner and outer roller units ride up and down the vertical guide posts upon rotation of the structure around the central column.
- the vertical guide posts 34 are mounted on the rotatable indexing plates 36 and are held at their upper end by a cover plate 42.
- the indexing plate has a bearing 38 at its center, the bearing being secured on the central column 16.
- the upper plate 42 has a bearing 40 at its center which is secured to the upper end of the column 16 so that the entire structure rotates freely around the column 16.
- the motive power for the indexing drive comprises a reversible drive motor 44 having a pulley 46 attached to its shaft for driving a drive belt 48 which is connected to drive pulley 50 coaxially mounted to the drive rotor 52.
- a pair of driver rollers 54 On the upper surface of the horizontally positioned drive rotor are a pair of driver rollers 54.
- the driver rollers are rotatably mounted on upright shafts or pins 56 suitably afiixed to the upper surface of the drive rotor.
- the indexing plate 36 has petals 58 which act as cam followers to be driven by the driver rollers 54.
- the petals 58 are separated by slots 60 having a width sufficient to accommodate the diameter of the driver rollers 54.
- the petals or cam followers 58 are formed witha pair of opposed arcuate surfaces 62 which are engaged between the driver rollers 54 so that when the drive rotor 52 revolves the driver rollers 54 move along the arcuate surfaces 62, one of the rollers moving radially inward into the slot 60 while the other roller moves radially outward toward the stub end 64 of the petals.
- each of the petals have a radius R from the center 66 of each petal, the center of rotation of the drive rotor 52 being on the circle whose center is at the center of the index plate 36 and which passes through each of the petal centers 66.
- the reversible motor 44 drives the belt and thus the drive rotor 52 thus rotating the driver rollers 54, each of which in turn engages a succeeding slot 60 in the indexing plate 36.
- the driver rollers 54 are engaged with the arcuate surface 62, the petal is positively locked between the two driver rollers so that the unit cannot go forward or backward. There is virtually no play so that there is provided with this indexing mechanism a positive drive with virtually no backlash in the system.
- the drive rotor 52 is provided with a flat 68 formed by a chordal cutout from the diameter of the rotor in order to accommodate a small, sensitive switch such as a microswitch for determining when the drive rotor is in the position at which the petal is fully engaged between the driver rollers 54.
- a small, sensitive switch such as a microswitch for determining when the drive rotor is in the position at which the petal is fully engaged between the driver rollers 54.
- FIG. 1 Illustrated in FIG. 1 is an entrance conveyor drive comprising a drive motor 70 which rotates a drive belt 72 for driving the lower of a pair of conveyor belts 74 and 76.
- the lower belt 74 receives the articles to be fed to the collator at one end thereof and as the lower belt 74 rotates a gear 78 which is driven by the drive belt 72 and which meshes with a gear 80 on the upper belt 76 causes belt 76 to rotate also so that the articles to be fed pass between the belts and are discharged at the article feeding station 82 and into the bin in registry therewith.
- the feeding of the articles through the conveyor belts is timed so that there is sufiicient period of time between the feeding of each of the articles to index the indexing plate 36 to bring another bin into registry with the article feeding station 82.
- the collator has 100 bins or compartments arranged in stacks of ten each and the indexing plate 36 has 10 petals or cam followers, each corresponding to one of the stacks of bins.
- the helical screw on the center column has a pitch of one inch corresponding to the face to face depth of each of the bins in the stack.
- corresponding bins in adjoining stacks are displaced from each other one-tenth inch so that as the entire platform rotates and moves upward or downward, the bin presented at the point chosen for the article feeding station is always at the identical level.
- Indexing of the collating bins is accomplished by rotation of the drive rotor 180. As the drive rotor rotates the driver roller in the slot causes the indexing plate to rotate and the rotation continues until the second driver roller engages the arcuate surface opposite the slot into which the first driver roller had been engaged. Then for a period of dwell of approximately 36 the petal is positively locked between the opposed driver rollers and the bin corresponding to that locatron is in position for an article to be discharged therein.
- the collating apparatus can be connected with any apparatus for feeding a series of articles to be collated and can be controlled so that the collating apparatus can collate, that is, index as each article is fed seriatim into the article feeding station by the conveying apparatus or the collating unit can be arranged with suitable controls for collecting a series of articles and in such case the unit would remain in position until such time as the required number of articles was collected in one bin and then indexed to the next bin for the articles to be collected therein.
- the collating apparatus is provided with a reversing motor so that the unit can be moved in either direction for the actual collating operation.
- the unit will collate by starting the platform in a raised position and collating as the platform moves downward and then when the last article of the series has been received in its proper bin the platform will remain at that bin for the first of the next series of articles to be placed in the same bin and then the platform moved upward to collate in series so that there is no lost motion by having to move the entire apparatus upward or downward to return to the same bin at which the operation began initially.
- Collating and collecu'ng apparatus comprising: a plurality of receptacles in a helical array and transport means for moving said receptacles past a station for feeding articles into said receptacles by means of a combination of rotation and translation.
- the apparatus of claim 1 including transport control means for controlling seriatim movement of said receptacles past the feeding station by controlling the rotation and translation.
- transport means comprises: power means for rotating the circular array of receptacles, and including an indexing mechanism for stopping the rotary motion of receptacle array at a plurality of preselected locations in registry with the article feeding station.
- a plurality of article receiving units disposed in a substantially hollow cylindrical array, each of said article receiving units having an opening at one end thereof facing outward, a supporting structure carrying said units and mounted for rotation about a central column, said column having a helical track on the circum-. ference thereof, means connected to the supporting structure and engaged with the track so that the structure will move vertically during rotation thereof, and control means for stopping the movement of the structure when a preselected unit is in registry with an article feeding station.
- control means includes an indexing mechanism for seriatim aligning of said article receiving units in registry with the article feeding station.
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- Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
- Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- Collation Of Sheets And Webs (AREA)
Abstract
Description
Claims (6)
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
US5893870A | 1970-07-28 | 1970-07-28 |
Publications (1)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
US3674142A true US3674142A (en) | 1972-07-04 |
Family
ID=22019836
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
US58938A Expired - Lifetime US3674142A (en) | 1970-07-28 | 1970-07-28 | Collating and collecting apparatus |
Country Status (1)
Country | Link |
---|---|
US (1) | US3674142A (en) |
Citations (3)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US3013671A (en) * | 1959-04-03 | 1961-12-19 | Crossley Machine Company Inc | Machine for stacking tile and the like |
US3140009A (en) * | 1961-05-31 | 1964-07-07 | Eastman Kodak Co | Article storage and retrieval device |
US3158287A (en) * | 1963-04-09 | 1964-11-24 | Ibm | Document retrieval system |
-
1970
- 1970-07-28 US US58938A patent/US3674142A/en not_active Expired - Lifetime
Patent Citations (3)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US3013671A (en) * | 1959-04-03 | 1961-12-19 | Crossley Machine Company Inc | Machine for stacking tile and the like |
US3140009A (en) * | 1961-05-31 | 1964-07-07 | Eastman Kodak Co | Article storage and retrieval device |
US3158287A (en) * | 1963-04-09 | 1964-11-24 | Ibm | Document retrieval system |
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Legal Events
Date | Code | Title | Description |
---|---|---|---|
AS | Assignment |
Owner name: CONSOLIDATED MICROGRAPHICS, INC., 4000 MCARTHUR BL Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST.;ASSIGNOR:AM INTERNATIONAL, INC.;REEL/FRAME:003939/0888 Effective date: 19811120 |
|
AS | Assignment |
Owner name: FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION, A CORP. OF CA., CALI Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST.;ASSIGNOR:CONSOLIDATED MICROGRAPHICS, INC.;REEL/FRAME:003967/0650 Effective date: 19811120 |
|
AS | Assignment |
Owner name: CHASE COMMERCIAL CORPORATION 800 WILSHIRE BLVD., S Free format text: MORTGAGE;ASSIGNOR:CONSOLIDATED MICROGRAPHICS, INC., A CA CORP;REEL/FRAME:004211/0328 Effective date: 19830928 Owner name: CONSOLIDATED MICROGRAPHICS, INC. 4000 MACARTHUR BL Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST.;ASSIGNOR:FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION;REEL/FRAME:004201/0230 Effective date: 19811215 |
|
AS | Assignment |
Owner name: ANACOMP, INC., A CORP. OF IN, INDIANA Free format text: ASSIGNS THE ENTIRE INTEREST, AS OF JUNE 10, 1987;ASSIGNOR:CONSOLIDATED MICROGRAPHICS, INC.;REEL/FRAME:005006/0712 Effective date: 19881206 |
|
AS | Assignment |
Owner name: CITIBANK, N.A.,, NEW YORK Free format text: SECURITY INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:ANACOMP, INC.;REEL/FRAME:005274/0054 Effective date: 19880826 |