GB1157740A - Photographic Cassette Loading and Unloading Machine - Google Patents

Abstract

1, 157, 740. Loading and unloading cassettes. EUROGRAPH GESELLSCHAFT FUR PHOTOMECHANIK. Oct. 24, 1967, No.48247/67. Heading G2A. A light-tight housing 1 is used for loading a cassette 4 in one position, and unloading it in another position. As shown, the cassette, after being inserted into the housing in a horizontal position through a slot in the housing wall, is located on a holder 3 which can turn about a horizontal pivot 2. On turning into the inclined position shown in full lines, by means of a crank outside the housing, the cassette is ready for loading. Its movement is limited by an abutment 13, and pivoted abutment arms 22 engage with abutments 23 on the upper part of the cassette to displace it slightly. This causes a gap at the entrance to the cassette, through which an unexposed photographic sheet 24 may be inserted. The sheet is fed from the top of a stack 25 by a motor-driven roller 28, and passes between conveyer rollers 33 into the opened cassette, into which it slides under its own weight. A microswitch feeler 35 registers when the loading is complete, and causes the holder and cassette to tilt back to the horizontal position. It may now be taken out through the wall slot and exposed in an appropriate apparatus. After exposure, the cassette can be unloaded by sliding it back into the housing on to holder 3, and tilting the holder down to the position shown in broken lines, until it reaches abutment 14. A further abutment 15 engages against the front edge of the upper part of the cassette and so again it causes it to be slightly displaced so as to open the front. The exposed sheet within can now slide out under its own weight, and in the arrangement shown passes straight into a developing section 18, and thence to a collector platform 19. The cassette itself is shown in more detail in Fig. 9. It comprises a frame 40 in which slides a metal plate 42 covering the exposure aperture 41, and in which is rigidly mounted a glass plate 43. The photographic sheet, when in the closed cassette, is pressed against the rear face of plate 43 by a pressure plate 44 (position of Fig. 10, not shown). Bent leaf-springs 45 engage at one end in pockets 47 in plate 44 and at the other end are fastened to a slide 49 which is displaceably guided in the rear face of frame 40. The slide is normally spring-urged into the "cassette closed" position of (Fig. 10), in which plate 44 is pressed against plate 43. When the cassette is tilted into either the loading or the unloading position, either the abutment means 22 or 15 engage with the slide 49 and push it to the left from the position of (Fig. 10) to the position of Fig. 9. This causes the springs 45 to pass through straps 51, fast with the frame, which bend them and hence retract plane 44 away from plate 43. Through the gap between them the photographic sheet can now slide freely in or out.