GB936269A - Apparatus for interrupting a stream of sheets - Google Patents

Abstract

936,269. Delivering sheets; feeding sheets. TIME Inc. March 19, 1962 [April 3, 1961], No. 10370/62. Class 100 (1). [Also in Group XXX] In conveying apparatus comprising a set of parallel conveyer belts 12 for moving a series of sheets 49, means for interrupting the movement of the series comprises a plurality of fingers 19 aligned with the spaces between the belts 12 and rigidly fixed to a common shaft 21 lying underneath the upper run of the belts, a stop plate 33 overlying the upper run of the belts opposite the fingers 19 and attached to support arms 28 which are freely rotatable around the shaft 21 for a limited angular distance, the stop plate being biased by spring or other means towards the lower of its limiting positions, and means, e.g. a pneumatic cylinder, for rotating the shaft 21 whereby the fingers 19 can move to engage the stop plate 33 and drive it to its upper limiting position, determined by a pair of stops 42. The stream of sheets is nipped between the fingers 19 and the plate 33, as shown, and raised out of the plane of its original path of travel. The upper part of the stream adjacent to the obstruction is confined by a pair of belts 51 covered with polytetrafluorethylene, which are anchored at 53 and pass between the sheets 49 and the plate 33. Set screws 56 are used to adjust the position assumed by the belts 51 when movement of the sheets along the conveyer belts is interrupted. In order to support the sheets that are nipped between the fingers and the plate 33 a pair of support wires 46 is pivotally mounted on the ends of the outer pair of fingers 19, the opposite ends of the wires being supported on a pair of plates 48 over which they are free to slide. Interruption of the stream of sheets may be occasioned by the occurrence of a jam in the moving stream, by the need to divert the stream from one series of conveyer belts to another, or by any other operation requiring a gap in the stream.