Patent GB-746700-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to printing machine
IPC: B41L45/00
Filed: 1954-03-08
Abstract: 746,700. Addressing and like machines. ADDRESSOGRAPH - MULTIGRAPH CORPORATION. March 8, 1954 [March 25, 1953], No. 6672/54. Classes 100 (2) and 100 (4). A printing-machine of the kind wherein printing plates having identifying means associated therewith are passed one by one to a sensing station and then to a printing station comprises an inking platen at the sensing station to ink the plates while they are at rest at the sensing station, and a reciprocable sensing mechanism movable towards and away from the printing plates to sense the identifying means, the platen and sensing mechanism being operated in timed relation to the feed means for the printing plates. The printing plates D, Figs. 2 and 15, pass from a magazine M through three guide channels in succession to printing position, and while in the first channel each plate is stopped at a sensing and inking station, where the plate is inked by an ink-ribbon and a platen 212, and identifying tabs 120 are sensed by sensing pins 525 in a sensing head SH. The sensing head SH, Figs. 14 and 15, comprises an outer holder 406, an inner holder including flanged plates 420, 421, and a handle 422 secured to a block 425 slidable in and out of the holder and serving to retain the pins 525 and to allow them to be removed and replaced in desired positions. The sensing head is reciprocated up and down on a guide-rod 501 by a rock-shaft 157, which also operates the platefeed mechanism. The tabs 120 rest on a grooved support plate 510, the pins 525 being aligned to pass into the grooves in the absence of tabs. Inking-mechanism; ink-ribbon, mechanism.- An ink-ribbon IR, Fig. 2, is wound between spools 275, 276, the lower run passing between a printing-plate D at the sensing station and the inking platen 212, Figs. 2 and 15. The run of the ribbon is slightly oblique with respect to the length of the printing-plate. Ink is supplied from a series of vertically adjustable bottles 109 having wicks 112 resting on a distributing roller 113 which rests by gravity on the spool 275, the frame 104 carrying the mechanism being pivoted on a shaft 106. Inking of the plate is effected by vertical reciprocation of the platen 212 controlled by the rock-shaft 157 by means of a crank drive to a shaft 250 carrying multi-lobed cams 251 actuating rollers 215 at either side of a carriage plate 206 to which the platen is adjustably secured by an adjustable screw 205 and adjustable levelling screws as 203A, 203C. The plate 206 is part of a carriage 201 attached by pins 201P to guide arms 236U, 236L on shafts 235U, 235L, the downward movement of the platen being resisted by springs 231. The spools are rotated intermittently by pawls 375, 376, Fig. 5, carried on a pawl feed plate 360, which is reciprocated by a spiral cam 315 on a shaft 316 driven intermittently in alternate direction by a rack-and-pinion drive controlled by the rock-shaft 157. Only one pawl is in operative engagement with its ratchet wheel 275R or 276R, and reversal of the ribbon is effected by the vertical movement of a plate 381 either by a manual shift bar or in response to the ribbon tension when one spool is almost empty. The spools can also be manually rotated by a key acting on shafts 330, 340.