Patent GB-763971-A (GB)
Abstract: 763,971. Feeding sheets &c. FREUND, C. R., and TAYLOR. G. R. [trading as PARKFIELD ENGINEERING CO.]. Sept. 28; 1954 [Sept. 28, 1953], No. 26600/53 Class 100(1) [Also in Group XVIII] An apparatus' for feeding an article from a pile of articles, particularly a machine for vending newspapers, hooks or like flat articles, has a carrier platform 15 attached by wires or ropes 17 to two sets of weights 19, 20 that just more than counterbalance the weight of the platform and the pile of articles 16, a pricker carrier 28 that normally rests on the pile of articles and a pawl 58 that engages ratchet teeth 59 on one of the wire pulleys 13 to prevent upward movement of the platform while the pricker carrier lifts and delivers an article, the article thus being free of restraint. As the platform rises, supplementary weights 19b, 20b linked to the main weights successively come to rest on a support and the upward force on the platform is thus kept roughly constant. On insertion of a coin, a switch is closed to energize an electromagnet 42 which then operates contacts 43 to energize an electromagnet 55 and a motor, connected to a driving member 39. The electromagnet 55 engages the pawl 58 with the pulley 13 and the electromagnet 42 also withdraws an abutment 41 so that a spring-loaded claw 37 can engage with one of several pins 40 on the driving member 39 and connect it to a gear 36 meshing with a gear 35 on a driving shaft 23. Rotation of the shaft causes a crankoperated link 49 to pivot a cam 46 so that a frame 24 rotatably carrying the pricker carrier 28 is raised from an adjustable stop 24a and, at the same time, a chain drive 34 rotates the carrier. The article, held by two straight prickers 30 and a spring hook 31, is raised and moved forward into the mouth of a C-shaped roller 44, which has a knurled portion co-operating with a spring-loaded roller 45 so that the article is drawn off the hooked pricker 31 and delivered to an opening 11 where it can be grasped by the purchaser. A flap 60 normally covering the opening 11 has previously been lifted by a D- shaped cam 48 on the shaft 23. During rotation of the shaft 23, a cam 53 (not shown) operates contacts 54 .(not shown) to de-energize the electromagnet 42, thus restoring the abutment 41 so that the driving claw 37 is withdrawn after one revolution and re-setting contacts 43, the circuits for the motor and the electromagnet 55 being, however, maintained through contacts 54. After the cam 46 has raised the frame 24 to its highest position it is held there by the tangential engagement.of one of three curved abutments 51 with a fixed peg 52 until, as the shaft 23 ceases to rotate, the abutments 51 and 52 disengage and allow the frame to fall so that the prickers penetrate the next article. The carrier 28 has a sufficiently large radius for the prickers to penetrate at the depressed middle of the top of a pile of folder articles. Cam 53 has meanwhile operated the contacts 54 to stop the motor and de-energize the electromagnet 55 for the pawl 57. A number of cams or fins may be provided on the shaft 23 to engage the raised sides of an article, such as a folded newspaper, and press them downwardly so that they pass freely into the ejection rollers. The Provisional Specification describes also an electromagnetic brake replacing the pawl 57, a single barbed pricker replacing the three prickers 30, 31, a threelobed cam on the shaft 27 replacing the cam 46 and curved abutments 51, a solid D-section roller replacing the C-shaped roller 44, and a roller on the frame 24 in front of the ejection rollers for pressing down the folded edge of a newspaper.