Patent GB-366289-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to address-printing machines
IPC: B41L47/58
Filed: 1931-02-11
Abstract: 366,289. Printing-machines. ADREMA MASCHINENBAUGES, 62, Alt Moabit, Berlin. Feb. 11, 1931, No. 4267. Convention date, Feb. 11, 1930. [Class 100 (ii).] Addressing-machines; stopping and tripping arrangements. -In addressing-machines of the kind in which the selection of the printing-plates to be printed from depends upon the order in which they are passed through the machine and is effected by means of a feeler device co-operating with a perforated control card, band, or the like, which is intermittently advanced and rests on a conductive surface whereby the feeler may close a circuit to energize an electromagnet controlling the impression, the circuit includes an electromagnet adapted to close a switch arranged in the circuit of the control magnet. As shown applied to a machine of the type in which address-plates 8, Fig. 1, are extracted from a magazine 3 and are moved in succession into printing position beneath a platen 11 carried by a rocking arm 10, a card 33, provided with rows of control positions and perforated as required, is wrapped around an intermittently-rotatable drum 21, and a feeler 38 moved step by step across the drum controls an electromagnet 14, which, in known manner, controls the movement of the platen 11 relatively to the arm 10 into operative position. The peripheral surface of the drum 21 is electrically conductive, and is connected through a ring 23, Figs. 2 and 10, and a contact 22 to one pole of a current supply, and the contact 38 is connected to the other pole, whereby, when the feeler passes through a perforation and contacts with the drum, an electromagnet 63 is energized and its armature 65 closes contacts 66, 68 so as to energize the magnet 14 thus causing an impression to be printed ; where, however, the perforations correspond to skipping, a cable 71 is plugged in at 70 instead of 69 so that movement of the armature 65 by separating the contact 66 from a contact 67 cuts off current to the magnet 14. A normallyopen main switch 17 is temporarily closed by the arm 10 during each upward and downward movement thereof. The card 33 is provided at each end with perforations engaging a row of pins on the drum, and a triangular clamping- bar 35 fitted on the pins is secured in position by catches 36, Fig. 2. The drum is rotated by pawls 26, 27, Fig. 3, carried by a pivoted bar 29 connected by a Bowden cable 72 to the lower end of a pivoted lever 73, Fig. 1, connected by an extensible slotted bar 76 to the arm 10, whereby, on the upward stroke of the arm, the bar 29 is raised, and, on the downward stroke, a spring 30 returns the bar to normal position so as to rotate the drum ; the bar 76 may be uncoupled from the arm 10 to allow rotation of the drum by actuating the lever 73. The cable 72 may, alternatively, be connected to a lever 7 actuating the usual feed slide 5 so that when, to provide repeat printing, the addressplate feed is interrupted, no rotation of the drum takes place. The feeler 38 is fixed to an arm 38<1>, Figs. 2 and 3, attached to a carriage 39, which is slidably mounted on a rod 41, and is connected by a band 59 to a spring drum 60, and a finger 47 arranged adjacent to the feeler is connected to a plate 43, which is pivoted at 42 to the carriage and carries pawls 50, 51 alternately engaging a ratchet 52 on the carriage to allow step-by-step movement thereof as in a typewriter escapement, the plate 43 being rocked when the finger 47 rides over the bar 35 after each complete rotation of the drum. The control mechanism may be combined with the usual multiple-switch selection mechanism controlled by tabs &c. on the address-plates, three circuit arrangements being described. (1) The switch mechanism is connected in parallel with the control mechanism so that printing is effected from the plates selected by the selection mechanism in addition to those selected by the card 33. (2) The switch mechanism is interposed between the plug 69 or 70 and the magnet 14 so that printing is effected only from those plates which are selected simultaneously by both selection mechanisms. (3) The switch mechanism is connected in parallel with the circuit 21, 23, 24, 38 controlling the magnet 63 whereby address-plates which the card 33 would allow to print may be skipped. The machine may be stopped so that the synchronism of the addressplate feed and the drum feed may be checked, by interposing, after a run of plates corresponding to each rotation of the drum, a blank plate, which, in known manner, operates stopping-mechanism ; this has no effect on the ordinary working of the machine, as, owing to the interposition of the bar 35, there is a double interval between the first and last perforations in each peripheral row.