Patent GB-1087971-A (GB)
Title: Card feeding, transporting and stacking mechanism and control
IPC: G06K13/103
Filed: 1964-10-15
Abstract: 1,087,971. Sheet feeding and delivering apparatus. SOROBAN ENGINEERING Inc. Oct. 15, 1964 [Oct. 15, 1963; Nov. 12, 1963; Oct. 5; 1964], No. 42130/64. Headings B6B and B6H. Sheet delivering apparatus.- Punched cards fed from a storage bin 1, Fig. 1, by a pivotal suction picker 2 into a reader 3 are delivered from the' reader into a storage bin 14 by a conveying assembly 12 comprising a roller coacting over part of its periphery with endless belts trained over its periphery or overthree guide rollers. Stacker bin is provided with a base plate 17 having a portion perpendicular to a side wall 121 and an inclined portion which is perpendicular to a pivotal side wall 122 inclined at at angle of 10 degrees to the side wall 121 so that cards entering the bin 14 through a gate opening 16 enter the bin having divergent walls 121, 122 under the resilient action of the trailing end of the cards which are then subsequently diverted rearwardly of the formed stack to provide space for the subsequently delivered cards. Cards are fed into the bin by the endless belt 120 which co-operates frictionally with a gate 13 mounted pivotally on a pin 131. To cope with cards of different lengths the bin 14 is provided with a pivotal intermediate side wall 50 which normally forms a part of the baseplate 17 and the outlet of the reader 3 is associated with a pair of nip rollers 34, 32 normally out of engagement with one another and the side wall 50 and rollers 34, 32 are brought into their respective operative position by displacement of knob 35 attached to a movable side wall 22 of the storage bin 1 to which wall is attached an endless belt 29 which rotates rollers 55 and 42 to pivot the wall 50, on the one hand, and operate gear mechanism 40, 40a of the nip rollers 34, 32 to bring the latter into engagement, on the other hand. Detecting faulty sheets.-To prevent accumulation of punched cards in front of the gate 13, Fig. 1, due to damaged edges or to irregular feeding of cards between the reader 3 and gate 13 the latter two are associated with photocells 8, 15, respectively which, when only two cards are delivered along the path between the reader and the gate 13, send signals along lines 66, 67 (Fig. 3) to an AND-gate 63 which is enabled when in addition starting and timed feed signals are supplied by lines 64, 65 respectively. Photo-cells 8, 15 generate negative signals which are amplified in amplifiers 70, 75 and passed through differentiators 71, 76 which operate a two-stage counter 80, the output of which operates a flip-flop 83 enabling the input line 65 and the output of differentiator 76 enabling an intermediate AND-gate 91 which actuates flip-flop 99 whose output enables line 67. Presence of two or more cards disables the counter 80 and jamming of cards at gate 13 pivots the latter in conjunction with the photo-cell 15 out of alignment with source 15a, thereby disabling one or the other of lines 66 or 67 and stopping the delivery of cards. Sheet feeding.-Punched cards are fed from the bin 1, Fig. 1, having an adjustable side wall 26 by an oscillating feed rocker 2, Fig. 6, which comprises perforated endless belts 214 mounted on rollers 216, 217 (Fig. 7). The former of which are driven. Belts pass over a suction box 223, mounted on a tube 237, Fig. 6, which is attached to tube 234, mounted in a head 233, supported on an oscillatable plate 231 of a motor oscillatable through a predetermined angle. Cards resting against plate 7 are riffled by compressed air supplied from manifold 242 to apertures 239 and exhausted through apertures 241. To feed the cards from the bin 1 the perforated belts 214 are pivoted to pass through slots 213 into engagement with the lowermost card, double feed being prevented by compressed air jets 253 issuing from block 208 and the differential pressure created by them. During intervals between feedings jets 253 exhaust directly through vents 252 to prevent interaction with the cards in the bin.