Patent GB-209760-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in and relating to electric sorting machines for perforated cards
Filed: 1924-01-11
Abstract: 209,760. Bull, F. R. Jan. 13, 1923, [Convention date]. Statistical machines; sorting cards. -In an electrically-operated machine for sorting perforated statistical cards wherein the deflectors of the sorting pockets are operated at appropriate times by a timing device according to the perforations in the cards, the timing device comprises a rotating part with one or more series of steel pins, ten pins to a series, these pins sliding upon a stationary guiding annulus so that when contact is made through a hole in a card being read, an electromagnet is energized to cause an appropriate pin to fall through a gap in this annulus and to be carried on below the annulus so as later to close a particular series of contacts controlling the appropriate deflector. The cards are fed by the picker 2 to the rollers 3 and past the reading brushes 4 and on to a band conveyer 5 which carries them past the sorting pockets t9 - - t0 and their deflectors f9 - - f0. A cylinder 37 keyed to a shaft 36 carries six series of ten steel pins i which, as the shaft rotates, move over a stationary annulus 30 having a short gap which is filled partly by the tooth 33 on the armature of the magnet 34 and partly by an inclined surface 35 extending from the tooth 33 downwardly and under the annulus. Thus pins i9 - - i0 pass one point on the annulus synchronously with the movement of a card past the reading brushes 4, and when contact is made through a hole in a card the magnet 34 is energized, the tooth 33 is drawn to the left and a pin resting on this tooth and corresponding to the value of the card perforation drcps by its own resiliency through the gap and passes on under the annulus 30. On the underside of this stationary guide 30 at the points p0 - - p9 are ten springs 38 adapted to be acted upon by those pins i below the annulus so as to close ten contacts 40, 41 on the base plate 32, Fig. 5. A. plate 42 rotating with the cylinder 37 carries six knobs 43, one under each pin i9, adapted to close ten contacts 44 at points p<1>0 - - p<1>9 on the baseplate 32. Each contact 40 is in series with the corresponding contact 44 and the corresponding deflector to the sorting pocket. The cylinder 37 rotates anti-clockwise and the contact 40 at p9, and 44 at p<1>9 are on the same radial line; the contacts 40 at p, and 44 at p<1>8 are staggered by the distance between two consecutive pins i; the contacts 40 at p7, and 44 at p<1>7 are staggered by twice this distance and so on; so that each pin will close its appropriate, contact 40 at the same instant that the knob 43 under the pin i0 closes the corresponding contact 44, thereby completing the circuit which operates the appropriate pocket deflector. In the drawings the pin i8 is below the annulus and as the shaft 36 rotates, the knob 43 for this series of pins will already have closed and opened contact 44 at p<1>9 before the pin i8 closes contact 40 at p9. Continuing, however, this pin will close the contact 40 at p8 at the same moment that the knob 43 closes contact 44 at p<1>8, thus completing the circuit to operate the deflector f8. When the pin i, closes contact 40 at p7 the knob 43 will not have reached the contact 44 at p<1>7 so that the contacts only close simultaneously in the case of those at p8 and p<1>8. At the end of the rotation of shaft 36 the pins are restored to their places above the annulus by the guide surface 35.