Patent ID: 6955123

Claim:
A printing machine, comprising: a drive unit; rollers having a rotational movement and including a first sheet transport cylinder and a second sheet transport cylinder; a first sheet gripper mounted on said first sheet transport cylinder; a second sheet gripper mounted on said second sheet transport cylinder; said first and second grippers executing cyclical movements having phases and being synchronized with said rotational movement of said rollers and driven, together with said rollers, by said drive unit; said first and second grippers having respective spring elements, said spring elements being stressed in one of said phases of the cyclic movement and relieved of stress in another of said phases of the cyclic movement, a respective one of said phases having a first one of said spring elements stressed being synchronized with a respective one of said phases having a second one of said spring elements relieved of stress; said second sheet transport cylinder having a position defined for accepting a sheet to be printed from the first sheet transport cylinder and a position defined for surrendering the printed sheet and, on a path from said surrender position to said acceptance position, said second sheet gripper being actuatable for executing one of a movement stressing said spring element assigned thereto and a movement relieving the stress, while said first sheet gripper being actuatable for executing one of a closing movement relieving the stress on said spring element assigned thereto and a closing movement stressing said spring element.