Patent ID: 6994220

Claim:
A mail sorting machine comprising: a feeder that receives a stack of incoming mail pieces and outputs the mail pieces one at a time in a vertical position; a scanner which receives mail pieces from the feeder and scans each mail piece in a vertical position to read sorting information thereon; a transport device which conveys receives mail pieces from the scanner including: (a) a deflector, the deflector defining a substantially semicircular path through which the transport device transports mail pieces, the deflector further defining an input end and a discharge end of the transport, the deflector being configured to turn mail pieces received by the device from a first transport direction substantially aligned with the input end to a second transport direction substantially aligned with the discharge end; (b) a first, vertically oriented, endless belt configured to travel along the substantially semicircular path in contact with the deflector from the input end to the discharge end of the transport device; (c) a second, vertically oriented, endless belt configured to travel along the substantially semicircular path from the input end to the discharge end, the first endless belt contacting the second endless belt adjacent to the input end and carrying the second endless belt around the path to the discharge end of the transport device; (d) at least one guide member, the guide member forming a path for mail pieces fed to the transport device into the input end of the transport device and between the first and second endless belts; and (e) a horizontal conveyor configured to receive the bottom edge of mail pieces entering the input end of the transport device and convey the mail pieces along the guide member and between the first and second endless belts, the first and second endless belts conveying the mail pieces through the path from the input end to the discharge; a reorientation section including a reorientation conveyor which receives the scanned mail pieces from the transport device and re-orients each mail piece from a vertical to a horizontal position, and a splitter conveyor which receives the scanned mail pieces from the reorientation conveyor, including a movable divert conveyor that moves between a first position to convey a mail piece to an upper conveyor flight and a second position to convey a mail piece to a lower conveyor flight; a bin module which receives the scanned mail pieces from the splitter conveyor, which bin module includes upper and lower bin sections, wherein each bin section comprises a row of bins and an associated series of tiltable conveyor sections comprising the upper and lower conveyor flights, which tiltable conveyor sections are actuated to drop a mail piece into the associated bin; and a control system which tracks each mail piece as it moves from the scanner to the bins and controls operation of the divert conveyor and the tiltable conveyor sections so that each mail piece is sorted to a predetermined bin based on the sorting information read by the scanner.