Patent ID: 7891649

Claim:
A sheet feeder for supplying a conveying device with folded signatures from a stack of folded signatures, the sheet feeder comprising: a gripper drum including at least one gripper to individually remove respective signatures from the stack; a stopping device including a stop element peripherally positioned on the gripper drum to stop the signatures and to align the signatures with the fold of the signatures in a forward direction; an opening device to open the individual signatures, to deposit the signatures on the conveying device, and to reverse the forward direction of the signatures; a delay element including a surface moving in the same direction as the rotation of the gripper drum and at a conveying speed less than a speed of the gripper drum, the delay element further including at least one ring positioned concentric to the gripper drum; and a press-on device arranged upstream of the stop element to press the signatures released by the gripper against the delay element and to slow down the individual signatures upstream of the stop element to an approximate speed of the delay element prior to the signatures hitting the stop element.