Patent ID: 8911049

Claim:
A method to activate a processing device which processes a surface of a moving, web-shaped work piece at regular intervals, wherein a predetermined time duration passes between a respective activation signal of the processing device and the processing on the surface of the web-shaped work piece, comprising the steps of: sensing the movement of the web-shaped work piece with an incremental sensor that generates work pulses, and generating a respective control pulse if a predetermined number of work pulses that correspond to a predetermined path of the web-shaped work piece has been generated, said path corresponding to said regular intervals to process the surface of the work piece, such that a series of control pulses is generated; repeatedly detecting a number of the work pulses in a respective time interval that corresponds to the predetermined time duration; generating the activation signals wherein each activation signal is respectively generated at each control pulse of the series of control pulses, and the activation signals being offset forward in time relative to the respective control pulse corresponding to the number of work pulses that have been detected in a preceding time interval; outputting the activation signals to the processing device; the respective time interval that corresponds to the predetermined time duration being provided via synchronization pulses with a corresponding time interval; and the number of work pulses that have been generated between a last interval between two synchronization pulses being measured by means of a measurement shift register, wherein said measurement shift register being clocked with the work pulses, and given presence of a synchronization pulse a measurement pulse is set at an input of the measurement shift register, which measurement pulse is shifted by one position at every work clock, wherein at a next synchronization pulse a bit pattern located in the measurement shift register is copied into a buffer register and a content of said measurement shift register is deleted.