Patent ID: 7870880

Claim:
An infeed system for feeding an array of workpieces linearly downstream to a processing machine with at least one or more movable cutting elements or movable guiding elements, wherein the processing machine is an optimizing planer, a planer, a planer-matcher, or a moulder, the infeed system comprising: a workpiece feed path, operatively coupled to the processing machine, the workpiece feed path including means for translating the array of workpieces downstream toward the processing machine; and means, operatively coupled to the workpiece feed path, for setting the size of gaps between successive workpieces in the array of workpieces being translated linearly into the processing machine; wherein the means for setting the size of gaps is configured to set the gaps to provide enough time for at least one of the movable cutting elements or the movable guiding elements to be moved a position corresponding to the next successive workpiece in the array of workpieces.