Patent ID: 7168700

Claim:
A sheet feeder apparatus for feeding a supply of sheets of differing lengths during a feed run to a transport assembly, the sheet feeder apparatus comprising: a feed subassembly having a contiguous conveyor with a variable speed drive source, the feed subassembly sequentially feeding sheets from said supply of sheets of differing lengths to the transport assembly; a sensor subassembly for sensing sheets fed by the feed subassembly to the transport assembly; and a control system in communication with the feed subassembly and the sensor subassembly, wherein: said control system determines a length of each successive sheet from the supply of sheets of differing lengths using signals received from the sensor subassembly and varies the speed of the conveyor dependent upon the determined length of each successive sheet, thereby selectively changing the size of a gap between successive sheets being fed to the transport assembly, the supply of sheets includes sheets of at least a longer length and a shorter length relative to each other, and the entire contiguous conveyor selectively operates at least at one of a constant lower speed and a constant higher speed as each successive sheet is being fed, each successive sheet from the supply of sheets is fed by the conveyor at the lower speed for a period of time, and thereafter at the higher speed, to create the gap between successive sheets, and the control system increases said period of time upon detection of a sheet having the shorter length, thereby increasing the size of the gap between successive sheets.