Patent ID: 7478721

Claim:
An apparatus for conveying sheet-type, flat items, comprising: a lower feed-in conveyor in a feed-in region to convey and successively feed in the flat items in a conveying direction, a lower discharge conveyor in a discharge region, following the feed-in region in the conveying direction, and having an upper belt section to convey and discharge the flat items; a joint upper belt conveyor extending across the feed-in region and the discharge region and having a lower belt section which is positioned above the lower feed-in conveyor such that a top of a flat item positioned on the lower feed-in conveyor comes in contact with the joint upper belt conveyor; an overlap device to generate an overlapping flow of flat items in the discharge region; a control unit for switching the apparatus between first and second operating states, wherein the control unit activates the overlap device in the first operating state and deactivates the overlap device in the second operating state; and a first operating mechanism connected to the control unit and operative to move the lower belt section of the joint upper belt conveyor that faces the lower discharge conveyor between (i) a first position in the first operating state to form a gap between the lower belt section of the joint upper belt conveyor and the upper belt section of the lower discharge conveyor to prevent the joint upper belt conveyor from making contact with the flat items positioned on the lower discharge conveyor, and (ii) a second position in the second operating state to form a gap between the lower belt section of the joint upper belt conveyor and the upper belt section of the lower discharge conveyor, so that only a single flat item can respectively be introduced between the lower discharge conveyor and the joint upper belt conveyor, wherein the underside of the flat item rests on the lower discharge conveyor and the top makes contact with the joint upper belt conveyor.