Patent ID: 7165377

Claim:
A method of preparing a postman's walk with mail items including at least one of letters and “large format” flat postal objects, in a single pass of each mail item through a machine, wherein said machine includes: a conveyor for moving in series said mail items over bins of a bin carrousel, said conveyor having switching flaps distributed at regular intervals along the conveyor for directing each mail item towards one of the bins of the carrousel corresponding to a delivery point of the postman's walk; said bin carrousel with bins being disposed in a loading position respectively in register under corresponding switching flaps of the conveyor, each bin in a loading position being held inclined relatively to a vertical direction and having a top opening which is in register with a corresponding switching flap and a bottom opening which is held closed; and a bundling system under said bin carrousel for bagging the content of successive bins of the bin carrousel respectively in successive bags of a string of bags made from two strips of plastic material unreeled stepwise by presser wheel means and closed by heater blades means, wherein said method comprises the steps of setting said bin carrousel in a stationary state so that the bins of the carrousel corresponding to said delivery points are in a loading position in register with the switching flaps of the conveyor, actuating said conveyor for directing by delivery points the mail items through said switching flaps towards the bins in a loading position, when all the mail items of a postman's walk are loaded in the bins of said bin carrousel, a) actuating said bin carrousel to move a current bin over the bundling system and causing automatically the bottom of said current bin to be opened over said bundling system in which a current opened bag is prepared, b) detecting by a cell of said bundling system that mail items pass through the bottom opening of said current bin and in response to said detection, c.1) actuating said bundling system for closing said current bag, c.2) actuating said bundling system for stepwise unreeling said strips of plastic material in order to prepare a new opened current bag in said bundling system, c.3) actuating said bin carrousel for moving a new current bin over said bundling system causing automatically the bottom of said new current bin to be opened over said bundling system, c.4) detecting by said cell that mail items pass through the bottom opening of said new current bin and in response to said detection for said current bin, repeating steps c.1) to c.4) and in response to absence of said detection for said current bin, repeating steps c.3) to c.4).