Apparatus and method for singling sheet material

A method for singling sheet material in a singling apparatus comprising:

• a sheet store for receiving a sheet stack of sheets for singling,
• a singling device comprising a separation roller, said separation roller comprising partially on its rotational surface a contact area to periodically contact and/or transport a sheet for separation out of the sheet stack with rotation of the separation roller in a transport rotary direction;
• and
• a position indication device coupled to the separation roller and comprising an alignment indication arranged in correlation with angular alignment of the contact area and indicating alignment of the contact area to the sheet;
• wherein the method comprises the steps:
• a) sensing a position of the alignment indication of the position indication device;
• b) evaluating the position of the alignment indication to determine whether the contact area is in contact with the sheet;
• c) where the evaluation in step b) determines that the contact area is not contacting and/or not transporting the sheet rotating the separation roller against the transport rotary direction until the separation roller is aligned to a start position, wherein the start position is defined as an angular position in which after starting to rotate the separation roller in transport rotary direction it is assured that when the contact area contacts the sheet the separation roller will have a predefined minimum angular velocity;
• d) rotating the separation roller in the transport rotary direction to start singling the sheet from the sheet store.