Back to results
US 2002/0117528 A1Published application
Lottery ticket dispenser transport mechanism
AssigneeInterlott Technologies, Inc.
InventorEdmund F. Turek
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An improved arrangement for a lottery ticket or other article dispenser system includes a direct drive coupled to a drive mechanism such as a motor and feed and discharge rollers. The feed and discharge rollers transport a stream of articles such as lottery tickets which are serially joined together along lines of weakness such as perforations or the like. Coupling the feed and discharge rollers to the common drive mechanism reduces and minimizes the need for calibration and setup for the operation of the dispenser system. Additional features of the invention include a rack and spur gear arrangement for movement of the burster wheel across the path of the tickets and platens arranged and configured in the burster system to improve the bursting quality and operation.
Claims30
A system for separating individual, planar articles joined together along a line of weakness comprising:
- a transport mechanism for feeding the articles along a dispensing path;
- a separator located along the dispensing path by which adjacent articles are separated from one another;
- at least one rotationally driven feed roller contacting the articles at a location along the dispensing path upstream of the separator to advance the articles toward the separator;
- at least one rotationally driven discharge roller contacting the articles at a location along the dispensing path downstream of the separator to discharge the articles from the separator;
- and
- a drive mechanism operatively coupled to both the feed and discharge rollers, the discharge and feed rollers each being rotationally driven by the drive mechanism and cooperating to hold the articles while the separator separates the pair of adjacent articles.
3 more elements
A lottery ticket dispenser comprising:
- a transport mechanism for feeding the lottery tickets along a dispensing path, each of the lottery tickets being joined to an adjacent lottery ticket by a line of weakness;
- a separator located along the dispensing path by which adjacent lottery tickets are separated from one another;
- at least one rotationally driven feed roller contacting the lottery tickets at a location along the dispensing path upstream of the separator to advance the lottery tickets toward the separator;
- at least one rotationally driven discharge roller contacting the lottery tickets at a location along the dispensing path downstream of the separator to discharge the lottery tickets from the separator;
- and
- a drive mechanism operatively coupled to both the feed and discharge rollers, the discharge and feed rollers each being rotationally driven by the drive mechanism and cooperating to hold the lottery tickets while the separator separates the pair of adjacent lottery tickets.
3 more elements
A lottery ticket dispenser comprising:
- a transport mechanism for feeding the lottery tickets along a dispensing path, each of the lottery tickets being joined to an adjacent lottery ticket by a line of weakness;
- a burster wheel that translates across the dispensing path proximate the line of weakness between adjacent lottery tickets to thereby separate the adjacent lottery tickets from one another;
- at least one rotationally driven feed roller contacting the lottery tickets at a location along the dispensing path upstream of the burster wheel to advance the lottery tickets toward the burster wheel;
- at least one idler feed roller contacting the lottery tickets at a location along the dispensing path upstream from the burster wheel and cooperating with the feed roller to position and advance the lottery tickets passing between the idler feed roller and the feed roller to the burster wheel;
- and
- at least one rotationally driven discharge roller contacting the lottery tickets at a location along the dispensing path downstream of the burster wheel to discharge the lottery tickets from the burster wheel;
- at least one idler discharge roller contacting the lottery tickets at a location along the dispensing path downstream from the burster wheel and cooperating with the discharge roller to accept and advance the lottery tickets from the burster wheel, the lottery tickets passing between the idler discharge roller and the discharge roller;
- and
- a drive mechanism operatively coupled to both the feed and discharge rollers, the discharge and feed rollers each being rotationally driven by the drive mechanism and cooperating to hold the lottery tickets while the burster wheel separates the pair of adjacent lottery tickets, wherein the drive mechanism comprises a motor with a drive shaft coupled to a drive gear, the drive gear meshing with a feed gear coupled to the feed roller and a discharge gear coupled to the discharge roller;
- wherein the discharge gear is smaller than the feed gear to produce a higher rotational velocity to the discharge roller relative to the feed roller.
7 more elements
A method of dispensing lottery tickets comprising the steps of:
- passing a plurality of lottery tickets connected in a fanfold stream along a dispensing path, a pair of adjacent the tickets being separable from each other along a line of weakness therebetween;
- feeding the lottery tickets toward a feed roller along the dispensing path;
- separating adjacent tickets from one another along the line of weakness with a separator located downstream from the feed roller;
- discharging the lottery tickets from the separator with a discharge roller located downstream from the separator;
- and
- rotationally driving both the feed and discharge rollers from a single drive mechanism.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.