Belt-like material-feeding apparatus and method of operating the same

Abstract

A belt-like material-feeding apparatus for continuously feeding a belt-like material to a treating unit, comprises a splicing unit which splices a second belt-like material to a first belt-like material being fed to the treating unit to thereby switch the belt-like material being fed to the treating unit from the first belt-like material into the second belt-like material, an accumulating unit which is arranged between the splicing unit and the treating unit and is capable of temporarily accumulating the belt-like material, and a control unit which, prior to the splicing operation of the splicing unit, increases the amount of accumulation of the belt-like material to be larger than the amount of accumulation of the belt-like material during the steady operation and, during the splicing operation, releases the belt-like material from the accumulating unit to decrease the amount of accumulation of the belt-like material.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.