US 3,944,210 AGranted

Ticket counter and endorser

AssigneePennsylvania Research Associates, Inc.

InventorGeorge P. McInerny

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Abstract

Apparatus for counting and endorsing documents and more particularly tickets dimensionally within the preferred range from 1 inch by 2 inches to 2 inches by 5.5 inches and in the thickness range from two mils to 14 mils. The stack of tickets is placed in an in-feed hopper and is engaged by an eccentric bottom feed picker to drive preferably the bottom-most document toward a drive wheel and stripper wheel assembly to permit documents to pass only in single file beyond the stripper device. The documents are fed in single file between cooperating belts until they are picked up by acceleration means which abruptly accelerates the documents to provide a gap therebetween suitable for counting purposes. The documents are driven into a stacker wherein they are stacked in the same order in which they were loaded into the in-feed hopper. A stacker arm provides pressure on the building stack which pressure is continually reduced as the stack increases in height to assure a smooth stacking operation. The stacker back plate is adjustable to accommodate the documents of different lengths. A single drive belt is utilized to feed, drive and convey documents to the acceleration means. The documents may be endorsed by selectively moveable endorsing means arranged to prevent "back printing." A novel split retainer mechanism is utilized to facilitate fast removal and replacement of the endorser, ink roller and the endorser drum, while at the same time providing the capability of retaining and locking these elements in place during use.

Claims19

Dependent claims

Apparatus for feeding sheets arranged in a stack in a predetermined direction, which sheets are intermixed in said stack and may be of different sizes, shapes, thickness, finishes and quality of condition, said apparatus comprising an infeed hopper;

said hopper including first and second stationary plate means for supporting said stack;
said first plate means engaging the first sheet to be fed from said stack and said second plate means engaging the leading edges of at least some of the sheets in said stack, wherein the leading edges of said sheets are those edges which first pass out of said hopper when moving in said predetermined direction;
a closed loop feed belt and roller means for supporting said belt so that a portion thereof extends between the downstream end of said plate and the lower end of said second plate and is positioned beneath said stack;
means driving one of said roller means for moving said belt so that said portion moves toward the lower edge of said second plate;
the downstream end of said belt portion and the lower edge of said second plate defining an outfeed opening for said hopper;
said first plate means having a first surface portion whose downstream end lies adjacent said outfeed opening and whose upstream end is remote from said outfeed opening, and a second inclined surface portion having a downstream end joined to the upstream end of said first surface portion with the junction defining an angle of greater than 90.degree., and an upstream end remote from said first surface portion wherein the upstream end of said second surface portion remote from said junction lies a spaced distance from the plate of said first surface portion;
the upstream end of said first plate means second surface portion engaging the trailing edges of the sheets near the bottom of said stack as the sheets are fed through the outfeed opening whereby these sheets are relieved of the weight of the rearward end of the stack;
said second plate means having an inclined supporting surface aligned at an angle relative to an imaginary vertical line to remove a substantial portion of the weight of the stack from the forward ends of the bottom-most sheets;
said roller means including means for periodically and regularly moving said belt in a reciprocating manner toward and away from said stack to initially engage the intermediate portion of the bottom document and simultaneously jog the documents in the stack to facilitate movement of the documents for simultaneously moving the trailing edges of documents downstream along said first and second surface portions and away from the remainder of said stack so as to remove the rearward weight of said stack from said sheet engaging the first plate means to facilitate movement of said sheet through said outfeed passageway.

6 more elements

Means for feeding documents comprising:

first and second rotatable rollers;
means for rotating one of said rollers;
a closed loop feed belt entrained about said first and second rollers and moved by the rotating rollers in a first direction;
a third eccentric idler roller positioned between said first and second rollers and driven by said moving feed belt to reciprocally move said feed belt transverse to said first direction;
stripper roller means including a stripper roller positioned adjacent said first roller;
means for rotating said stripper roller in a direction reverse that of the first roller positioned adjacent thereto;
the run of said feed belt extending between said eccentric roller and said first roller being adapted to move documents towards said first and third rollers which cooperate to pass only one document at a time through the nip between said feed belt and said stripper roller;
plural roller means positioned adjacent said first and second rollers and additional closed loop belt means entrained about said plural roller means for engaging documents passing said nip and moving between said first and second rollers to define a path together with said feed belt, along which documents are passed;
accelerating means adjacent the output end of said path for accelerating said documents as they enter the acceleration means to form a gap between a document entering the acceleration means and the document next fed thereto;
said feed belt having a continuous groove;
said stripper roller extending into said groove to form a curvature in documents as they pass therebetween.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.