Pull-foot sheet feeding device
AssigneeBell & Howell Company
InventorsNorwood E. Tress, Winston A. Orsinger
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In a mechanism for feeding individual sheets of paper separately from a stack of paper sheets, a separating device exposes an edge of an outer sheet and a "pull-foot" is oscillated between the separated sheet and a remaining stack. A roller is concurrently moved into position to pinch the separated sheet between the pull-foot and the roller. The pull-foot is oscillated away from the stack and, in doing so, the outer sheet is pulled from the stack by interaction between the pull-foot and the roller.
Claims16
A sheet finding mechanism for feeding individual sheets separately from a stack comprising:
- a main hopper assembly for supporting a stack of sheets;
- means for drawing an exposed edge of an outer sheet away from the remaining stack;
- a pull-foot reciprocally movable between a first position in which it is between the remaining stack and the edge of the outer sheet which has been exposed and a second position in which it is away from the hopper assembly;
- roller means arranged to cooperate with the pull-foot, for continuously pinching the outer sheet between it and the pull foot while rolling on the sheet as the pull-foot moves away from the remaining stack and pulls the outer sheet from the remaining stack;
- and
- a further means for relatively moving said roller means and said pull-foot laterally toward each other in timed relation with reciprocations of said pull-foot for pinching the outer sheet between them.
The sheet feeding mechanism of claim wherein the pull-foot is equipped with a high-friction sole to increase sheet pinching cooperation with the roller means.
A method of feeding individual sheets from a held stack of sheets comprising the steps of:
- supporting a stack of sheets in a hopper assembly;
- drawing an exposed edge of an outer sheet away from the remaining stack;
- reciprocating a pull-foot into position between the remaining stack and the drawn exposed edge of the outer sheet;
- relatively moving a roller means toward the pull-foot to cooperate with the pull-foot so that the exposed edge of the outer sheet is pinched between the pull-foot and roller means;
- and
- reciprocally driving the pull-foot away from the stack while maintaining the outer sheet pinched between the pull-foot and roller means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.