Sheet-material separator and feeder system
AssigneePitney Bowes Inc.
InventorsRobert Irvine, Harry E. Luperti
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A high speed sheet-material separating and feeder system is disclosed which handles a wide range of mixed thicknesses and sizes of envelopes and sheets. The sheets are stacked at one end of the system, and are fed to a dual separator mechanism having two separator members. The dual separator mechanism has a first separator member which is adjusted for thicker sheets of the range, and a second separator member which is adjusted for thinner sheets of the range. Sheets leaving the dual separator are ejected one at a time, in seriatim, where they then can be fed to other sheet handling equipment for processing.
Claims5
An automatic material separating and feeding system separating a range of inter-mixed thicknesses of sheet-like material and feeding the separated sheet-like material in seriatim to a material-handling device, said material separating feeder system comprising:
- means defining a material handling feed path;
- stacking means disposed at the beginning of said feed path for stacking a quantity of intermixed thicknesses of sheet-like material;
- a feeding means disposed adjacent said stacking means for feeding a portion of said quantity of material towards a first separating means;
- and
- a dual separator mechanism comprising a first separating means disposed along said feed path downstream from said stacking means for separating thicker sheet-like material of said range of inter-mixed thicknesses, and a second separating means disposed adjacent said first separating means for separating thinner sheet-like material of said range of inter-mixed thicknesses, said second separating means having a common drive roller with said first separator means, said second separating means feeding the separated material towards a material-handling device, said second separating means working cooperatively with said first separating means such that said sheet-like material is fed to said material-handling device one sheet at a time in seriatim.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.