Document turning station
AssigneePitney Bowes Inc.
InventorsJohn J. Bogdanski, Gerald C. Freeman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A document handling device that is adapted to turn a document such as a letter or other flat mail piece through an angle of substantially 90 degrees in its own plane by means of a plurality of pairs of feed rollers, the latter being respectively driven at different effective speeds which are proportional to the respective distances of said feed roller pairs from a predetermined axis located adjacent the lower leading corner of said document. The geometry of the system is such that the lower edge of the document before and after being turned is adapted to move along one substantially horizontal planar surface. Provision is made for enabling at least some of said feed roller pairs to feed a document without turning the latter through said 90 degree angle.
Claims6
A device for selectively turning serially fed documents, said turning device comprising:
- guide means for establishing a document feed path, said guide means including a plate having a planar surface on which an edge of each of said documents is slidably movable;
- document drive means disposed along said feed path for turning a selected document through an angle in its own plane, said document drive means including a plurality of axially aligned feed rollers having substantially the same diameter, said drive means also including a plurality of axially-aligned idler rollers cooperatively peripherally aligned on a one-for-one basis with said feed rollers;
- and
- selectively operable means for actuating said drive means, said selectively operable means including means for rotating the respective feed rollers at peripheral speeds proportional to the respective distances of said feed rollers from a predetermined axis whereby said drive means turns said selected document fed thereto, and said selectively operable means also including means for rotating the respective feed rollers at the same peripheral speed whereby said drive means slidably moves documents fed thereto on said plate without turning said documents.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.