Terminal dereeling apparatus

A terminal dereeling apparatus for permitting efficient indexing of a carrier strip to a terminating press, said carrier strip comprising a plurality of terminals integral therewith and being wound onto a terminal reel with an interleaf material disposed intermediate adjacent layers of the carrier strip on the terminal reel, said terminal dereeling apparatus comprising:

• terminal reel mounting means disposed in fixed relationship to the terminating press, said terminal reel mounting means comprising a spindle bearing and a shaft rotatably mounted in said spindle bearing, said shaft being dimensioned for receiving the terminal reel thereon, and pressure plate means for exerting braking forces against the terminal reel;
• a rotatably driven take-up reel means for taking up slack interleaf material unwound from said terminal reel;
• photo-optical means mounted in fixed spaced relationship to the terminating press for sensing the presence of terminals on said carrier strip as said carrier strip is indexed toward said terminating press including a light source disposed on one side of said carrier strip and a photodetector disposed in alignment with said light source and on the opposed side of said carrier strip, said light source and said photodetector being disposed relative to said carrier strip for sensing the presence of the terminals mounted on said carrier strip;
• and
• control means operatively connected to said photo-optical means and said terminating press for interrupting said terminating press in response to a pattern of terminals sensed by said photo-optical means which differs from a specified pattern of sensed terminals.