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US 5,112,037 AGranted
Front feeder for large size mail handling machine
AssigneePitney Bowes Inc.
InventorRussell W. Holbrook
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A front-end feeder for a mixed mail handling machine employs a raised deck portion spaced from a registration wall for the mail pieces. The raised deck portion, preferably a plurality of fixed steps of increasing height, provides additional tilting and guidance of wide mail pieces to prevent mis-registration.
Claims6
An improved feeder apparatus for stacked articles of different sizes comprising:
- (a) a hopper region for receiving a stack of the articles, said hopper region comprising:
- (i) a deck along which the articles are to be fed in a downstream direction,
- (ii) a registration wall alongside the deck and substantially parallel to the downstream direction,
- (b) transport means in the deck for moving the articles in the downstream direction,
- the improvement comprising
- (c) guiding means associated with the deck for guiding only the larger width articles toward the registration wall to prevent misregistration of larger width articles, wherein the guiding means includes a fixed plurality of steps at different heights, each higher step being spaced further from the registration wall.
3 more elements
In an improved front end feeder apparatus for stacked mail articles of different sizes comprising:
- (a) a hopper region for receiving a stack of generally flat mail pieces, said hopper region comprising a deck having a first flat region, and a registration wall adjacent one side of the flat deck region and defining a downstream direction substantially parallel to the registration wall for the mail pieces, and
- (b) transport means in the hopper region for moving the mail pieces toward the registration wall while simultaneously moving them in a downstream direction,
- the improvement comprising:
- (c) said deck having a second fixed non-flat region remote from the registration wall that extends at a higher level than said first region adjacent the registration wall, whereby mail pieces spanning both the first and second regions are subject to a guidance force thereby providing an additional force for guiding them towards the registration wall wherein misregistration of larger size mail articles is prevented
- (d) said second non-flat region having a fixed plurality of steps of increasing height and increasing spacing from the registration wall.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.