System and method for directly feeding paper to printing devices
AssigneeRoll Systems, Inc.
InventorH. W. Crowley
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for directly feeding unstacked paper sheets into a printing device having a moving image conducting element with a plurality of images placed thereon for transfer to the paper and having a wait station for controlling the timing of paper transfer to the image conducting element. A continuous stream of paper sheets is directed to a printing device wait station. The rate of the movement of the paper sheets into the wait station is controlled to present each paper sheet at a predetermined rate relative to the operating speed of the image conducting element. The spacing of the leading edge of each paper sheet, as it is presented to the wait station, is made relative to the linear spacing between consecutive images on the image conducting element.
Claims40
A method for directly feeding a continuous stream of unstacked sheets into a printing device through a port of the printing device adapted for utilizing precut sheets from a stack and having a moving image conducting element with images for transfer to sheets placed thereon, said method comprising the steps of:
- directing a continuous stream of sheets from a source external of said device port for feeding precut sheets to a printing device wait station that drives each sheet into contact with an image conducting element at a time that enables printing of a predetermined image thereon, said directing of sheets including bypassing of an integral sheet stack feeder storage unit and sheet deshingler that normally feeds sheets from a stack to the port and said directing being operated by a means for recognizing a printing device request independent of image conducting element and wait station control;
- controlling a rate of movement of said sheets directed to said port to present each sheet to said wait station at a predetermined time relative to an operating speed of the image conducting element of said printing device;
- and
- regulating spacing of a leading edge of each sheet as the sheet is directed to said port, said spacing being a function of a linear spacing between consecutive images on said image conducting element.
A system for directly feeding a continuous stream of unstacked sheets into a printing device having a port of the device adapted for utilizing precut sheets from a stack and having a moving image conducting element with images for transfer to sheets placed thereon, said system comprising:
- means for directing a continuous stream of sheets from a source external of said device port for feeding precut sheets to a printing device wait station that drives each sheet into contact with an image conducting element at a time that enables printing of a predetermined image thereon, said means for directing including means for bypassing an integral sheet stack feeding storage unit and sheet deshingler that normally feeds sheets to said port from a stack, said means for directing including operating means for recognizing a printing device print request independent of controls from said image conducting element and wait station;
- means for controlling said means for directing to enable a rate of movement of said sheets into said port at a predetermined time relative to an operating speed of the image conducting element of said printing device;
- and
- means for regulating spacing of a leading edge of each sheet in said means for directing as the sheet is presented to said port, said spacing being a function of a linear spacing between consecutive images on said image conducting element.
A system for feeding sheets to a printing device having a moving image transfer element and having a port adapted for normally receiving sheets from a stack and transferring said sheets to said image transfer element, said system comprising, means for recognizing a printing device print request, a means for feeding sheets to the port at a constant rate and with equal spacing between each of the sheets during operation thereof and including means for bypassing an integral sheet storage stack and a stack sheet deshingler that normally feeds sheets to said port, means for operating said means for feeding in response to said means for recognizing, said means for operating being independently controllable from said image transfer element, means for controlling sheet feed to said image transfer element from said means for feeding so as to regulate spacing between leading edges of successive sheets to make the spacing constant and equal to the distance between leading edges of successive images on said image transfer element, and source means for intermittently transferring sheets to said means for feeding in response to the operation of said means for feeding.
In an apparatus for printing sheets having an image transfer element that transfers images to input sheets at a predetermined rate, an image transfer element feed unit that operates in response to operation of the image transfer element and controls the rate and positioning of each input sheet relative to the image transfer element so as to feed each sheet in proper synchronization with the image transfer element and that signals a misfeed condition in response to the sensing of an absence of a sheet at the feed unit at a time in which the feed unit operates to feed a sheet, a port into which sheets are input successively to engage the feed unit, said sheets being delivered to said port exclusively from a storage stack of sheets by means of a stack deshingler, the improvement comprising:
- print instruction recognition means for generating an operation signal in response to a printing device print request;
- means positioned at and extending upstream in a feeding direction of the port, for directing a stream of at least two sheets having predetermined spacing and having a constant rate of movement directly to the port while bypassing the storage stack and sheet deshingler, said means for directing operating in response to the operation signal of the print instruction recognition means;
- means for controlling the rate of operation of the means for directing so that a leading edge of each sheet reaches the port at a time synchronized with a rate of operation of the image transfer element;
- means for regulating spacing between succeeding leading edges of each sheet carried by the means for directing to correspond to spacing of images on the image transfer element;
- source means, positioned upstream of the means for directing, for intermittently transferring sheets to said means for directing in response to the operating of said means for directing;
- and
- means for operating each of the means for directing, means for controlling and means for regulating by means of an internal programmed control routine.
A system for feeding sheets to a printing device having a moving image transfer element and having a port adapted for exclusively receiving sheets from a stack and a stack sheet deshingler and feeder for transferring said sheets from said stack to said image transfer element at a time that synchronizes each transferred sheet with printing of an image by the transfer element, said system comprising:
- means for determining a start of operation of the image transfer element;
- conveyor means for concurrently carrying and transferring at least two spaced sheets in succession directly to the port of the printing device, each of said sheets being fed at a predetermined rate and spacing along said conveyor means relative to each other, said conveyor means including bypass structure means for bridging a distance within said printing device between said printing device sheet stack deshingler and said image transfer element;
- independent controller means including a preprogrammed control routine for driving said conveyor means at the predetermined rate, said controller means beginning operation in response to a signal from said means for determining;
- and
- means for cutting and inputting sheets to said conveyor means from a leading end of a continuous web source, said means for cutting and inputting including sheet leading edge detect means for holding and releasing each sheet onto said conveyor means at a time that maintains the predetermined spacing of sheets upon said conveyor means, said predetermined rate and spacing between sheets upon said conveyor being proportional to a rate of printing of said image transfer element and a spacing between images upon said image transfer element.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.