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US 5,178,506 AGranted
Automatic service apparatus for fast printing
AssigneeIndustria Grafica Maschi, S.r.l.
InventorLuciano Meschi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Automatic service apparatus for fast printers (10) including a store (12) containing reams of papers to be printed, a mechanical arm (16), equipped with pliers (24), movable among a plurality of boxes (14) for drawing reams from the store (12), unpacking and aligning sheets from the ream, depositing one of the reams into a sheet feeding seat of a printer (10), drawing groups of sheets from the output of the printer (10) and transferring the groups to an after-treatment station (60). The pliers can be provided with a static device for aligning the reams.
Claims27
Automatic service apparatus for fast printers (10), comprising:
- a mechanical robot arm (16) including plier means (24) movable among a plurality of positions;
- a store (12) containing at least one ream (R) of paper to be printed and having along one protruding edge thereof a substantially horizontal surface of a predetermined distance, and said robot arm (16) with said plier means being in one of said plurality of positions for drawing said at least one ream (R) from said store (12) at said protruding edge;
- said plier means (24) including a pair of spaced planar members (28, 30) and lateral clamps (36, 38) for defining a box cavity (40) and said robot arm (16) being movable to a second position of said plurality of positions and being inclined upwardly with respect to said cavity (40) for anti-adhesive unpacking operations and alignment of sheets along one edge of said box cavity;
- said robot arm (16) being movable to a third position of said plurality of positions for depositing said ream (R) into a feeding seat of said fast printer (10), and movable to a fourth position of said plurality of positions for withdrawing a prefixed number of sheets outcoming from said fast printer (10) for transfer of said prefixed number of sheets to an after-treatment station (60);
- said plier means including first means for providing said lateral clamps (36, 38) for said cavity (40) and second meass (74, 76) for imparting a vibratory movement to walls of said cavity when said robot arm is in said second position;
- and
- third means (64) for reciprocally moving said planar members (28, 30) towards and away from each other.
4 more elements
In a service printer apparatus comprising,
- a mechanical robot arm (16) including plier means (24) movable among a plurality of positions;
- a store (12) containing at least one ream (R) of paper to be printed and having along one protruding edge thereof a substantially horizontal surface of a predetermined distance, and said robot arm (16) with said plier means being in one of said plurality of positions for drawing said at least one ream (R) from said store (12) at said protruding edge;
- said plier means (24) including a pair of spaced planar members (28, 30) and lateral clamps (36, 38) for defining a box cavity (40) and said robot arm (16) being movable to a second position of said plurality of positions and being upwardly inclined with respect to said cavity (40) for anti-adhesive unpacking operations and alignment of sheets along one edge of said box cavity;
- said robot arm (16) being movable to a third position of said plurality of positions for depositing said ream (R) into a feeding seat of said fast printer (10), and movable to a fourth position of said plurality of positions for withdrawing a prefixed number of sheets outcoming from said fast printer (10) for transfer of said prefixed number of sheets to an after-treatment station (60);
- said plier means including first means for providing said lateral clamps (36, 38) for said cavity (40) and second means (74, 76) for imparting a vibratory movement to walls of said cavity when said robot arm is in said second position;
- and
- third means (64) for reciprocally moving said planar members (28, 30) towards and away from each other;
- said plier means comprising:
- a plier including said two planar members defined by two parallel plates, one of said parallel plates being a first fixed plate (28) and the other of said parallel plates being a second movable plate (30) movable in a direction perpendicular to said first fixed plate (28);
- and
- said first means (36, 38) including said lateral clamps forming two lateral panels (36, 38) rotatable around a hinge axis (57) to contain said ream of sheets (R), at least one of said panels (36, 38) including at least an envelope (41) connected to an air intake (43), said envelope (41) having a plurality of apertures directed to said ream (R) of sheets to convey air jets against an edge of said ream (R) of sheets.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.