US 5,401,013 AGranted

Addressing machine feed gap setting

AssigneeBryce Office Systems, Inc.

InventorsBruce E. Hurd, Lawrence F. Eisner

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Abstract

An addressing machine has separator blocks which cooperate with feed rollers to insure proper one-at-a-time feeding of media elements (e.g. envelopes) to a printer within the machine housing. The optimum feed gap between the separator blocks and rollers corresponds to the thickness of the particular envelopes being handled, and is quickly and positively adjusted using a pivoted lever having first and second locking cam surfaces spaced from each other by a release cam surface, the lever pivoted to a mounting block fixed to a front face of the housing which the separator blocks slide with respect to in guided movement. The cam surfaces act through a spring plate which has an opening frictionally receiving the mounting block, and having upwardly tapered ends and a bulge in the middle for engaging the cam surfaces.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A feeding mechanism for feeding media elements one by one from a stack to be further acted upon, comprising:

a housing including components for supporting in a stack media elements to be fed one at a time;
a plurality of feed rollers each having a peripheral surface, and each mounted for rotation about a substantially common first axis, the roller peripheral surfaces for engaging media elements and feeding them;
a plurality of separator block associated with at least two of said feed rollers, each separator block having a bottom termination for engaging an edge of a media element in a stack supported by said housing and preventing feeding of media elements engaged thereby;
means for mounting said separator blocks to said housing for adjustable linera movement toward and away from said feed rollers, so that bottom terminators may be moved toward and away from said feed rollers to adjust the linear spacings between the peripheral surfaces of said feed rollers and said bottom terminations;
and
quick release and engage means for quickly and accurately holding said separator blocks to said housing in infinitely variable positions to which they have been adjusted and quickly releasing them from said positions, comprising a lever having at least one locking cam surface, and at least one release cam surface;
and means for mounting said lever for pivotal movement about a second axis which remains substantially stationary with respect to said housing;
said locking cam surfaces radially spaced further from said second axis than said release cam surfaces.

5 more elements

A method of adjusting the feed gap on an addressing machine having a plurality of separator blocks for engaging media elements in a stack and ensuring one at a time feeding of the media elements, cooperating with a plurality of feed rollers, the separator blocks having bottom terminations and mounted in engagement with a face of a housing, which face is substantially perpendicular to the direction of feed of media elements by the feed rollers, and quick release and engage locking elements associated with the separator blocks each including a lever having first and second locking cam surfaces separated by a release cam surface, a mounting block fixed to the housing face and extending through an opening in the separator block, a pivot pin defining a pivot axis about which the lever pivots with respect to the mounting block and housing, the locking cam surfaces spaced further distances from the pivot axis than the release cam surface, and a spring plate between the cam surfaces and the separator block and held stationary by the mounting block, said method comprising the steps of substantially sequentially:

(a) moving each of the levers to positions in which the release cam surfaces align with the spring plate;
(b) sliding each of the separator blocks to an upward position in which the bottom terminations are spaced a distance from a cooperating roller larger than the expected thickness of any media element to be handled by the addressing machine;
(c) pivoting each lever about its pivot axis to a position in which the second locking cam surface engages the spring plate and applies a force through the spring plate holding its associated separator block in the upward position;
(d) with the rollers not running, placing an exemplary thickness media element on the rollers, beneath the separator block bottom terminations;
(e) pivoting each of the levers to the positions of step (a), thereby releasing the force holding the separator blocks in their upward positions, so that the separator blocks fall of their own weight into downward positions in which the bottom terminations thereof engage the media element resting on the rollers;
and
(f) pivoting each lever about its pivot axis to a position in which the first locking cam surface engages the spring plate and applies a force through the spring plate holding its associated separator block in the downward position, which defines a feed gap of approximately the thickness of each media element to be fed one at a time into the addressing machine by the feed rollers.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.