Sheet order gate

A sheet stacking apparatus having an inclined tray for receiving sheets for stacking, and a sheet order gate for first guiding lead edges of each of the sheets that are being fed to the stack and subsequently for guiding trail edges of each of the sheets to the stack of sheets to be positioned in the tray in their correct order, the apparatus comprising:

• a sheet order gate device having a plurality of control surfaces which form channels for moving the sheets therein, the control surfaces having a lowermost portion, each of the channels consisting of two control surfaces, the gate device adapted to rotate in segments thereby rotating the control surfaces in segments, each segment adapted to position a lowermost control surface to force a trailing edges into the tray;
• and
• a sheet feeding device for feeding the sheets by their lead edges into the inclined tray such that the lead edges of each of the sheets rest on a backstop, and the trailing edges of each of the sheets are positioned at a level above the lowermost portions of the control surfaces,
• wherein said sheet order gate includes two sets of control surfaces, each set being a mirror image of the other set.

A process for feeding and stacking sheets in an inclined tray in a correct order comprising the steps of:

• feeding each of a series of sheets through channels, each channel formed of two control surfaces, the control surfaces forming a portion of a sheet order gate;
• allowing a lead edge of each sheet to fall within the tray such that the lead edge rests on a backstop in the tray, the position of the backstop being arranged to permit a trailing edge of each sheet to fall above a lowermost portion of the control surfaces of a set of control surfaces;
• and
• forcing the trailing edge of each sheet against the tray by rotating the sheet order gate through a segment and causing the lowermost portions of the control surfaces to push the trailing edges into the tray.