Claims
- 1. A card feeder assembly including:
a hopper for storing a stack of cards to be fed, each card having a thickness; a card drive for urging an end card of the stack from the hopper, said card drive being driven to move cards in a first direction and forming a support plane for the end card in the stack; a wall of said hopper having an outlet opening therethrough aligned with the end card and through which the end card is fed when driven by the card drive; and a control gate having a flexible blade at the outlet opening that reduces a height of the outlet opening to less than a thickness of the end card, whereby the flexible blade flexes in response to the end card when driven through the outlet opening.
- 2. The card feeder assembly of claim 1, wherein:
said control gate is slidably mounted relative to the outlet opening; and the card feeder assembly includes a cam operator for changing the position of the control gate to adjust the dimension of the outlet opening.
- 3. The card feeder assembly of claim 2, wherein said cam comprises a rotatable cam, a cam follower on the control gate, said cam follower engaging said cam and shifting as the cam is rotated to change the dimension of the outlet opening.
- 4. The card feeder assembly of claim 2, wherein said cam has a smoothly curved cam surface.
- 5. The card feeder assembly of claim 1, wherein said control gate comprises an actuator tab positioned at substantially right angles to the plane of movement of the control gate, the actuator tab forming a cam follower member, and a cam for moving said cam follower member to control the position of the control gate.
- 6. The card feeder assembly of claim 5, wherein said cam comprises a rotary cam directly engaging the tab.
- 7. The card feeder assembly of claim 2, wherein said cam comprises a wedge shaped linearly cam, and said cam follower including a linearly moving member engaging the tab and sliding along the surface of said linearly movable cam.
- 8. The card feeder assembly of claim 3, wherein said rotatable cam is mounted on a cam shaft, a lever drivably mounted on said cam shaft and movable manually to rotate the cam to a desired position.
- 9. The card feeder assembly of claim 2, and a stop member to hold the cam in a desired position.
- 10. The card feeder assembly of claim 9, wherein the cam is a linearly movable cam and said stop member comprises a screw tightenable down onto the linearly movable cam.
- 11. The card feeder assembly of claim 9, wherein the cam comprises a rotatable cam moved by a lever, and said stop member comprises a latch for stopping the movement of said lever.
- 12. The card feeder assembly of claim 2, and a manually operable member connected to said cam, and having a finger tab at an outer end thereof accessible adjacent to the hopper.
- 13. The card feeder assembly of claim 2, and a spring for urging the control gate in a first direction.
- 14. The card feeder assembly of claim 1, wherein the flexible blade has a bottom edge having a curved, saw-toothed, square-toothed, flat, or pointed shape.
- 15. The card feeder assembly of claim 1, wherein the flexible blade is formed of rubber, plastic, rubber coated plastic, or reinforced rubber.
- 16. A card hopper for use with a card feeder mechanism to feed individual cards from an end of a stack of cards, the card hopper comprising:
a card housing having an opening for receiving a stack of cards; an end wall of the card housing having an outlet opening therethrough aligned with an end card; and a control gate having a flexible blade at the outlet opening that reduces a height of the outlet opening to less than a thickness of the end card, whereby the flexible blade flexes in response to the card when driven through the outlet opening.
- 17. A card feeder assembly including the card hopper of claim 18 and a card drive adapted to drive the end card through the outlet opening.
- 18. The card hopper of claim 18, wherein the flexible blade has a bottom edge shaped that is saw-toothed, square-toothed, pointed, flat or curved.
- 19. The card feeder assembly of claim 1, wherein the flexible blade is formed of rubber, plastic, rubber coated plastic, or reinforced rubber.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/604,214 filed Jun. 27, 2000 for a “CARD THICKNESS SELECTION GATE FOR A CARD FEEDER,” which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/310,770, filed May 10, 1999 for an “INPUT HOPPER AND ENCODING STATION FOR CARD PRINTER,” each of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Continuation in Parts (2)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
09604214 |
Jun 2000 |
US |
Child |
09967501 |
Sep 2001 |
US |
Parent |
09310770 |
May 1999 |
US |
Child |
09604214 |
Jun 2000 |
US |