This application claims priority to Italian Application No. TO2010A000084 filed Feb. 8, 2010, and entitled “Equipment For Transversal Perforation, On The Fly, Of Continuous Forms In Movement,” the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present invention relates to an equipment for transversal perforation, on the fly, of continuous forms in movement.
Specifically, the invention relates to an equipment for, on the fly, transversal perforation of continuous forms in movement, comprising a perforating device with at least a perforating blade, mounted on a blade support and a blade servomechanism for rotating the blade support with the perforating blade in synchronism with the form and perforation in a requested position.
Transversal perforating equipments are used in systems for the automatic processing of documents for carrying out transversal perforations which make easy the tear, aside predefined. The documents are generally derived from continuous paper forms, downstream from printers and/or high-speed unwinding devices.
The current printers reach printing velocity which can result higher than the velocities of the perforating equipments arranged downstream of the printers. The difference between the printing velocity and the perforation velocity is further greater when the perforations to be carried out are close each the other. It lessens the speed of the system in which the perforating device is used.
An equipment of the above mentioned type is known from European patent application EP1 484 145 in the name of Tecnau S.r.l. This known equipment uses two blade supports and contrast rollers arranged, one behind the other, along the direction of movement of the form. The equipment effectively works with large possibility of positioning of the perforations in the obtainable documents either on the whole width of the form and on the halves of the form when the form is subject to longitudinal separation.
A similar perforating device has been disclosed in the Italian patent application TO 2009A000102, filed on Feb. 11, 2009 in the name of Tecnau S.r.l. In particular, this device includes a reciprocal shifting mechanism between the blade support and the contrast roller. The blade support, also servocontrolled, mounts two blades for achieving different typologies of perforations. The reciprocal shifting mechanism is put in the condition of interference of one of the blades to achieve the typology of perforation associated with the same blade and in the inoperative condition for the other blade. The device works at a very high velocity either with perforations close each the other, and with long spaced perforations and allows a large possibility of use with continuous forms of different typologies. In detail, the device can perforate forms to be divided in three longitudinal sections and forms to be divided in two longitudinal sections.
The known perforating devices present problems, in the phases of initialization, because of the start time needed to put the rotating velocity of the contrast roller to the feeding velocity of the form. It is penalizing in the case in which the perforating device is downstream of a high-speed printer, which works in intermittent way. Moreover, the mechanism for the reciprocal movement between contrast roller and perforating blades is inherently expensive.
An object of the present invention is to carry out a transversal perforating device on the fly for continuous forms in movement, which has the possibility of achieving, at high velocity, with limited costs and great flexibility, transversal perforations, both close and spaced each the other.
According to such object, the equipment for transversal perforation, on the fly, for continuous forms includes a contrast member provided for rotation in condition of substantial parallelism with the blade support and having a section or more active sections and a section or more inactive remaining sections and a contrast servomechanism for rotating the contrast member between a condition of perforation and a condition of non-perforation. The active section or each active section can be positioned in condition of tangency with the trajectory of the perforating blade for defining the contrast surface in the operative area, while the inactive section or each inactive section is spaced away, in the use, with respect to the trajectory of the blade. The contrast servomechanism, for the condition of perforation, rotates the contrast member with the active section or one of the active sections in the condition of tangency with the operative area and in synchronism with the form while, for the condition of non-perforation, the contrast servomechanism positions the contrast member, at rest or in movement, with the inactive section or one of the inactive sections spaced away from the trajectory of the perforating blade in the operative area.
The characteristics of the invention will become clear from the following description given purely by way of non-limiting example, with reference to the appended drawings in which:
a±5e show different operative conditions of some parts of the perforating device represented in
a±7e are different diagrams of the device of
a is a front view of a detail of the device shown in
The perforating equipment 111 includes other two transversal perforating devices, 54 and 57, for the other sections “S1” and “S3” of the form 58 or for the other section “S1” of the form 129. The form 58, 129 is advanced at a constant velocity Vm. A position encoder, not shown in the figures, recognizes the position of the form, while a sensing device, also not shown, reads perforation codes associated with the positions of the perforations in the document.
In extreme synthesis, the perforating device 56 includes a blade support 113 having possibilities of mounting, with possibility of easy replacing, a pair of identical blades 117a, 117b or blades 132a, 132b different each the other. The blade support 113 is rotatable mounted between two sides 99r and 99l and is actuated by a blade servomechanism 74 or 74a driven by a control circuit member 108. The servomechanism 74 or 74a is provided for commutating the blade support 113 between an inoperative condition and a condition of perforation in which the perforating blade perforates the form 58, 129 against a contrast surface. The contrast surface is constituted by a roller 62, which is rotatable parallel to the axis of the blade support, in condition of tangency with a movement surface 38 of the form 58, 129 and peripheral velocity in synchronism with the velocity Vm of the form. The blade 117a, 117b; 132a, 132b is disengaged from the roller 62 in the inoperative condition, while it is interfering with the roller in the condition of perforation for executing the perforations.
For rotating the blade support 113, the servomechanism 74, 74a responds to the perforation codes of the form 58, 129 and to information by the position encoder. Thus, the blade 117a, 117b; 132a, 132b is caused to interfere with the roller 62 in the perforation positions, with peripheral velocity substantially equal to the velocity “Vm” of the form 58, 129.
The perforating device 56 further includes a reciprocal shifting mechanism 106 driven by the control member 108. The mechanism 106 is actuatable for adjusting the distance of the blade support 113 from the contrast roller 62 between a condition of perforation, of engagement of the blade 117a, 117b; 132a, 132b and an inoperative condition of disengagement of the blades. In detail, the mechanism 106 includes two eccentric cams driven by a shifting motor 137 and two cam follower rollers connected with the roller 62. A cycle of actuation of the motor 137 causes a rotation of 360° of the cams, with shifting in vertical of the roller 62 between the operative position and the non-operative position and return to the operative position. For the rotation, the contrast roller 62 is connected with a form feeding motor 154 through pulleys and toothed belt and a cardanic joint 157.
As described in the cited patent application TO 2009A000102, the blades 117a and 117b are of the same length and the control member 108 works on the mechanism 106 for “jumping” perforations in given positions of the form in movement. To reach higher velocity of perforation, after the perforation, the blade is kept in movement at a given basic velocity and can execute an idle run, with “jump”, when the distance between the perforations is high. The perforations with “jump” result noiseless and limit the stresses to which the various components of the perforating devices are submitted.
The blades 132a, 132b are of different length and the control member 108 works on the reciprocal shifting mechanism 106 for settling the condition of perforation of the blade 132a on a section of the form 58. In alternative, the control member 108 can settle the condition of perforation of the blade 132b on a section of the form 129.
An equipment for transversal perforation on the fly, according to the invention, represented with 206 in
The blade support 208 is provided for rotation, with commutation through a condition of interference of the blade against a geometric surface 213 of cylindrical development, in a corresponding operative area of the movement surface 212. A blade servomechanism 214 is actuatable for rotating the support blade 208 with the edge of the blade in synchronism with the form 211. The perforation is effected at a requested position against a contrast surface corresponding to the geometric surface 213. A control circuit member 216 drives the blade servomechanism 214 according to rules substantially equal to those provided for similar components of the equipment 111 represented in
According to the invention, the perforating device 207 includes a contrast member 217, of limited inertia, which is provided for rotation in condition of substantially parallelism with the blade support 208 and is driven by a contrast servomechanism 218. The contrast member 217 has an active section or more active sections 219 for the perforation and a remaining inactive section or more remaining inactive sections 221. The contrast servomechanism 218 is provided for rotating the contrast member 217 between a condition of perforation and a condition of non-perforation of the blade 209 or the selected blade.
Following a known technique, the axes of the blade support 208 (See
The active section or each of the active sections 219 is constituted by a cylindrical sector having the same generatrix of the geometric surface 213. On the other hand, the inactive section or each of the inactive sections 221 is constituted by a surface having profile depressed with respect to the surface 213. The active section or each of the active sections 219 can be positioned in a condition of tangency with the trajectory of the blade and the movement surface 212 of the continuous form 211. Thus, the active section defines the contrast surface corresponding to the surface 213, functional to the perforation on the operative area of the blade 209 or the selected blade. As an example, the contrast member 217 is constituted by a two-lobes shaped bar, of substantially rectangular section, supported in the rotation by a median axis, and limited by the cylindrical sectors which define the active sections 219. Each sector of the active section extends for about 8°±16°, to define an inertia of the contrast member, which is much more less than 1/10 of the inertia of a theoretical contrast member of cylindrical shape.
The inactive section or each of the inactive sections 221 can be positioned in front of the operative area of the selected blade 209, spaced away with respect to the movement surface 212. For the condition of perforation, the control member 216 drives the contrast servomechanism by rotating the contrast member 217 with the active section or one of the active sections 219 in the condition of tangency and in synchronism with the form 211. For the condition of non-perforation, the control member 216 drives the servomechanism 218 by positioning the contrast member 217, still or in movement, with the inactive section or one of the inactive sections 221 spaced away from the movement surface of the form 211 and, therefore, from the operative area of the selected blade.
The blade servomechanism 214 can keep the blade in movement after the perforation at a given basic velocity and selectively executing an idle run of the blade between two successive perforations, while the contrast servomechanism 218 positions the contrast member 217 with the depressed sections spaced away from the movement surface of the form 211. It is carried out for obtaining high-speed perforations, by mounting on the blade support 208 two or more blades of a same length. Mounting two or more blades of different lengths allows carrying out selectively different typologies of perforations.
In the
In a blade velocity “Vb” versus time “t” (
Simultaneously, as represented in a contrast velocity “Vc” versus time “t” (
Perforating a first short section 224 occurs whereby for the action of the blade 221a on the form 222, at instant “t1”, against the active section 219. Then, the blade servomechanism and the contrast servomechanism continue with acceleration, braking and following acceleration of the blade support and the contrast member. The phases are such that the contact of the other blade 223b with the form occurs at instant “t2” in correspondence with the inactive sector 219 spaced away from the movement surface and, therefore, with “jump”, without any action of perforation.
The control circuit member 216 drives the blade servomechanism 214 and the contrast servomechanism 218 by further accelerating the blade support and the contrast member to reach the condition of tangency of the perforating blade 221a and the active section 219 with the movement surface 212, at the instant “t3”, for perforating the second section 224.
For perforating a first longer section 226, the blade support and the contrast member are progressively accelerated, braked and arrested. Then, with different laws of motion, the control member 216 drives the blade servomechanism 214 and the contrast servomechanism 218 to accelerate the blade support and the contrast member, up to putting at the value Vm the velocities of the blade 223b and of one of the active section 219 and reaching the condition of tangency with the movement surface of the form at the instant “t4”, for perforating the section 226 by the blade 221b.
The perforating device 207, when it works with two identical blades 209, for instance on a continuous form 227 (
For processing forms 58 (
Also the equipment 206 can process forms 129 (
According to another feature of the invention, the perforating blade can be contrasted by different contrast areas Ca of the active sections 219 (
With the contrast member 217 of
A contrast member 252 of
Naturally, the principle of the invention remaining the same, the embodiments and the details of construction can broadly be varied with respect to what has been described and illustrated, by way of non-limitative example, without by this departing from the ambit of the present invention.
For instance, the equipment 206 can provide more than three perforating devices for forms to be divided in more than three sections. The perforating device can also work with blade supports having more than two blades. However, also the number of the active sections and their conformation can be different from what has been above described. Typically it is achieved by providing a blade support mounting four perforating blades and a contrast member having four active sections and four inactive sections.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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TO2010A000084 | Feb 2010 | IT | national |