Patent Application
20080179826
The present invention relates exclusively to the field of mail handling, and it relates more particularly to a mail item feed module of a mail handling machine, which module has an improved mail item conveyor device.
The postal specifications that govern printing of postal imprints are very precise and define, in particular, the position of the postal imprint relative to the top edge of the envelope. Achieving that position depends on the envelope being jogged into alignment. Since the envelope is conveyed parallel to a referencing wall (or “jogging” wall), a jogging error or misalignment in the feed magazine (or feeder) gives rise to the same error or misalignment downstream in the selector device and then even further downstream on going under the print module. It is thus very important to monitor and automatically correct such jogging errors in the feeder so as to avoid it being necessary for the operator to re-jog each stack of envelopes on inserting it into said feeder.
Today, in order to solve that problem, it is known that the conveyor rollers of the feeder can be inclined so that, by conveying the envelopes on a slant, they are shifted towards the referencing wall while also being conveyed towards the selector device. Unfortunately, by exerting a large re-jogging force on the envelope, that configuration brakes said envelope and, when said envelope is a fine envelope, can even damage it. In addition, the force exerted depends on the position of each conveyor roller relative to the selector device.
The Applicant has also proposed supplementing the conveyor rollers disposed parallel to the referencing wall with perpendicular re-jogging rollers that operate with a phase advance relative to said conveyor rollers.
However, even though the envelopes tend to be braked to a lesser extent than with the above configuration, the braking tendency nevertheless persists because of the action of said re-jogging rollers, and the greater the height and/or the weight of the stack of envelopes, the greater the extent to which the envelopes tend to be braked.
An object of the present invention is thus to mitigate the above-mentioned drawbacks with a mail item feed device that has specific drive members making it possible to monitor and to correct the jogging of the mail items. Another object of the invention is to propose a device whose performance is independent of the weight and/or of the height of the stack of envelopes disposed on the feeder.
These objects are achieved with a mail item feeder for feeding mail items into a mail handling machine, said mail item feeder including a plurality of a drive members controlled by a suitable drive mechanism and designed to pass through a mail item receiver bed of said feeder, wherein each of said drive members is constituted by a cylindrical wheel provided with a set of straight teeth formed by a plurality of teeth between which there are interposed a plurality of independent small rollers having axes perpendicular to the axis of the wheel.
Thus, by having this specific structure, the drive members perform dual functions of conveying and of jogging, the coefficient of friction due to the re-jogging rollers is removed and the jogging can be performed without being detrimental to the mail items being conveyed.
Advantageously, said small rollers are mounted to be free to rotate about axes of rotation disposed in a plane that is perpendicular to the axis of rotation of said cylindrical wheel, each axis extending between the facing sides of two adjacent teeth.
Preferably, said axes of rotation of the small rollers are distributed around the sides of a regular polygon and are positioned at a determined distance from said axis of rotation of the wheel, and each of said small rollers has an outer peripheral surface that projects by approximately in the range 0.5 millimeters (mm) to 1 mm relative to tops of the teeth.
Said cylindrical wheel may be made of a standard low-cost material of the polyoxymethylene type, and said small roller may be made of silicone.
Advantageously, the device of the invention has at least six small rollers spaced apart uniformly at 600 intervals.
The invention can be better understood on reading the following detailed description accompanied by illustrative and non-limiting examples given in the following figures, in which:
A feed device (or feeder) for feeding mail items into a mail handling machine and that incorporates an improved conveyor device of the invention is shown in
In accordance with the invention, said rollers 16 of the conveyor device are disposed in line in a plurality of rows extending parallel to the referencing wall 20 of the feeder and, as shown more particularly in
These small rollers are made of a material that is chosen as a function of the technical specifications (abrasion, friction, elasticity, and hardness) expected for driving, i.e. with a coefficient of friction that is sufficiently large to enable the mail items to be driven towards the selector device. Such a material is, for example, silicone, natural rubber, polyurethane, or indeed ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM). However, since the wheel is involved very little in the processes of conveying and of jogging, its material is chosen to be low-cost, e.g. a material based on polyoxymethylene.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0752881 | Jan 2007 | FR | national |
