Patent Application
20150035223
The invention relates to sheet feeder apparatus, which separates sheets of paper or card from a stack and feeds them individually from the apparatus in a direction parallel to the plane of the sheets. The sheet feeder may be part of a device for processing the paper, for example by creasing, perforating or cutting it between a pair of rollers or it may simply deliver the individual sheets to a separate device for further processing. The nature of the downstream operation does not form part of the present invention.
The sheets handled by the feeder may comprise paper or cardboard, for example in the density range 50 gm2 to 500 gm2, or other similar materials such as thin plastics. For simplicity, and without limitation, the material will be referred to hereafter as “paper”.
Sheet feeders are known that use a drive means such as a belt or roller to remove a single sheet laterally from the bottom of a stack of sheets that rests on a feed deck. The bottom sheet resists separation from the stack owing to friction with the next sheet in the stack above it and with the non-moving parts of the feed deck below it. In order for the sheet to slide away from the stack, the grip between the sheet and the drive means must exceed those frictional forces. Ideally, that should be true whether the bottom sheet is weighed on by a full stack or by only a few sheets.
Friction between the moving sheet and the stationary parts of the feed deck has a tendency to cause scuff marks on the surface of the paper. That is a particular problem with the increasing use of digital printing on paper with a smooth surface.
Some sheet feeders have used suction drums to improve the grip between the drive means and the paper. The surface of a suction drum is perforated by holes and an air pump is provided to suck air from the interior of the drum so that the paper clings to the drum's surface. The air pump may also be used to direct a jet of air towards the edge of the stack in order to assist with separating the sheets of the stack. However, such air pumps add to the bulk and complexity of the sheet feeder as well as its running costs and noise levels.
A sheet feeder should be able to deliver the sheets as fast as possible, up to the maximum operating speed of any downstream processing apparatus. It should reliably deliver only a single sheet at a time because a misfeed in which two sheets are delivered together will at best not be processed properly downstream and may at worst jam the apparatus, causing a costly delay in workflow.
In a first aspect, the invention provides a sheet feeder comprising: a feed deck for supporting a stack of sheets to be fed; a feed block; a drive belt for frictionally engaging the underside of a bottom sheet of the stack and urging the sheet along a feed direction below the feed block; the feed block comprising a friction pad that projects from the bottom of the feed block towards the drive belt to define a gate therebetween and a first front face immediately upstream from the gate, the first front face defining a plane inclined at a first angle to the feed direction, wherein the friction pad does not intersect the plane of the first front face.
A sheet feeder made in accordance with the invention is found to feed single sheets rapidly and reliably over a wide range of paper thicknesses and a wide range of stack heights. It runs quietly because it does not rely on air pumps and it reduces scuffing of the surface of the sheets.
The first angle may be less than 45° and is preferably between 25° and 30°.
The feed block may further comprises a second front face upstream from the first front face, the second front face being inclined to the feed direction at a second angle that is greater than the first angle.
The feed block may further comprise a lower face, which is located downstream from the first front face and which faces the drive belt, the friction pad projecting from the bottom of the feed block below the lower face. Preferably the lower face of the feed block defines a plane that is substantially parallel to the feed direction; the feed block further comprising a curved surface that effects a smooth transition from the first front face to the lower face. A suitable material for the feed block is aluminium or an aluminium alloy; and at least the first front face of the feed block may be anodized.
The friction pad preferably comprises a pad lower face that is substantially parallel to the feed direction. It may further comprises a pad front face that adjoins an upstream end of the pad lower face, the pad front face being inclined at an angle of less than 45° to the feed direction where it adjoins the pad lower face.
In a preferred sheet feeder according to the invention, a pair of the drive belts are positioned on opposite sides of a centreline of the feeder and pair of the feed blocks are aligned with respective ones of the drive belts.
The pair of feed blocks may be mounted on a common bracket, which is in turn mounted on a frame of the sheet feeder. Means may be provided for adjusting the height of at least one of the feed blocks relative to the bracket or for adjusting the height of the bracket relative to the frame.
In a second aspect, the invention provides a sheet feeder comprising: a feed deck for supporting a stack of sheets to be fed; a feed block; and drive means for frictionally engaging the underside of a bottom sheet of the stack and urging the sheet along a feed direction at a first speed through a gate defined between the feed block and the drive means; the sheet feeder further comprising a counter-rotating pair of acceleration rollers downstream from the gate for gripping a sheet between them and urging the sheet away from the gate at a second speed higher than the first speed. The second speed may be at least twice the first speed and is preferably about five times the first speed.
The increase in the speed at which the sheets are transported causes gaps to open up between successive sheets, which can improve their handling downstream of the sheet feeder.
In a third aspect, the invention provides a sheet feeder comprising: a feed deck for supporting a stack of sheets to be fed; a feed block; and drive means for frictionally engaging the underside of a bottom sheet of the stack and urging the sheet along a feed direction through a gate defined between the feed block and the drive means; wherein the feed deck is inclined to the horizontal and wherein the feed deck comprises a plurality of feed rollers, each of which is free to spin about a generally horizontal axis.
By allowing the moving sheets to travel on freely spinning rollers in the areas where they are not in contact with the guide means, the reliability of feeding the sheets is improved and scuffing of their surface is reduced.
The sheet feeder may further comprise at least one guide plate arranged in a vertical plane and transversely to a series of the rollers, the series of rollers defining a plane of the feed deck that is tangent to the tops of the rollers; wherein a lower edge of the guide plate projects below the plane between adjacent pairs of the rollers.
In a fourth aspect, the invention provides a sheet feeder comprising: a feed deck for supporting a stack of sheets to be fed; a feed block; and drive means for frictionally engaging the underside of a bottom sheet of the stack and urging the sheet along a feed direction through a gate defined between the feed block and the drive means; wherein the drive means is part of a removably mounted unit in the feed deck. This permits worn parts of the drive means, such as belts or rollers, to be replaced easily and in a short time.
Preferably, the drive means unit comprises means at one end of the unit for pivotally mounting the unit in the feed deck; and means at the other end of the unit for fastening the unit to the feed deck. The pivotal mounting means may comprise jaws on the drive unit for engaging a rod on the feed deck, or vice versa. The drive unit may also comprise a first gear for engaging a second gear below the feed deck, from which power for the drive means is derived.
A control panel 12 allows an operator to control aspects of the operation of the machine 2, such as its speed, in a conventional manner. An emergency stop button 14 is provided in a prominent and easily accessible location.
The majority of the surface of the feed deck 4 is formed by sets of feed rollers 22. There are sets of feed rollers 22 to each side of the drive unit 40 to support the areas of the paper in the stack that do not overlie the drive unit. Each of the rollers 22 is mounted so that it can spin freely about its axis, with minimal resistance. The axes of the rollers 22 are generally horizontal and are perpendicular to the direction in which the sheets move. Because the plane of the feed deck 4 is inclined from the horizontal, as shown in
An upstream part of the feed deck 4 may be formed as a removable extension 28, which at the user's option can be present in order to allow larger sheets of paper to be stacked or can be absent in order to reduce the footprint of the machine 2. The removable extension 28 comprises further sets of rollers 22. Over the majority of the feed deck 4, the surface is thus defined by feed rollers 22. Wherever any significant level of friction occurs between a sheet and a roller, the free-spinning roller can simply rotate to follow the movement of the sheet and thus scuffing of the sheet's surface is substantially avoided.
The sides of the stack on the feed deck 4 are supported by a pair of side guides 6. The side guides 6 are generally vertical plates orientated in a plane parallel to the feed direction 24. The guides 6 can be moved transversely to the feed direction along transverse rods 30 (only one of which is visible in
Conventional side guides often have an L-shaped cross-section so that the edges of the bottom sheet of the stack rest on inwardly directed horizontal portions of the guides. In the present apparatus it is preferred that the side guides 6 should have no horizontal portions in order that the bottom of the stack should make maximum contact with the feed rollers 22.
Thus the set of cusps 38 are able to provide guidance for the stack down to the bottom sheet of paper, which rests in the plane 34. If the lower edge of the side guide 6 was straight, it would have to be positioned at a height above the plane 34 sufficient to clear the tops of the rollers, which would leave room for at least the bottom sheet in the stack to drift sideways, beneath the guide 6. The cut-outs are not necessarily formed by cutting: any suitable process such as stamping or moulding may be used. The shape of the lower edge of the side guide 6 need not match that shown in the drawings: the important feature is that above the rollers 22 the guide should not interfere with their rotation and that between adjacent pairs of rollers the guide should project below the plane 34.
Reverting to
The acceleration rollers 46 deliver the sheet of paper to the creasing device 20, where it is fed between a pair of counter-rotating shafts 48, one of which is visible in
The acceleration rollers 46 preferably run at a high speed relative to the speed of the drive belts 42. For example, they may accelerate the sheets of paper to five times the speed at which they are driven by the drive belts 42. Paper is delivered more-or-less continuously from the stack by the drive unit 40 so that the front edge of one sheet closely follows the rear edge of the preceding sheet through the gate 26. The acceleration of the sheets by the acceleration rollers 46 causes a gap to open up between successive sheets, which may be useful in downstream processing. For example, if instead of being collected in the output bin 10, the output sheets are to be delivered one at a time to a second machine, it is sometimes the case that the second machine requires its input feed path to be arranged perpendicularly to the output feed path of the present creasing machine. A gap between successive sheets allows time for one sheet to change direction and clear the feed path before the next sheet arrives.
The drive unit 40 comprising the drive belts 42 is supported by a frame 54. The frame 54 has a latch 56 at one end and a fixing screw 58 at the other end, whereby unfastening of the fixing screw 58 allows the entire drive unit 40 to be quickly removed from the creasing machine 2, for example so that worn drive belts 42 can be quickly replaced. The latch 56 comprises a pair of fixed jaws 57 that can respectively engage with and pivot about a pair of rods 59 that form part of the substructure 60 of the feed deck 4. Alternatively, the rods 59 could be located on the removable drive unit 40 and the jaws 57 on the substructure 60. The drive unit can thus be removed from the feed deck 4 by unscrewing the single fixing screw 58, lifting the upstream end of the unit 40 to pivot the jaws 57 of the unit about the rods 59 until the upstream end is clear of the deck 4, then withdrawing the unit 40 along its length, generally in the upstream direction, to free the jaws 57 from the rods 59. The operation can be reversed to replace the drive unit 40. When the drive unit is in its installed position, the first gear 72 comes into engagement with a second gear (not shown) that is mounted beneath the feed deck 4 and that provides rotary power to the drive unit 40 from the motor (not shown).
The delivery of sheets of paper from the stack is controlled by a pair of feed blocks 62 that are mounted by a bracket 64 on a frame of the sheet feeder so that each feed block 62 is suspended above a respective one of the drive belts 42. A friction pad 66 projects from the bottom of each feed block 62 towards the associated drive belt 42 to define the gate 26 therebetween, through which only one sheet at a time can pass. The size of the gate 26 (i.e. the vertical gap between the friction pad 66 and the belt 42) can be manually adjusted by using knobs 68 to turn a to screw thread connection between each feed block 62 and the bracket 64, thereby raising or lowering the feed block 62. The gate 26 is most easily set to the correct value for the thickness of paper to be processed by opening the gate, inserting a sheet of the paper between the friction pad 66 and the drive belt 42 and then closing the gate until the sheet is almost trapped. This ensures that no more than one sheet of paper at a time can pass through the gate. The adjustment knobs 68 are easily accessible during use of the machine so the size of the gate 26 can be fine-tuned during operation.
An alternative arrangement (not illustrated) is possible, in which the vertical position of the bracket 64 is adjustable relative to the frame of the machine, preferably by means an adjustment knob similar to those illustrated. It is preferred that at least one of the feed blocks 62 should still be adjustable relative to the bracket in order that independent adjustment of the two feed blocks 62 remains possible, for example in case the two drive belts 42 should wear down at different rates.
A front face 70 of each feed block 62 faces upstream towards the feed deck 4. When a stack of sheets 65 is placed on the feed deck 4, as shown schematically by dot-dash lines in
The shapes of the feed block 62 and the friction pad 66 are shown in more detail in
It is believed that the geometry close to the gate is most important in producing a reliable sheet feeder, i.e. one that can rapidly and consistently transport one sheet at a time through the gate without jamming. The bottom of the feed block 62 is defined by a bottom face 74 that is generally parallel to the surface of the drive belt 42. The bottom face 74 is smoothly connected to the lower portion 72 of the front face 70 by a curved transitional surface 76. As best seen in
It is possible that the lower portion 72 of the front face of the feed block 70 may be gently curved, rather than truly straight, and therefore not define a true plane over its whole length. In that case, the plane 86 in question, which is not intersected by the friction pad 66, is that tangent to the lowest part of the lower portion 72 before it transitions into the bottom face 74 via the curved surface 76.
The friction pad 66 is formed from a resilient material such as rubber or, preferably, polyurethane. Polyurethane has been found to work with a Type A Shore hardness of 65, 80 or 90. Because the friction pad 66 is resilient rather than completely rigid, and because the geometry of the gate is important, means need to be provided to mount the pad 66 securely in the recess 80. The pad 66 is fixed at two points to prevent it pivoting. At each fixing point a horizontal bore passes through the pad 66 and is lined with a metal (e.g. steel) bush 88 that is internally threaded. Four bolts 90 are then passed through apertures in the opposing side walls 78 of the feed block 62 and are screwed into the each end of each bush 88 to secure the friction pad 66 against movement.
The feed blocks 62 may be manufactured from any suitable, rigid material, for example aluminium or an aluminium alloy. It is preferred that the surfaces of the feed blocks 62 and in particular the front surfaces 70 that contact the stack of paper should be anodized to provide them with a smooth and durable finish.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/GB2011/052241 | 11/16/2011 | WO | 00 | 9/12/2014 |
