초록 ▼

There are disclosed method and apparatus for stacking the output (“documents”or “printed products”) of a high speed printing press or bindery line. The documents are shingled on a linear infeed conveyor where they are also aligned, positioned, and counted, all at high speed. When the amount of docum

There are disclosed method and apparatus for stacking the output (“documents”or “printed products”) of a high speed printing press or bindery line. The documents are shingled on a linear infeed conveyor where they are also aligned, positioned, and counted, all at high speed. When the amount of documents desired for a stack have been counted or weighed or determined by stack size or height, further document flow is temporarily interrupted. The documents are speeded up in an accelerator to reduce the amount of shingling. They are ejected from the accelerator to glide through the air onto a stack starter surface which slowly descends as the stack is formed. The partially completed stack is transferred to a de-elevator and the stack starter returns to begin building a new stack. The de-elevator lowers the completed stack onto a receiving surface and rises to receive the next partially completed stack from the stack starter surface. A pusher then removes the stack from the receiving surface.

대표청구항 ▼

Apparatus for forming a plurality of document stacks capable of operating at a rate of at least 18,000 documents per hour from a plurality of documents advancing in aligned and shingled relationship on a substantially horizontal linear conveyor comprising: means for sequentially accelerating said do

Apparatus for forming a plurality of document stacks capable of operating at a rate of at least 18,000 documents per hour from a plurality of documents advancing in aligned and shingled relationship on a substantially horizontal linear conveyor comprising: means for sequentially accelerating said documents to thereby reduce, or eliminate, the shingled relationship; means for sequentially guiding accelerated documents to be deposited to form a substantially vertical stack on a receiving surface; means for lowering said receiving surface during the formation of the vertical stack; means for raising a de-elevating surface to receive a partially completed document stack from the receiving surface; means for retracting the receiving surface; means for lowering the de-elevating surface while continuing to build the stack to a predetermined amount of documents; and means for removing the stack from the de-elevating surface; wherein said accelerating means comprises: first and second conveyor surfaces engageable with each other between an input location and an ejection location and further engageable with opposite sides of a document to grasp each succeeding document from the linear conveyor and convey it from the input location to ejection location to there eject the document at high speed; and means for forming both said first and second conveyor surfaces into complementary V-shaped alignment at the ejection location to impart a stiffening dihedral fold to each ejected document, said dihedral fold extending in the direction of travel of each ejected document.