US3525518A - Self-adjusting and repositioning card gate - Google Patents

Description

Aug. 25, 1970 A. w. OATEN 3,525,518

SELF-ADJUSTING AND REPOSITIONING CARD GATE Filed Sept. 9. 1968 INVENTOR 3e ALBERT w. OATEN United States Patent 3,525,518- SELF-ADJUSTING AND REPOSITIONING CARD GATE Albert W. Oaten, Rochester, Minn., assignor to International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.,

a corporation of New York Filed Sept. 9, 1968, Ser. No. 758,268 Int. Cl. B65h 3/50 U.S. Cl. 271-41 7 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A card feeding mechanism for a vertical stack of cards consists of fixed upper and lower throat knives defining a throat gap of fixed dimensions allowing a single bottom card to be fed by an oscillating picker. The gap face of the upper throat knife is tapered in the direction of card feed and a bowed creep spring is carried by the upper throat knife with a transverse spring portion of larger diameter than the throat gap self-biased against the direction of card feed and in contact with the tapered face for automatically controlling single card feed.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the invention This invention relates to card or sheet feeding mechanisms and more particularly to a vertical card stack feeder wherein cards are fed singly, from either the top or the bottom of the stack, in a selective and closely controlled manner.

Description of the prior art Prior art card feeding mechanism necessarily employ fixed or movable members defining a throat knife gap' which is normally, slightly in excess of the thickness of a single card to be fed with cyclically operated picking means acting to feed individual cards from the bottom or top of the stack, through the throat knife gap. Attempts have been made to facilitate high speed, serial feed of the cards by maintaining alignment between the throat gap and cards being fed regardless of card or sheet warpage. There have also been attempts to adjustably support the upper or lower throat knife for adjustment prior to card feed to allow the card feed mechanism to adapt itself to cards of varying thickness, and to additionally insure the correct feeding of a single card regardless of card warpage. Further, there have been devices placed in the path of the cards being fed, downstream of the throat gap to prevent the inadvertent feeding of multiple cards should more than one card pass through the fixed or adjustable throat gap. Such devices have been rather SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION This invention is directed to a card feeding mechanism of the type in which a stack of cards to be fed are supported for either bottom or top feeding by a cyclically operated, rotary or oscillating picker mechanism which feeds cards serially from either the top or bottom of the stack through spaced, relatively fixed upper and lower throat knives defining a throat gap of constant dimensions and positioned in the path of card feed. One of the throat knives has its throat gap face tapered inwardly in the direction of card feed and a creep spring is carried by the mechanism having a portion extending across the gap in contact with the tapered face and of a diameter slightly larger than the throat gap itself. Means are provided for biasing the creep spring portion in the opposite 3,525,518 Patented Aug. 25, 1970 direction to that of card feed and into contact with the tapered face.

Preferably, the creep spring is unitary, is rectangular in configuration and is bowed to provide a bias force in opposition to the direction of card feed. Further, a first transverse spring portion is carried within the throat gap in contact with the tapered face while a second transverse portion is positioned within a transverse slot carried by the throat knife parallel to, and spaced from the tapered face, with the second transverse spring portion consisting of bent and crossed terminal ends "to provide the biasing force tending to force the first transverse portion into contact with the tapered face.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a partial, schematic, side elevational view of a bottom stack card feeding mechanism incorporating the self-adjusting and repositioning card gate of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front elevational view of a portion of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged, side elevational view of a portion of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 with the card gate positioned prior to selective card feed.

FIG. 4 is an identical view to that of FIG. 3 after initiation of card feed.

FIG. 5 is a side elevational View identical to that of FIG. 3, during card feeding, with the card gate being moved to an unobstructing position.

FIG. 6 is a side elevational view, identical to that of FIG. 3 with the trailing edge of the card passing beneath the card gate.

FIG. 7 is a front elevational view of the single element creep spring forming a principal component of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a side elevational view of the creep spring shown in FIG. 7.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to the drawings, in conventional fashion a stack of cards or sheets 10 are supported by means (not shown) for serial feeding, in a selective manner, from left to right in the direction of arrow 12 by intermittent operation of the pivotable, oscillating picker mechanism 14. The picker mechanism 14 is in position to feed the lower-most card 10 through a card feed throat gap of fixed dimension T as defined by upper throat knife or member 16 and lower throat knife or card bed member 18. Both members 16 and 18 are fixed, in this case the upper throat knife 16 is fixed to vertical support member or plate 20. The lower throat knife member or card bed 18 is provided with a tapered contact surface 22 which first receives the leading edge of the lower-most card 10 and supports the same prior to feeding by the oscillating picker member 14, under cyclic operation.

Referring to FIG. 2, a pair of pressure shoes 24 are shown on either side of the fixed, upper throat knife 16 to facilitate card feed operation in which a single card only is fed through the throat gap. The throat gap is defined by the upper edge 26 of the card bed or lower throat knife 18 and the front edge 28 of the upper throat knife 16. The card feed mechanism is so far defined, is conventional, and in operation a clockwise oscillation of picker mechanism 14, as shown by arrow 30, results in card movement from left to right through the throat gap with the single lowermost card 10' being fed therethrough since its thickness is somewhat less than the dimension T of the throat gap.

The present invention is directed to a repositioning, self-adjusting card gate, the primary element of which comprises a formed creep spring 32. Creep spring 32 is formed of a resilient metal wire having a spring diameter D which is in excess of the throat gap dimension T. The creep spring 32 may be formed of steel spring stock of a suitable diameter. Referring to FIGS. 7 and 8, it is noted that the formed creep spring is generally rectangular in configuration when viewed from front or rear in vertical elevation, and is provided with a first and lower transverse portion 34, upper or second transverse portion identified generally at 36 and paired side portions 38 connecting the same. The side portions 38 are bowed, FIG. 8, and terminal ends are bent at 42 and crossed to form paired transverse legs 40, rounded to form contact edges 44.

In this respect, by reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, it is noted that the upper, fixed throat knife 16 is provided with a transverse slot 46 within which is positioned, the upper transverse portion 36 of the creep spring 32. The opposed side portions 38 of the creep spring lie along the sides 48 of the throat knife with the first or lower transverse portion 34 self-biased into contact with throat gap face '50 of the upper throat knife 16. It is important to note that the throat gap face 50 of the upper throat knife tapers inwardly, in the direction of card feed at an angle a and that further, regardless of the longitudinal position of the first or lower transverse portion 34 of the creep spring within the throat gap, it is always in contact with this tapered face. This is partially achieved by bowing the side portions 38 in which case, and is indicated in FIG 3, the transverse portion 34 of the creep spring, that is that portion within the and/ or adjacent the throat gap is provided with a biasing force having a component indicated by arrow A in the plane of card feed and in a direction opposite thereto. A second force component (arrow B) at right angles to that of component A provides a lift tending to maintain the transverse portion 34 of the creep spring in contact with the throat gap face 50. The resultant of these two bias forces is indicated by arrow R. This resultant force, in the absence of a card being fed maintains the transverse portion of the creep spring in the position shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3. Thus, the gate position, that is the position of the transverse portion 34 of the creep spring is controlled by the separation T of the throat gap, the diameter D of the transverse portion 34 of the spring and the throat knife angle a. which is defined by the taper of the throat gap face 50. Preloads A and B are selected in dimension to provide a resultant force necessary to arrest card creep of card 10 at spring face 52. When a force F is applied to the bottom-most part of the stack 10, such as by oscillation of picker 14, the force F is in excess to the horizontal component A of the preload and movement of card 10 from left to right automatically occurs. The sequence of this movement is indicated by FIGS. 4, and 6.

With a relatively small throat knife angle or, the transverse spring 34 must move rearwardly in the direction of card feed .015" in a typical example to allow the necessary .007" lift of this gate under spring load B, to allow the card to be fed without further horizontal restraint. Reference to FIG. 4 shows that, with this amount of card feed, creep spring section 34 has been lifted as it slides rearwardly upon the tapered face 50. Of course, there is a continued spring bias force of constant magnitude being exerted against the transverse spring section 34 tending to return it to its initial position of FIG. 3. Once the leading edge 54 of the card passes beyond the transverse section 34 of the spring, the card 10" continues to move with little restraint. As the trailing edge 56 of the card clears the transverse spring section 34, FIG. 6, the spring preload immediately returns the transverse section 34 of the spring to its initial position with the card gate then blocking the next card 10" of the stack and preventing the same from creeping forward into the throat gap T. The resiliency of the creep spring 32 allows both self adjusting and repositioning of the spring prior to subsequent feed of the next card or sheet.

Since the return movement of the spring transverse section 34 is controlled by the preload forces A, B and the throat knife angle a, repositioning of the spring transverse portion 34 at the end of card travel 10 is automatic. After release of the transverse section 34 of the spring by the passage of trailing edge 56 of card 10, the spring returns to the position shown in FIG. 3 and an identical sequence occurs with respect to the next card 10" upon initiation of clockwise oscillation of the card picker 14. The elements of the card feed mechanism, with the exception of the wire creep spring 32, may be formed of metal, plastic, or wood as desired. The advantages of the card gate are readily apparent in the simplicity, low cost and self-adjusting features of the present invention. Rather than having the upper throat knife 16 fixed, for instance, the same could be adjusted vertically with respect to the fixed vertical support 20 and in such case, a substitute creep spring could be provided for spring 32, and would be formed of a wire having a larger or smaller diameter. It is only necessary that the diameter of the lower or first transverse portion 34 of the wire be in excess to the throat gap dimension T for correct operation of the self-adjusting card gate.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to a preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. In a card feeding mechanism including; means for supporting a stack of cards or the like, spaced, relatively fixed upper and lower throat knife members defining a throat gap of constant dimensions and positioned adjacent one lateral edge of the stack, and a picker mechanism for selectively feeding cards in serial fashion from the stack through said throat gap, the improvement wherein:

(a) the gap face of one of said throat knife members tapers inwardly in the direction of card feed and said mechanism further includes:

(13) a creep spring carried by said mechanism having a portion extending across said gap, in contact with said tapered face, of a diameter larger than said gap, and (c) means for biasing said transverse creep spring portion in opposite direction to that of card feed and in contact with said tapered face.

2. The card feeding mechanism as claimed in claim 1 further including; a transverse slot formed in said throat knife member carrying said tapered gap face, said transverse slot being parallel to the plane of said tapered face and spaced therefrom, said creep spring being rectangular in configuration with one transverse portion carried within said throat gap in contact With the tapered face, a second transverse portion positioned within said transverse slot, and bowed side portions coupling said creep spring transverse portions to provide a first biasing force acting on said first transverse portion in a direction opposite to that of card feed, and a second biasing force to maintain the first transverse creep spring portion in contact with said tapered face.

3. The card feeding mechanism as claimed in claim 1 wherein said second transverse creep spring portion comprises a pair of bent and crossed creep spring terminal ends to facilitate provision of said second biasing force.

4. In a card feeding mechanism including means for vertically supporting a stack of cards, upper and lower throat knife members defining a fixed throat gap generally equal to the thickness of a single card, and picker means for cyclically feeding the bottom card of said stack through the aligned throat gap, the improvement wherein:

(a) the gap face of the upper throat knife member is tapered inwardly in the direction of card feed, and said mechanism further includes:

(b) a creep spring carried by said upper throat knife member, said creep spring having a gate portion extending transversely across said throat gap, of a diameter in excess of the gap dimension and in contact with said tapered face, and means carried by said creep spring for biasing said gate portion in a direction opposite to that of card feed and against said tapered face.

5. The card feeding mechanism as claimed in claim 4, further comprising; a transverse slot carried by said upper throat knife member parallel to and spaced from said tapered face, and wherein said means carried by said creep spring for biasing said gate portion against said tapered face, is carried by said transverse slot.

6. The card feeding mechanism as claimed in claim 4 further comprising; a transverse slot carried by said upper throat knife, parallel to and spaced from said tapered face, and wherein; said creep spring is unitary, rectangular in configuration, and includes a first transverse portion carried within the tapered throat gap, in contact with tapered face of said upper throat knife member, a second transverse portion positioned within said throat knife transverse slot and configured to produce a biasing force tending to maintain said first transverse creep spring portion against said tapered face, said creep spring further including at least one side portion which is bowed to bias said first creep spring transverse portion in a direction opposite to that of the card feed.

7. The card feeding mechanism as claimed in claim 6 wherein said upper transverse spring portion comprises paired terminal ends of said creep spring which are bent inwardly toward each other, and are crossed centrally.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,292,619 1/1919 Lorenz 221267 X 1,433,873 10/1922 Cogswell 271-44 1,801,165 4/1931 Macke 221267 X 2,804,301 8/1957 Beman 271-41 3,414,126 12/1968 Vulcano 221-267 X GERALD M. FORLENZA, Primary Examiner R. J. SPAR, Assistant Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 221-267; 27161

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