Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor – Automatic and/or material-triggered control
Patent
1990-11-20
1993-06-22
Simmons, David A.
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor
Automatic and/or material-triggered control
156502, 156505, 156506, 156510, 242 56R, 242 584, B65H 1920
Patent
active
052214044
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to an automatic tape cassette vending machine which is adapted to automatically vend an audio or video tape cassette in which a magnetic tape is housed.
BACKGROUND ART
In general, a magnetic tape for audio use, video use or the like is on sale in a manner to be housed in a cassette casing while being wound on a pair of reel hubs. Manufacturers each prepare various kinds of tape cassettes in which magnetic tapes of lengths predetermined according to various standard specifications for each grade are wound on the reel hubs. For example, audio tape cassettes in which various magnetic tapes of lengths corresponding to the amounts of recording time such as a forty-six-minute tape, a sixty-minute tape and a ninety-minute tape, as well as a fifty-four-minute tape, an eighty-minute tape and the like are housed are standardized and commercially available for each grade. Users selectively buy such audio tape cassettes as intended.
Unfortunately, the users are merely permitted to purchase only tape cassettes including magnetic tapes of lengths defined in the standard specifications, resulting in being forced to purchase a tape cassette in which a somewhat long tape is housed although they know well that at least a part of the tape will be in vain. In particular, in view of the present situation that sources of data to be recorded are substantially diversified, it would be highly difficult or substantially impossible to provide a tape cassette which meets user's requirements and minimizes the portion of a magnetic tape which is out of use. For example, when the time length of a recorded source is slightly larger, for example, in an amount less than one minute, than that of a magnetic tape defined by the standard specifications, an additional tape is required to record the excessive portion of the recorded source. This results in a large part of the additional tape being out of use. Also, this causes latency time to be substantially increased when the tape is to be played back. Further, this causes a user to feel displeasure during the playing-back, because the additional tape substantially exhibits a soundless condition wherein only noise is generated therefrom. It would be considered that such a disadvantage is eliminated by providing a tape cassette including a magnetic tape having a length corresponding to a short period of recording time such as, for example, a one-minute magnetic tape. However, such an approach causes not only the manufacturing and distributing costs to be highly increased, resulting in being uneconomical, but excessive kinds of tape cassettes to be placed on the market to render both selection of tape cassettes by the user and handling of tape cassettes by suppliers extremely troublesome and time-consuming.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
The present invention is to eliminate the above-described disadvantages of the prior art.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided an automatic tape cassette vending machine comprising a tape feed reel on which a magnetic tape is wound; a tape feed mechanism for dispensing the magnetic tape from said tape feed reel; a tape length measuring mechanism for measuring the length of the magnetic tape fed by means of said tape feed mechanism; a magazine means for storing therein a plurality of assembled empty cassette casings each for winding up therein the tape of which the length has been measured; a cassette casing feed mechanism for taking out the empty cassette casing from said magazine means; a splicing mechanism for connecting the tape which has passed through said tape length measuring mechanism to the empty cassette casing fed by said cassette casing feed mechanism; a tape take-up mechanism for winding up the tape in the empty cassette casing; a setting section for inputting data on desired conditions; a computer unit for actuating said tape feed mechanism, cassette casing feed mechanism, splicing mechanism and tape take-up mechanism depending upon the data input and a measurement signal supplied from s
REFERENCES:
patent: 3997123 (1976-12-01), King
patent: 4062719 (1977-12-01), Masuzima et al.
patent: 4609422 (1986-09-01), Becking
patent: 4632327 (1986-12-01), Kreeft et al.
patent: 4654479 (1987-03-01), Ogaki et al.
patent: 4738408 (1988-04-01), Odaka et al.
Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No. 6400/1987 (62-6400).
Iwaya Sadao
Oya Kinichiro
Sells J.
Simmons David A.
TDK Corporation
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