Electrical pulse counters – pulse dividers – or shift registers: c – Applications – Counting animate or inanimate entities
Patent
1996-12-13
1998-08-18
Wambach, Margaret Rose
Electrical pulse counters, pulse dividers, or shift registers: c
Applications
Counting animate or inanimate entities
G06M 700
Patent
active
057968004
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention concerns the counting of sheets, for example of paper, assembled into a stack. In particular, this invention relates to a rotor assembly for use in a counting head of a sheet counter.
A known form of counting apparatus employs a rotor arranged to count the number of sheets in a stack by engaging an edge region of the stack and then, on rotation of the rotor, separating an edge portion of each sheet in turn from the stack and transferring the separated edge portion through a transfer groove to the other side of the rotor. At least one suction port may be provided in the rotor adjacent the transfer groove and through which port air is drawn in a timed relationship to rotor rotation, to assist the separation from the stack of the next sheet edge portion to be counted.
A known technique for drawing air through the suction port in a timed relationship to the rotor rotation is to provide a passageway in the rotor from the suction port to an inlet port in an external surface of the rotor. A static foot bears on that surface of the rotor and has a further port which comes into and out of registration with the inlet port, as the rotor rotates. The further port is connected to a low-pressure source and so each time the inlet port in the rotor comes into registration with the further port of the foot, air is drawn through the suction port of the rotor. By appropriately positioning the foot in the circumferential direction of the rotor, suction may be provided at the suction port at the appropriate time to assist the separation of the edge portion of the next sheet to be counted, and the guiding of that edge portion into the transfer groove of the rotor.
As counting commences and sheet edge portions are transferred from one side of the rotor to the other, the rotor has to move along the length of the stack. In a known form of such counter, the rotor is mounted on a carriage arranged for vertical sliding movement along the height of the stack and which carriage is counter-balanced so that the rotor exerts, under gravity, a relatively small force on the stack. Then, the rotor may be allowed to move along the length of the stack merely by being pushed by the sheets of the stack, as the sheets are transferred from one side of the rotor to the other.
It is also known to mount the rotor for limited axial movement on a carriage, there being two limit switches at the permitted extremes of rotor movement with respect to the carriage and a motor drive arrangement to move the carriage when the rotor triggers one limit switch, motor operation being suspended when the rotor triggers the other limit switch. Such motor control gives a varying engagement force between the rotor and the sheets being counted, and in turn this may lead to a lack of reliability in the counting operation.
In our International Patent Publication No. WO 95/00927, we have described and claimed an improved control system which feeds the rotor smoothly and more or less continuously along the stack, to ensure that the force exerted by the counting head on each sheet of the stack is substantially constant. In turn, this significantly enhances counting reliability. The present invention aims at providing an improved foot arrangement for a counting rotor of the kind described above, to enable yet better control of the rotor position in the stack and to enhance even more the counting reliability achieved with a control arrangement as described in our said International Publication.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a rotor assembly for counting sheets in a stack thereof and comprising a support, a rotor rotatably mounted on the support to engage an edge region of the stack and arranged upon rotation to transfer an edge portion of each sheet in turn through a transfer groove to the other side of the rotor, there being at least one suction port in the rotor through which air is drawn in a timed relationship to the rotation of the rotor to assist in the separation of the sheet edge portions, the suction port communicati
REFERENCES:
patent: 5324921 (1994-06-01), Takarada et al.
patent: 5612984 (1997-03-01), Fuller et al.
Hafezan Siavosh
Snook Martin Gordon
Pelcombe Limited
Wambach Margaret Rose
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