Ncr Corporation

Andrew Lynch

David J McMillan

John A Peebles

Robert J Suttie

George Petrie

Derek S Bell

Information relating to the characteristics of the documents contained in a document cassette 16 is stored in a button memory 22 on the cassette housing and is read when the cassette 16 is inserted into a document feeding apparatus. The information is processed and correlated with data stored in the memory 74 of a control unit 70 to determine the optimum settings for a mechanism 10 for picking such documents. In particular, during a pick operation, a predetermined number of pulses are supplied to a stepper motor 50, so that when the friction belt 30 is moved into engagement with the documents of the cassette 16, an optimum pressure is exerted by the belt 30 on the documents in the cassette 16. A retard roller 52 is then moved to an optimum position in relation to the belt 30. In addition, the width of a gap between a guide plate 62 and the belt 30 is adjusted by moving the retard roller and the guide plate 62 to a predetermined width, which is optimum for accommodating documents of thickness equal to those in the cassette 16. Hence, the risks of mispicking of documents, double feeding and document jams are minimized.

Document feeding apparatus

A belt (28) is moved into contact with a sheet (70) to be fed from the stack (18) under the control of a solenoid (48), which when energized causes pivoting of a crank mechanism (42) and an pulley (26) which supports the belt (28). The belt (28) frictionally engages the sheet (70) as to separate it from the stack (18) and move it into engagement with feed rollers (56) of a transport mechanism. The belt (28) is then retracted from the sheet (70) which is moved away from the stack (18) by the feed rollers (56). After a predetermined time period, the belt (28) is moved into contact with the next sheet of the stack (18) to be fed and the process is repeated until the desired number of sheets have been fed from the stack (18). The belt (28) is driven so that it rotates continuously during the pick operation and is brought to rest on retraction of the belt (28) after the final sheet has been picked from the stack (18).

Sheet feeding apparatus

A belt displacement operation is periodically carried by the pick mechanism 11 of a sheet feeding apparatus, when the number of sheets fed has reaches a predetermined value. The motor 34 is driven in reverse for a predetermined time, so as to cause rotation of the belt 28 in the opposite direction to that during feeding. Since the pick pulley 26 is supported on the shaft 38 by means of a one-way clutch 40 so that it does not rotate during the reverse rotation of the belt 28, displacement of the belt 28 occurs relative to the pick pulley 26, so that in subsequent pick operations, a different portion of the belt 28 engages the stack 18 so as to pick a sheet, than had displacement of the belt 28 not occurred. This reduces the risk of localized portions of the belt 28 becoming more worn than others, due to more frequent engagement with the stack 18.

A self service financial print terminal (10) has a keypad (14) to input instructions; a card reader (44) to read a data-bearing user card; and a printer (20) to print a financial document such as a cheque in accordance with instructions. A correctly-printed cheque is driven by pairs of rollers (22,24) to a delivery slot (18). An incorrectly-printed cheque is diverted by divert mechanism (30) to pass between a pair of print rollers (34) which print a stripe on the cheque in indelible security ink. The marked cheque can then be retained in a non-secure part of the terminal (36).

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Dundee, United Kingdom

Andrew Lynch