International Business Machines Corporation

Anthony J Botte

James H Hubbard

Paul R Spivey

Wayne E Robbins

Sheet collator apparatus having means for recovery from collating errors. Moving between two adjacent bins without feeding a sheet, feeding two sheets into one bin, or feeding a sheet while the feeder is moving are errors that are detected and corrected. An error is corrected by homing the deflector and repositioning it at the correct bin before restart. The described embodiment includes two collators, i.e., tandem units.

Collator error recovery

Copy production machine under program control selectively interleaving copy separation sheets between successive copy jobs. The copy separation sheets can be supplied from the same copy sheet supply source as the copies being produced or from an alternate supply source. The number of separation sheets supplied is a predetermined relationship between the number of copy receiving bins in an output receiving the copy separation sheets and the number of copies to be produced from a source. The effective capacity of a collator is extended by such interleaving using a programmable control that talies copies made versus copies selected greater than the capacity of a collator such that the collator job is automatically segmented.

Computer-controlled copy production machine having job separation

Copy production machine selectively interleaves copy separation sheets between successive copy jobs, subjobs, or job portions. The copy separation sheets can be from the same copy sheet supply source or from an alternate source. The supplied copy separation sheets need not be operated upon by the copy production machines, i.e., receive an image. Such sheets may be preimaged if so desired. When copy sheet supply means has different size copy sheets, the separation mode may be inhibited. The number of separation sheets supplied depends on the number of copy receiving bins in an output means and the number of copies produced from a single image. The effective capacity of a collator is extended by the use of separation sheets.

Copy production machines having job separation capabilities

A copy production machine having a document feed and a collator controls collator operation for optimum performance in accordance with the status of the original document feed. The collator has a construction such that collation of a moving vane in a first relative direction with respect to a set of collator bins provides more reliable collation operation for enhancing throughput. When an original document is in a position to be copied upon the ending of a current copy production run, collation occurs in both directions of relative motion, whereas in the absence of such original document in the document feed position, collation only occurs in the preferred direction. In other aspects of the invention, whenever copies from multiple images are simultaneously being processed by the copy production machine, collation occurs in both directions of collation, whereas when copies bear images of a single image then collation only occurs in the preferred direction.

Growing community of inventors

Boulder, CO, United States of America

Anthony J Botte