Banctec, Incorporated

Charles K Eaton

Thomas J Norman, Jr

George A Sarinopoulos

Eugene C Nolting

A pocket for receiving and stacking sorted documents from a high-speed reader sorter includes an anti-jamming device for engaging the documents in the pocket to urge the documents into a stacked configuration according to the sequence in which the documents enter the pocket. The device includes a casing having a plurality of flexible elements projecting therefrom, such that the elements extend transversely with respect to the path of the incoming documents. A document entering the pocket will bend at least some of the flexible elements along the path of the incoming document. The flexible elements deflect the previously pocketed documents out of the path of the incoming documents, to allow the incoming document to enter the pocket unimpeded. The flexible elements are held in discrete bundles by mounting the elements in trapezoidal-shaped cavities within the casing. The flexible elements have sufficient stiffness to resist bunching and tangling at the free ends of the flexible elements, such that the integrity of the individual bundles of flexible elements is maintained and the flexible elements exert a consistent biasing force on the documents to inhibit jamming and to urge the documents sequentially into the stacked configuration.

Device for sequentially stacking documents in a paper document pocket

Improved method and apparatus for heat sealing strips of encodable material to documents, a continuous supply of the encodable material being fed, by way of a discrete loop feed assembly, to an alignment station where defined lengths thereof are aligned along the edge of documents transported thereto. A heater-drum assembly effects the heat-sealing of the aligned combination which is then transported, by way of a stacker-deflector assembly, to an output station. The transport of the documents and encodable material are assisted by a continuously running friction belt drive assembly with the severing of the encodable material into strips equal to the length of each document effected in response to photosensor actuated controls responding to the transport location of the documents and material.

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Lewisville, TX, United States of America

Charles K Eaton