The Mead Corporation

David W Smith

Jack D Ames

Suresh C Paranjpe

Frederic L Clark

Orville A Kaffenberger, Jr

A sheet registration device for receiving a sheet from a sheet input and delivering the sheet to a sheet output, while laterally aligning the sheet prior to delivery to the sheet output, includes an endless belt conveyor which extends between the sheet input and the sheet output, and an alignment surface extending generally parallel to and to one side of the conveyor. An alignment arrangement, including a plurality of parallel vacuum belts and a cooperating plenum, is positioned adjacent the conveyor and is skewed with respect to the conveyor. The alignment arrangement engages a sheet as it is carried by the conveyor and transports the sheet laterally such that a lateral edge of the sheet contacts the alignment surface. The vacuum belts define relatively large openings through which the partial vacuum from the plenum is applied, such that the vacuum belts effectively engage a sheet only during periods in which substantially all of the openings are covered by the sheet.

Sheet registration device

An ink drop printing system for use as part of a duplicator. Sheets which are to be printed by the printing system are fed from one or another of two separate paper supplies and delivered along downwardly converging delivery paths toward a common reception point on a printing transport. The printing transport carries the sheets along a printing path which is angled upwardly and folded back from the delivery paths toward the common reception point. While the sheets are carried upwardly by the printing transport, they are printed by a plurality of inclined, angularly extending, and cooperatively operated jet drop printing heads.

Ink drop printing system

A sheet feeding device for separating a single sheet from a stack of sheets and forwarding the separated sheet away from the stack is disclosed which employs an endless friction belt cantilevered about a drive pulley such that the unsupported end of the belt floats freely on a stack of documents or paper sheets when the belt is in the feeding position. As the belt is driven about the pulley the unsupported end of the belt pulls and advances the foremost sheet from the stack and advances it over a retard member on which the unsupported end of the belt also floats. Because the belt floats freely on the stack of sheets, the normal force is evenly distributed over the surface of the belt, intersheet coupling is minimized, and the belt is able to conform to changes in the paper and stack condition.

Growing community of inventors

Richardson, TX, United States of America

David W Smith