Other

Donald R Alexander

Carl W Johnson

Apparatus for manufacturing discrete embossed consecutively numbered license plates from a continuous length of web or strip of sheet metal comprises a hole punching press, an embossing press, a rimming press, and a blanking press, all of which operate in unison. A feed conveyor is located between the rimming and blanking presses to advance the web in steps through the entire series of presses. The movable platen of the embossing press cooperates with a numerical registering device having an assembly of relatively rotatable decimal rings and each ring has a series of embossed numbers on its obverse side and a corresponding number of holes on its converse side. The registering device also comprises an indexing mechanism to advance the rings in desired sequences and the indexing mechanism comprises a motor driven oscillatory indexing arm movable through a counting stroke to advance one or more rings one step and a return stroke. The indexing arm carries four pneumatically actuated clutch units, each having a clutch pin selectively extendable to engage the pin hole on its associated ring to advance that ring. The indexing mechanism further comprises four stationarily mounted pneumatically actuated lock pin units, each having a lock pin selectively extendable to engage the pin hole on its associated ring to lock the ring until the next advance is required. Appropriate control means are provided.

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Conway, AR, United States of America

Donald R Alexander