Agfa-Gevaert Ag

Hans A Massengeil

Otto Stemme

Josef Pfeifer

Robert Theodoor Overmeer

Rudolf Eppe

Anton Schatz

Georg Bock

Joachim Pietruska

Fritz Steinlehner

Georg Konigl

Jean J Caufriez

An automatic feeder for a photographic copying machine includes a housing and a plate for supporting a stack of originals which are consecutively conveyed towards a transparent exposure plate positioned on the copying machine. The feeder is provided with adjustable tappet rollers mounted against the exposure plate to receive a front edge of an original moved along the exposure plate, without damaging the front edge. The plate for supporting the stack of originals includes adjustable stops for adjusting the plate to differing formats of the originals being processed. An adjusting lever connected to the adjustable stops for adjusting the latter is operatively connected to an adjustment device for adjusting the position of tappet rollers along the exposure plate. Pivotable transport rollers are provided to hold the original against the exposure plate. The housing of the feeder is pivotable relative to the housing of the copying machine between an open and closed position.

Automatic feeder

A pair of infeed rollers located upstream of an exposure window and a pair of outfeed rollers downstream thereof transport an original across the exposure window so that successive portions of the transported original be imaged onto successive portions of copying medium whose transport speed corresponds to that of the original. The lower infeed and outfeed rollers are stationary, but the upper ones are located at the coupling links of a four-or five-link transmission mechanism comprised of cranks and rockers. A tension spring tightened by an electromagnet causes the upper infeed roller to move down and press against the lower infeed roller. Due to the transmission mechanism, variations in the thickness of an original transported between the infeed rollers inherently modified in a controlled manner the force of the upper outfeed roller against the lower and/or the spacing of the upper outfeed roller from the lower, so that an original transported across the exposure window by the infeed rollers not collide with the outfeed rollers. Intermediate successive copying operations, the roller pairs open, so that an endless original, such as a computer print-out, can be reverse transported by a distance at least equal to the transport-direction length of the exposure window, to form upon successive sheets of copying medium successive images which adjoin to form a gapless image of the endless original.

Continuous copying machine

Relative movement is effected between the original and the projection system of the copying machine, and the latter projects images of successive transverse strip-shaped sections of the original onto the recording medium. The projection system comprises a plurality of lens-row systems. Each lens-row system includes a first lens row which receives light from a strip-shaped section of the original and projects into an intermediate image plane, and a second lens row which receives light from the intermediate image plane and projects that light onto the recording medium. The lens-row systems are spaced apart in a direction transverse to the direction of elongation of the individual lens rows. The light passing through each lens-row system includes a plurality of central rays, each passing through the optical center of one lens element of the first lens row and through the optical center of the corresponding lens element of the second lens row. Optical deflecting structure is utilized to cause the central rays of the plural lens-row systems to converge both in the vicinity of the original and in the vicinity of the recording medium. Thus, when the plural lens-row systems image onto the recording medium a particular strip-shaped section of the original, this section is being imaged onto the recording medium by all lens-row systems simultaneously, not successively.

Exposure system for copying machines

A copying machine wherein successive strip-shaped portions of an original are imaged onto a moving photosensitive carrier by a system which is mounted in part on a reciprocable carriage and includes one or more fluorescent or incandescent lamps and a mask having an elongated aperture through which light passes toward and is reflected on successive portions of the original when the carriage is in motion. The width of each strip-shaped portion is a whole multiple of the quotient of the speed of the carriage and the modulation frequency of light. The modulation frequency is twice the frequency of alternating current which is supplied to the lamp or lamps. Such selection of the width of illuminated portions of the original prevents the formation of lighter and darker transverse streaks between the marginal portions of the reproduction. The width of the aperture preferably increases stepwise from the center toward both ends to compensate for customary reduction of the brightness of lamp or lamps in the same direction. The width of each section of such aperture is also a whole multiple of the aforementioned quotient.

Optical copying machine

A copying machine wherein successive strip-shaped portions of an original are imaged onto a moving photosensitive carrier by a system which is mounted in part on a reciprocable carriage and includes one or more incandescent or fluorescent lamps and a mask having an elongated aperture through which light issuing from the lamp or lamps and impinging upon successive strip-shaped portions of the original passes to the photosensitive carrier. The mask can be installed in the path of modulated light between the lamp or lamps and the original or between the original and the carrier. The longer sides of the aperture are flanked by crenellated marginal portions of the mask so that the aperture is subdivided into a plurality of elongated neighboring sections which extend in the direction of movement of the carriage. The lens of the imaging system images the neighboring sections of the aperture onto the carrier in such a way that the images overlap, at least in part. This prevents the development (or reduces the sharpness) of ripples which normally develop on the copy as a result of unequal illumination of successive strip-shaped portions of the original, primarily because the intensity of light varies owing to the fact that the lamp or lamps are in circuit with a source of alternating current.

Growing community of inventors

Munich, Germany

Hans A Massengeil