International Business Machines Corporation

Joseph L Gambrell

Allen D Hawthorne

Robert M Hofland

Gerald W Baumann

Francis J Schell

George F Hayes

James A McCuiston

Allen G Schulte

Gene P Gilleland

Convenience collator for a copier

A movable self-contained deflector unit for directing sheets into the paper bin of a multi-bin collator. A first motor is mounted on the frame of the deflector unit to drive transport rolls also mounted thereon. The transport roll provides the final impetus for moving the sheets into the collator bin. A second motor is mounted on the frame of the deflector unit to drive the unit to a selected bin. The motor may be reversible in order to approach a selected bin from either direction. Alternatively, movement of the deflector unit in the second direction may be obtained through a spring motor wound through deflector unit movement in the first direction. Speed of the spring-driven deflector unit is controlled by dynamic braking of the second motor. This collator may interact with a copier machine to provide semi-automatic duplexing and the speed of the transport rolls may be synchronized with the speed of the copier for moving copy sheets into bins while the sheet is still in the final processing station. The speed of the transport rolls is increased when the sheet leaves the final processing station.

Self-contained motor-driven collator deflector

Growing community of inventors

Lexington, KY, United States of America

Joseph L Gambrell