Kolbus Gmbh & Co. Kg

Karl-Heinz Dopke

Horst Rathert

Siemen Garlichs

Gunter Geldmeier

A sheet feeder for use in a book assembling machine comprises a magazine having a movable base which defines a support plane for a stack of folded sheets. The feeder also includes a pneumatic separator, which creates a gap between a corner of the lowermost sheet of a stack in the magazine and the next adjacent sheet, and a device for injecting air into the thus formed gap to produce an air cushion. The movable magazine base functions as a conveyor to move, with the assistance of the air cushion, the leading edge of the lowermost sheet in the stack in a planar manner to a withdrawal conveying system where the sheet is engaged and subsequently pulled from the magazine. The withdrawn sheet moves, under the influence of a transfer mechanism in one embodiment, into registration with an assembly conveyor.

Assembling machine

The order in which printing work products, such as finished books, book blocks and other similar objects, are transported is rearranged intermediate serially arranged entry and discharge conveyors. In a destacking mode of operation, stacks of products are positioned at an intermediate destacking station and the product which is uppermost in the stack is separated from the stack and delivered onto the receiving end of the discharge conveyor, the receiving end of the discharge conveyor being caused to move vertically in steps so as to remain in position to receive individual products as the stack height is reduced. In an alternative operational mode, the level of the discharge conveyor is fixed and the discharge end of the entry conveyor is vertically moved in stepwise fashion with a support platform of the destacking station such that, when control over the last product of a stack is transferred to the discharge conveyor, the transfer of a new stack into the destacking station can occur as the support platform is returned to its starting position.

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Rahden, Germany

Karl-Heinz Dopke