International Business Machines Corporation

Randy J Kisacky

Lawrence A Stone

John Mako

Barton H Kunz

Charles Felix Gabriel

David B Schaefer

Douglas A Schmidt

Jerry Z Raski

Craig A Kaufman

D Michael Bocinski

An impact printer has a print band moving longitudinally around pulleys with one side of the band moving in contact along a rigid platen and the other side having engraved characters presented along a print line of a print medium (e.g. paper and ink ribbon). The leading edge of platen is squared off (e.g. sharp) to scrape contamination off the band. A row of hammers impact the print medium against the band between the hammers and an impact surface of the platen. The impact surface of the platen contains multiple longitudinal grooves which start slightly back from the leading edge of the platen and which prevent increased friction force between the band and platen from occurring as the band wears the platen impact surface smooth.

Band line printer with grooved platen

A pulley for connecting a driven device, that is sensitive to speed variations, to be driven by an a.c. motor that is susceptible to speed variations, caused by power line disturbances. The pulley has a peripheral drive surface for a belt drive and two side surfaces through which an opening is formed to receive a drive shaft that is turned by the a.c. motor. One of the sides of the pulley has a slot formed therein with surfaces on each side of the slot. A resilient material of a preselected Durometer value is positioned within the slot and contiguous with at least one of the surfaces in the slot, against which an element projecting from the drive shaft acts to turn the pulley. During a momentary slowdown in the motor speed, the projecting element moves away from the resilient material and permits the momentum of the driven device to maintain its speed while the motor recovers its speed.

Pulley for driving a high performance printer

Growing community of inventors

Johnson City, NY, United States of America

Randy J Kisacky