Esselte Pendaflex Corporation

Dymo Industries, Inc.

Richard A Edwards

Cecil G Olson

A mechanism is disclosed for feeding tag stock having spaced-apart drive holes and comprises a pair of slidably mounted carrier arms beneath the tag stock each having a plurality of spring loaded pins on an end thereof. The pins of each carrier arm are alternately brought into engagement with the tag stock by means of a rotating cam which engages a follower on the carrier arm. A pin in each of the carrier arms will alternately engage a hole in the tag stock in registery therewith to sequentially advance the tag stock a desired increment of distance as the cam continues to rotate.

Transport mechanism for stationary encoders

A print wheel selection mechanism operates to sequentially enter into a plurality of print wheels digits to be printed by initially entering the highest order digit into the lowest order or right-most print wheel or vice versa. During the next sequence, the highest order digit is shifted to the print wheel next to the right-most wheel, and the next order digit is entered into the right-most wheel. In this manner, the foregoing sequences are repeated until the entire number is entered into the print wheels with the number being sequentially entered and shifted along the several print wheels. The mechanism includes a plurality of intermediate stop wheels interdigitally and rotatably mounted on a common shaft with the print wheels, the print wheels and the intermediate stop wheels being urged to rotate in a predetermined direction. The print wheels and the intermediate stop wheels are each provided with stops for limiting the rotation of the next succeeding wheel in an ascending order.

Print wheel selection mechanism

A hand-held label marking device prints selected bar code character information on labels by scribing selected code bars upon one area of a moving label juxtaposed with a printing medium and prints corresponding alpha-numeric character information upon another area of the label by impacting the label and printing medium against selected print elements, thereby establishing a standard symbol, such as that currently prescribed in the United States by the Universal Product Code. Further alpha-numeric information is printed upon a further area of the label by a reciprocating printing mechanism in the same device to provide consumer-readable price information. A compact arrangement of component parts enables the printing of a full range of bar code character information in accordance with a compact symbol standard such as the zero-suppression symbol standard of the Universal Product Code, together with the corresponding alpha-numeric character information.

Growing community of inventors

Alameda, CA, United States of America

Richard A Edwards