Pitney Bowes Inc.

Theresa Bartick

James A Fairweather

Thomas M Lyga

Norman R Lilly

Christopher D Clark

Donald Surprise

A feeder for feeding media items from a tray includes a first nudger roller and a second nudger roller. The first and the second nudger roller are moveably mounted to the feeder. The first and the second nudger rollers are in a first position when a tray of a first type is connected to said feeder the first and said second nudger rollers are in a second position when a tray of a second type is connected to said feeder. The tray of a first type may be a shingle feed tray and the tray of a second type may be a stacks feed tray. With the shingle feed tray the first position for the first and the second nudger rollers are where each nudger roller engages each media item in a shingles tray when each such media item is positioned in the shingles tray to exit the shingles tray and to be moved from the shingles tray into said feeder. With the stacks feed tray the second position for the first and the second nudger rollers are where the first nudger roller is positioned out of engagement with media items in a stacks tray and the second nudger rollers is positioned to each engage each media item in the stacks tray when each such media item is positioned in said stacks tray to exit the stacks tray and to be moved from the stacks tray into said feeder.

Multimode stack and shingle document feeder

Discrete means of setting a feeder to process a wide range of media, i.e., sheets, slips, envelopes, booklets and hand collated documents, etc. as well as providing a method of utilizing the feeder for manual feed operation. The foregoing is accomplished by a friction-clutch retard feeder equipped with one or more friction clutches. When a selection lever is moved to a position, a primary clutch engages the separator roller with a resistive torque T. The selection lever configures the mechanism such that the separator roller rotation is resisted entirely by the torque of the primary clutch. When the selection lever is moved to a position, the ground of the primary clutch is removed, and the rotation of the separator roll is coupled through a gear ratio to a secondary clutch. The selection of the gear ratio and the value of the secondary clutch allows the separation mechanism to be resisted by a second torque, T, which can be lower than T.

Method of providing multiple separation modes in a feeder

A method and an arrangement for feeding shingled media item includes a tray for supporting a stack of shingled media items. The tray has an exit area and each of the media items has a bottom edge. A feeder separates and feeds media items from the shingled stack of media items. The tray is connected to the feeder with a first and a second cavity formed at the exit area of the feed tray and the front of the feeder such that media items moved from the tray into the feeder are supported on a portion of the media item bottom edge. A rail structure is attached to the surface for supporting the media items bottom edge adjacent the media item exit area. The feeder may include a separator roller and a feed roller positioned with respect to the first and the second cavity such that the media items are moved from a media item shingle orientation upstream of the separator roller and the feed roller to a media item feed orientation down stream of the separator roller and the feed roller with said media item side edges out of contact with the feed head guide surfaces.

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Gorham, ME, United States of America

Theresa Bartick