Pitney Bowes Inc.

Torulf F Aasen

Charles E Pegg

Jules Nisenson

A copying machine in which a photo-receptor sheet, wound between supply and take-up reels, serves as an intermediate web which is charged, exposed and developed with toner; the toner then being transferred to copy paper. The photo-receptor sheet is advanced incrementally from the supply reel to the take-up reel during each copy cycle. After substantially all of the sheet is wound on the take-up reel, it is rewound on the supply reel, following which it is moved once again in incremental steps in the forward direction during copy cycles. The supply and take-up reels are mounted in a highly compact module which is easily plugged into or removed from the base section, without requiring any threading of the photo-receptor sheet over elements within the base section. In this way, practically all that is required during a service call to replace the photo-receptor sheet is to substitute one module with a new photo-receptor sheet for the previously used module with the old photo-receptor sheet. The module is made highly compact by providing for a relatively long sheet path within the module past the various copying-step positions, the path length being considerably longer than the length of the minimum tangential line between the wound reels. Elements in the base section for controlling the copying step functions are arranged around the path in facing relationship with respective copying step positions in the module.

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Hollywood, FL, United States of America

Torulf F Aasen