Equipment for processing material in sheet or ribbon form

Abstract

An apparatus is provided for continuously processing metal ribbon from ribbon spools of fixed capacity to form spools of processed ribbon. At a dispensing or wind-out reel a continuous metal ribbon is formed by alternately emptying spools from two different positions, joining the ribbon from alternately emptied spools, and replacing each empty spool with a full one while the other spool is being emptied. The continuous metal ribbon is provided to a processing station and, from there, is delivered to a collecting or wind-up reel where a pair of spools are alternately filled with processed ribbon and a full spool is replaced with an empty one while the other spool is being filled. A festoon tower provides a pair of elongated paths of independently variable travel length for ribbon moving, respectively, between the dispensing reel and processing station and between the processing station and collecting reel. This tower provides a continuous movement of ribbon to and from the processing station. One tower path normally stores a predetermined amount of the continuous ribbon and releases the stored ribbon to the processing station during transferring and spool-changing operations at the dispensing reel, thereby providing a supply of ribbon to the processing station during these operations. The other tower path stores ribbon from the processing station only during the transferring and spool-changing operation at the collecting reel and releases the stored ribbon to the collecting reel thereafter, thereby guaranteeing a continuous withdrawal of ribbon from the processing station during these operations.