The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 28, 2000
Filed:
Aug. 29, 1997
David C McHenry, Jr, Stone Mountain, GA (US);
Philip M FitzSimons, Atlanta, GA (US);
Unicoil, Inc., Norcross, GA (US);
Abstract
An automatic feeding station (10) for receiving a plurality of binding elements (70), packaged in a continuous bandolier strip (74), and feeding same into an inserter station (12), for the automatic edge binding of a stack of sheets. The feeding station (12) comprises a housing consisting of a pair of vertically oriented end walls (14,16), and a pair of downwardly extending, angularly disposed walls (18, 20) converging at the bottom of the housing. A first such angular wall (18) defines the feed path for the bandolier strip (74) consisting of a pair of continuous plastic films (76, 78) joined at spaced apart intervals to define plural, laterally oriented pockets or cavities (80) to receive the binding elements (70) in a spaced apart, parallel relationship. Disposed in close proximity to the bottom is a laterally reciprocating pusher member (40), having associated therewith a cutting blade (126) to cut the overriding plastic film (78) to allow the pusher member (40) to feed the binding element (70) through an aperture in one side wall into the inserter station (12). Disposed along the second angular wall (20), near the bottom, is a lateral slot through which the binding element free or spent plastic films are caused to exit the feeding station (10). To facilitate automatic feeding of the bandolier strip (74) for axially positioning the binding element (70) to the pusher member (40), the spent plastic films are caused to pass a pivoting tension roller (88) into a pair of driven pinch rollers (86) to ensure the incremental feeding of the binding elements to the pusher member.