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:
Oct. 20, 2009
Filed:
Apr. 13, 2007
Theresa A. Bartick, Gorham, ME (US);
James A. Fairweather, Milford, CT (US);
Thomas M. Lyga, Southbury, CT (US);
Christopher D. Clark, Lempster, NH (US);
Theresa A. Bartick, Gorham, ME (US);
James A. Fairweather, Milford, CT (US);
Thomas M. Lyga, Southbury, CT (US);
Christopher D. Clark, Lempster, NH (US);
Pitney Bowes Inc., Stamford, CT (US);
Abstract
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.