Drive apparatus for a mail-processing system

• US 20060218877A1
• Filed: 04/01/2005
• Published: 10/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DMT Solutions Global Corporation
• Original Assignee: Pitney Bowes Deutschland GmbH (Böwe Systec AG)
• Inventors: Edel, Eddy, Brauneis, Axel
• Granted Patent: US 7,395,639 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 53/284.300
• CPC Class Codes: B65G 23/28 Arrangements for equalising the drive to several elements
• CPC Class Codes: B65G 23/38 for effecting intermittent movement of belts or chains

Abstract

A drive apparatus for a mail-processing system is specified, which apparatus has an enclosure-collating path, which is intermittently driven at least in one end section, an adjoining inserting station for sets of enclosures and an envelope-filling table, which extends parallel to the enclosure-collating path and in front of the inserting station and over which envelopes pulled from a stack of envelopes are pulled by means of an envelope-gripper chain in front of the inserting station and held open there and, once filled with the sets of enclosures, are conveyed away by the gripper chain. A reduction of mass moments of inertia of the drive for the envelope-gripper chain together with simplification of the structure of this drive and a conveying system of a modular design are achieved by a drive section as a chain drive or toothed-belt drive being guided downwards from an intermittently rotating drive shaft out of the region of the enclosure-collating path to a chain wheel or a belt pulley which is mounted in a substructure of the envelope-filling table. From there, a chain drive or toothed-belt drive leads in the substructure of the envelope-filling table to a chain wheel or a toothed-belt pulley which is mounted at the free end of a rocker, the free end of the rocker undergoing an approximately vertically oriented guidance in the substructure of the installation, while the upper end of the rocker is supported and mounted coaxially in relation to a drive shaft for the envelope-gripper chain on the envelope-filling table which is displaceable in relation to the substructure. A chain drive transmits the intermittent drive movement finally from the lower end of the rocker to the upper end of the rocker, onto the drive shaft which is coaxial to the rocker pivoting axis and is intended for the driving-chain wheel of the envelope-gripper chain.

Claims

1. Drive apparatus for a mail-processing system which has a driven enclosure-collating path and has conveying fingers arranged on endless, circulating conveying loops, and an inserting station, at a downstream end of the enclosure-collating path, and by means of which sets of enclosures formed on the enclosure-collating path are inserted into envelopes, which are conveyed on an envelope-filling table, parallel to the enclosure-collating path, by means of an envelope-gripper chain and are held open opposite the inserting station and, once filled with the sets of enclosures, are conveyed away from the inserting station by means of the envelope-gripper chain, the conveying loops of the enclosure-collating path and the envelope-gripper chain each being driven by intermittently rotating drive shaft wherein an intermittently rotating drive shaft which is coupled to the drive for the enclosure-collating path bears a first pulley of a first drive loop which is guided downwards from a level of the enclosure-collating path and serves for driving a second pulley which is mounted in a substructure of the envelope-filling table and around which is positioned a second drive loop which is guided essentially horizontally in the substructure to a corresponding third pulley which is supported and guided in a region of the substructure in a vicinity of an end of the envelope-gripper chain, and from which a third loop leads to a fourth pulley which serves for driving the envelope-gripper chain, said driving-chain wheel being mounted on the envelope-filling table, in the vicinity of the end thereof.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the envelope-filling table can be displaced relative to the substructure parallel to the conveying direction of the enclosure-collating path and can be adjusted to certain displacement positions by means of a positioning drive, and wherein the fourth pulley is coupled to the driving chain wheel by a rocker mechanism whereby the driving chain wheel can be displaced with the envelope filling table parallel to the conveying direction.

3. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the envelope-gripper chain extends, in its conveying direction, past the inserting station, beyond an envelope-flap-closing section, into an envelope-turning station.

4. Apparatus accordingly to claim 2, wherein the envelope-gripper chain extends, in its conveying direction, past the inserting station, beyond an envelope-flap-closing section, into an envelope-turning station.

5. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein loops are chains or belts.

6. Apparatus accordingly to claim 5, wherein pulleys are chain wheels or toothed belts.