Adjustable aligner mechanism

Abstract

An assembly is provided for adjustably aligning sheets of material, particularly sheets of print material fed into a printing apparatus. The assembly includes an alignment section adapted to convey the print material in a direction toward the printing apparatus. The alignment section includes first and second guide members for controlling the position of print material passing through the assembly. Each guide member extends generally parallel to the direction toward the printing apparatus. The assembly also includes a control mechanism for adjustably securing the position of the guide members. The control mechanism includes a first and second shaft extending laterally to the first direction. The first guide member is supported by the first shaft and the second guide member is supported by the second shaft. In this way, rotation of the first shaft selectively translates the first guide member longitudinally along the first shaft without translating the second guide member.

Description

[0001] The present application claims priority to provisional patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 674,138, filed Apr. 22, 2005. This earlier filed provisional application is incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to an adjustable aligner mechanism and more specifically a mechanism for handling and aligning sheets of print material. [0003] Alignment and handling mechanisms are commonly used for manipulating sheets of print material, such as paper, in both commercial and consumer applications. Generally, when print material must be cut, folded, printed onto or otherwise altered, an alignment mechanism is desirable. Also, in order to suit customized or unique projects, an alignment mechanism should be adjustable. Preferably, such adjustments are easily performed by an operator making the overall application more efficient. However, once configured for proper alignment, the apparatus must reliably maintain settings throughout even th...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012] The present invention also provides an assembly for adjustably aligning a sheet of material. The assembly includes first and second guides for controlling the position of the sheet. The first and second guides are laterally movable independent of each other. The first guide includes a first carriage operatively connected to a first drive and a second carriage is operatively connected to a second drive. The first and second drives are operatively linked together such that operation of one of the first and second drives causes operation of t

Problems solved by technology

While adjustable laterally, the guides were often limited in the number of positions available for repositioning.

Also, even minor adjustment of the guide positions required tools and was time consuming.

However, many contemporary alignment mechanisms employing such slide configurations are prone to binding orjamming during adjustment, which can result in undesirable delays.

Adjusting the print station position between or during print jobs, can be time consuming.

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