A banknote storage device includes a housing member having a loading region in which a banknote is loaded; a storage which is disposed to be adjacent to the housing member and in which the banknote is stored; a temporary accumulation region provided between the loading region and the storage so as to temporarily accumulate the banknote to be stored in the storage; and a push-in mechanism that pushes the banknote loaded to the loading region, into the temporary accumulation region and that pushes a plurality of the banknotes accumulated in the temporary accumulation region, into the storage.

A sheet conveyor is provided for transporting a sheet. The sheet conveyor includes a supplying conveyor, a receiving conveyor and a sheet guidance unit. The receiving conveyor includes a support surface arranged for supporting the sheet on a contact side of the sheet and an attraction unit arranged for attracting the sheet to the support surface. The supplying conveyor includes a transport belt being arranged for advancing the sheet in a transport direction along a transport path towards the support surface of the receiving conveyor; the sheet having two side edge portions relative to the transport path. The sheet guidance unit is arranged at a downstream end of the transport path for guiding the sheet towards the receiving conveyor, wherein said sheet guidance unit includes a lifting element arranged for lifting both side edge portions of the sheet away from the support surface while a middle portion of the sheet in between both side edge portions is guided towards the support surface.

A traction tensioning device which has one or more upper chain assemblies driven by an upper sprocket pulley and one or more lower chain assemblies driven by a lower sprocket pulley. Each of the upper and lower chain assemblies has a plurality of pads mounted to the chain assemblies. The upper chain assembly is mounted to a movable platen. The lower chain assembly is mounted to a fixed platen. The upper chain assembly and the movable platen are raised and lowered with respect to the lower chain assembly thereby creating a tension on a strip of material passing between the upper and lower chain assemblies.

A mail singulator system determines a position of an optical panel to automatically adjust a loading conveyor speed to prevent stacked and overlapped mailpieces in the singulator and large gaps between mailpieces. The optical panel is configured between the front mailpiece of a mail stack on the loading conveyor and the optical sensor. The optical panel changes position with the pressure exerted by the mail stack and provides signals to the controller to adjust the conveyor speed. An optical sensor may detect a far threshold position or limit distance to increase the speed of the conveyor and may detect a near threshold position of limit distance to reduce the speed of the conveyor. The optical panel may have a low friction surface to allow the mail to slide into the conveyor and an optical surface to allow reliable optical sensor detection of the optical panel position.

The sheet stacker includes a sheet conveyor arrangement, configured for feeding a plurality of sheets and having a sheet discharge end, and a stacking bay. In the stacking bay sheets delivered by the sheet conveyor arrangement are formed into stacks. A stack conveyor is provided in the stacking bay and is movable in a conveyor direction parallel to a sheet feeding direction, according to which the sheets are fed from the sheet discharge end onto the stack conveyor. The sheet discharge end is configured and controlled such that it is gradually lifted during sheet stacking, in order to accommodate a growing stack of sheets being formed on the stack conveyor. A stop plate is positioned in the stacking bay above the stack conveyor and in front of the sheet discharge end of the sheet conveyor arrangement. The stop plate is configured and controlled to be gradually lifted from the stack conveyor as the sheet stack grows, to be withdrawn upon completion of the stack thus allowing removal of the stack in an evacuation direction substantially parallel to the conveyor direction, and to be lowered towards the stack conveyor again.

The invention relates to a sorting conveyor having pivotally mounted flaps for sorting articles into sorting outlets as a function of a sorting indication affixed to each of the articles. The conveyor includes a monitoring and control unit designed to cause each flap to pivot between a closed position in which the flap forms a conveyor portion suitable for conveying an article in a certain conveying direction and an open position in which the flap interrupts conveying of an article on the conveyor to deflect it towards an appropriate sorting outlet. The monitoring and control unit is also arranged to retrieve thickness data from a memory giving a certain thickness for the article to be deflected, and to respond by causing the flap to pivot into an open position through a certain opening amplitude determined as a function of the thickness data about the article that is to be deflected.

Embodiments of a system and method for shingulating, singulating, and synchronizing articles in an article feeder system are disclosed. The article feeder system may include a shingulating device configured to receive a stack of articles and to produce a positively lapped stack of articles, a plurality of picking devices configured to pick one or more articles from the positively lapped stack of articles and to produce one or more singulated articles, and one or more synchronization devices configured to deliver the one or more singulated articles to one or more sorter windows.

A folding arrangement including a flap lifting assembly located at a drop conveyor discharge end and including a pivoting arm with a flap engaging surface that is movable between a first, flap-lifting position and a second, pass-through position is provided. A folding assembly includes a receiving conveyor with a receiving conveyor feed end positioned below the drop conveyor discharge end, and a folding finger above the receiving conveyor feed end. The product-substrate combination is driven by the drop conveyor into contact with the flap engaging surface in the first position to lift the flap as the product-substrate combination is discharged from the drop conveyor discharge end towards the receiving conveyor feed end, and the folding finger contacts the flap of the product-substrate combination to complete folding of the flap to a second angled position onto the product as the product-substrate combination pivots the flap engaging surface to the second position.

Disclosed is an automated insert feeding system and related methods, capable of removing bulk-packaged items from a tray or other package, and separating the bulk-packaged items individually for distribution into individual packages in high speed reliable fashion. The disclosed systems can also be loaded with multiple packages of the pre-packaged items for automatic feeding into the system which allows human operators to load several packages and allow the system to work unattended, thereby reducing man-hours spend on the process.

A sheet conveying system includes an upstream conveyor section having an endless first conveyor belt movable in a first conveying direction x and extending in a first lateral direction z, the first conveying direction x and the first lateral direction z defining a first conveying plane xz; and a downstream conveyor section having an endless second conveyor belt that adjoins the first conveyor belt and is movable in a second conveying direction x and extends in a second lateral direction z, the second conveying direction x and the second lateral direction z defining a second conveying plane xz. The conveyor sections are adapted to hold the sheets slip-free on the first and second conveyor belts. The second conveyor belt has a shear compliance in the second conveying plane xz that is larger than the shear compliance of the first conveyor belt in the first conveying plane xz.