A folding apparatus for folding absorbent sanitary articles having an absorbent central body and two wings projecting from opposite side edges of said absorbent central body, comprising: a vacuum conveyor comprising a conveyor belt which holds the absorbent central bodies of said absorbent sanitary articles and moves said absorbent sanitary articles in a longitudinal direction, and a pair of stationary folding elements that engage respective wings of said absorbent sanitary articles while these are moved in said longitudinal direction by said vacuum conveyor, wherein said conveyor belt comprises a plurality of recessed seats which receive the absorbent central bodies of said absorbent sanitary articles, with said wings extending laterally outwards from said recessed seats on an outer surface of said conveyor belt.

Equipment for stacking sheets with a stack support, input rollers for feeding entering sheets and transport belts with lower branches arranged above the stack support. A compensation mechanism modifies the height of the stack support, while the transport belts are motorized to drag the entering sheets with the lower branches and deposit the sheets on the stack support or on stacked sheets. An arrest member is provided for the entering sheets, a pressure member for the stack to be stacked and a sensor device for a last sheet of the stack. The arrest member arrests the sheets in stacking while the pressure member is contiguous to the stop member and operates on the last sheet of the stack with a stabilizing function and in which the compensation mechanism is servoized to the sensor, for maintaining constant the height of the last sheet of the stack from a reference plane.

A medium discharge includes a first tray having a first medium receiving surface, a second tray having a second medium receiving surface for receiving the medium discharged from the first tray, a discharge section that discharges the medium disposed on the first tray to the second tray, and a push-down portion that is located downstream of a downstream end of the first medium receiving surface in the medium discharge direction, and that is located at a place deviated from the discharge section in a width direction that is a direction intersecting with the medium discharge direction, and pushes down a part of an upstream end of the medium to be discharged in the medium discharge direction.

A feeding apparatus for feeding a sheet-shaped medium includes: a stacking plate on which sheet-shaped media are stacked; a suction transport belt that is disposed above the stacking plate and causes a topmost one of the stacked sheet-shaped media to be sucked onto a belt lower surface and then rotates to carry out the topmost sheet-shaped medium to a destination; and a surrounding member that is provided in a hanging-down manner at least at left and right positions in a carrying-out direction around the suction transport belt so as to be movable up and down, surrounds a space below the belt lower surface, and is moved upward by contact with the sheet-shaped medium that is being sucked.

The invention relates to a device, in particular a roll cross-cutter, for forming a shingle stream of underlapping or overlapping sheets, in particular of paper or carton sheets, having a transport apparatus for transporting sheets, having a shingling apparatus for underlapping or overlapping sheets in regions, having a deceleration apparatus, downstream of the shingling apparatus in the transport direction of the sheets, for decelerating shingled sheets, in particular by forming a deceleration gap for the passage of shingled, combined sheets, and, preferably, having a cross-cutting apparatus upstream of the shingling apparatus for cutting a material web into individual sheets. According to the invention, the shingling apparatus is designed to be adjustable, in dependence of the cut length, in and/or opposite the transport direction of the sheets.

A sheet transport device includes a processor configured to change lifting control for lifting sheets on a tray, which are to be floated up and handed over, from normal state control to small-quantity state control in a case where it is detected that the remaining number of sheets on the tray is small.

A belt conveyance device includes an endless belt, a duct having a suction port, and a rectifier inside the duct. The duct is surrounded by an inner circumferential surface of the endless belt. The rectifier extends in a width direction of the endless belt perpendicular to a direction of conveyance by the endless belt.

A medium feeding apparatus includes: a placement mount on which a plurality of media are placed; a transportation mechanism that transports an uppermost medium of the plurality of media placed on the placement mount; a floating-air blowout mechanism that blows out air to float at least the uppermost medium; a suction mechanism that sucks air to cause the uppermost medium floated by the floating-air blowout mechanism blowing out air to be attracted to the transportation mechanism; and a floating-air control unit that causes the floating-air blowout mechanism to start to blow out air while the uppermost medium is being attracted to the transportation mechanism after starting to be transported by the transportation mechanism, so as to float at least a second medium located below the uppermost medium, and causes the floating-air blowout mechanism to stop blowing out air before the second medium starts to be transported by the transportation mechanism.

A medium discharging device includes a first tray, a second tray receiving a medium from the first tray, a supporter which is configured to be displaced from a retreat position in the first tray and an advance position above the second tray and which supports the medium, an aligner which is provided in the supporter and that aligns a first end portion which is an upstream end portion in a discharge direction of the medium supported by the supporter, to be displaced together with the supporter, and a restrictor configured to be displaced between a restriction position where an upstream movement of the first end portion of the medium in a position of the aligner in the discharge direction and a non-restriction position where the movement is not restricted, when the supporter is in the advance position.

Apparatus is provided for manufacturing a wipe in a three dimensional form out of an essentially flat piece of material. The apparatus produces a blank (12) of essentially flat planar form with a pleat folded on each side. The folded blanks are fed by a conveyor belt (21) to an opening station (22). The opening station comprises a pair of movable pinch rollers (34, 35) which selectively grab individual blanks from the conveyor belt and feed them via belts (32, 33) to a pair of counter-rotating drums (30, 31). The blanks are ejected from the drums, which partially opens them up in the process. The partially open blanks are fed onto a shaped former (37), where the final process of forming the wipe into its chosen three dimensional form is completed.