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(11) | EP 0 857 674 A3 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | Apparatus for forming a stream of uniformly overlapped printed products |
| (57) A conveying apparatus has a receiving surface (30) for a stack (S) of printed products
lying above one another, with a conveying device (22-28) adjoining the receiving surface
(30). A vacuum roll (40) rotatable in the conveying direction can act by means of
a reduced pressure on the lower side of the printed product in order to produce the
desired overlap. The upper tangential plane of the vacuum roll (40) thereby forms
a part of the receiving surface (30). The apparatus herein generates a stream of overlapping
signatures with the overlap between adjacent signatures in the stream being uniform.
Such uniform overlap generally corresponds to the distance from the upstream end of
the receiving surface (30) or signature support portion of the apparatus to the vacuum
roll (40), and more specifically to the upstream edge of a transverse manifold slot
provided in the roll (40). Overlapped signatures are fed by the roll (40) to a downstream
nip and blower assembly for being pulled through the nip thereof. The nip is shiftably
mounted so as to adjust the size of nip space during running of the apparatus to accommodate
for changing thickness of the signature material drawn through the self-adjusting
nip at any one time, such as due to varying numbers of signatures being in the nip
space or when thicker folded over spines are therein. The precise location at which
air from the blowers is directed back upstream against the signatures can be fine
tuned and preset as determined by the thickness of the signatures to be run. |