Signatures moving in a substantially continuous stream and arranged in overlapping fashion, folded edge forward, pass beneath the counter to activate a signature intercepter mounted with a self-cleaning housing. The intercepter, in turn, drives a cam which activates a cam follower each time a signature passes beneath the intercepter. The cam follower moves an interrupter blade whose positioning alters the magnetic field of a magnet means to control the operation of a switch means providing a switch closure for each signature counted. The cam, cam follower, intercept blade, magnetic field generating means and hermetically sealed switch means are mounted within a separate independent housing maintained in a dirt-free condition whereas the compartment receiving the intercept member is kept dirt-free by virtue of the manner of its operation. The counter housing acts to deviate the signatures from their normal plane of movement immediately after having been counted to facilitate the accuracy of the counting operation regardless of the thickness of the signatures. Spring means may be positioned to the side of the signature stream opposite said counter to eliminate the need for critical adjustment and positioning of the counter relative to the signature stream.
A cutting cylinder of a newspaper press assembly has a magnet member mounted thereon. A semiconductor Hall effect pickoff is mounted in proximity to the cutting cylinder such that the magnet passes by this sensor in close proximity thereto once during each rotation of the cylinder. The output of the Hall effect sensor, which is in the form of pulses, is fed both to a non-inverting and an inverting amplifier. The outputs of the amplifiers are fed to a differential detector which provides an output only in accordance with the difference between the inputs fed thereto, thus eliminating common-mode inputs such as noise signals. The output of the differential detector is fed to a digital counter which provides a count of the input pulses representing the number of newspapers or the like detected by the sensor. The output of the digital counter in turn is fed to a readout device which provides a suitable readout of this count which may be in the form of a display.
In a counting arrangement for articles such as single or multilayer paper sheets having greatly varying thicknesses, a sensing device is arranged between the loading rollers bearing on the surface of the article stream delivered in overlapping fashion and operable to be carried along by the edge presented by each article for a predetermined distance and to become gradually retrieved from the edge and returned to its initial position in engagement with a contact of a counter thereby delivering a pulse to the counter.
Apparatus and method apparatus for detecting marginal gradation changes of a controlled product on a conveyor. The apparatus comprises a transducer (4) for converting swinging motion to a number of pulses; a member (24) operably secured to the transducer, the member for being in contact with the controlled product to cause the member to swing back and forth, thereby causing the transducer to generate the number of pulses; and a programmable device (28) operably connected to the transducer, the device being adapted to count the number of pulses generated by the transducer over several blocks of time periods, compare the number in each block of time to a group of reference numbers for the product, sum the number of occurrences that the number is above or below the group of reference numbers and provide an indication when the sum exceeds a target value.
A sensor assembly having senser fingers swingably mounted upon a rotatable support and resiliently biased to extend radially outward. In the three-finger embodiment, a detent assembly rotatable with the support detents the support through a 120 degree rotation when the nose of a signature engages the finger lying in the path of signature movement. A one-way clutch cooperates with the detent assembly to dampen movement of the fingers and cooperating rotatable support to prevent oscillation of the rotating members. The finger advanced to the detent position slides upon the adjacent surface of the last counted signature and is freely yieldable to prevent irregularities in the signature from causing an erroneous count.
A counting device for counting the number of objects such as folded box blanks in a flow of folded box blanks characterized by a sensor having a portion engaging a leading edge of a blank in the flow and being moved to activate a pulse generating device. The device also includes an arrangement to lift the portion of the sensor out of engagement after the pulse has been generated to enable resetting the pulse generator and engaging the next following object of the flow.
