A printer includes a print wheel having an outer circular row of typefaces comprising digits and punctuation signs and an inner circular row of typefaces comprising symbols, and hammer apparatus for actuating the typefaces of the print wheel to effect printing. The type wheel and the hammer apparatus are mounted on a carriage which travels along a path defining a left-hand group of printing positions and a right-hand group of printing positions. A cam extending along the path of the carriage functions to pivot the type wheel between a position wherein the outer row of typefaces is aligned with the hammer apparatus when the carriage is aligned with the left-hand group of printing positions and a position wherein the inner row of typefaces is aligned with the hammer apparatus when the carriage is aligned with the right-hand group of printing positions. A drive motor is mounted on the carriage and functions both to continuously rotate the print wheel and to continuously propel the carriage back and forth along the path. The print wheel includes a plurality of radially extending arms each mounting a type font comprising one typeface of the outer row and one typeface of the inner row, a shield plate engaging the arms and comprising a plurality of apertures each receiving one of the type fonts, and a damper disk which cooperates with the shield plate to dampen vibrations of the arms following actuation of the hammer apparatus.
A machine for the attachment of rivets, buttons or the like on clothing pieces, with an upper tool to be moved onto the lower tool, which upper tool sits on a vertically guided tool ram with electrical drive. Two different strength magnets are coordinated to the upper tool ram, the latter being spring-biased in the reverse direction, such that the weaker electromagnet which sits in the range of a cross-sectionally-smaller step of the upper tool ram surrounds the upper tool ram in ring-like manner and the stronger electromagnet has a core which core forms a pot-shaped recess for moving a plate armature therein, the latter being arranged on the free end of the upper tool ram.
A ribbon lift guide for a serial printer comprising a generally circularly shaped flexible disc member coupled to the hub of the print wheel element on the side of the print wheel containing the print surface of the character slug and positioned parallel to a plane formed by the spokes. The ribbon lift guide has a radius less than the distance from the center of the hub to the closest point on the print surface of the character slug. The guide is mounted coaxially with the print wheel to guide the ribbon during ribbon lift operation.
A print wheel for use in a serial printing system wherein print heads are provided with alignment surfaces corresponding to alignment surfaces on the print hammer. A beam retarder is utilized to assure that the alignment surfaces are firmly mated.
A carriage moving mechanism includes a carriage movably mounted on a guide shaft, a travelling motor fixedly mounted on the carriage, the travelling motor including a pinion mounted on a rotary shaft thereof, a rack provided in substantially parallel to the guide shaft, the rack being rigid longitudinally and flexible in a perpendicular direction to the longitudinal direction, the rack having longitudinally a tooth part engaged with the pinion, the surface of the rack located on the opposite side of the surface of the tooth part being substantially parallel to the guide shaft, a roller rotatably mounted on the carriage, the roller radially facing to the pinion and making contact with the opposite side surface to the tooth surface of the rack, the rack being rotatably mounted on the frame in one end thereof and restricted by the frame in the other end thereof in the extent of moving thereof or directly fixed on the frame in the other end thereof.
The type carrying disc has the type characters spaced irregularly along the disc periphery in dependence on their width, but the order in which these characters appear on the disc is independent of their width. Associated on the disc with each type character is an aperture that indicates the angular position of the corresponding type character. A photoelectric detector reads these apertures as the disc spins, and enables, in dependence on a coded signal, the disc to be stopped at the correct position for printing the desired character. In other embodiments, the aperture or other means indicates one or another printing characteristic, such as printing force or size of the printing step.
