Apparatus for manipulating stacked X-ray sheets or the like

US4509736A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Agfa-Gevaert NV · BE

Inventors

• Werner Stahl · Heimstetten, DE
• Jurgen Muller · Wulfen, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Mar 18, 1983
• Grant date: Apr 9, 1985
• Expiry date: Mar 18, 2003

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G03B42/045
• WIPO field: Handling
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

Apparatus for transferring sheets from a relatively wide or relatively narrow stack of sheets into a transporting device has a pair of suction cups which engage the leader of the topmost sheet in the stack and turn it through 90.degree. so that the leader becomes separated from the leader of the sheet therebelow. The suction cups are thereupon raised to the level of the nips of driven advancing rolls in the transporting device to move the leader into a plane which includes the nips and is parallel to the planes of sheets in the stack, and such leader is introduced into the nips so that the advancing rolls engage the leader while the latter becomes detached from the suction cups. The suction cups engage only a portion of the leader of a relatively wide sheet, and the remainder of the leader is flexed with the engaged portion to ensure that it enters a path which is defined by additional advancing rolls of the transporting device simultaneously with entry of the engaged portion of the leader into the nips of the driven advancing rolls. The apparatus can be used with advantage for removal of successive topmost X-ray films from a stack of films regardless of the width and/or height of …