Letter folder and envelope inserter

Claim 3

The apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein the roller peripheral surface is formed of a resilient high friction material and provided around the perimeter to form circumferentially spaced ridges to sequentially engage the pocket edge during roller rotation and open the envelope pocket.

Claim 4

The apparatus as claimed in claim 2 wherein said ridges are effectively defined by slots that extend substantially parallel with the axis of rotation of the roller.

Claim 7

The apparatus for stuffing empty envelopes as claimed in claim 4 wherein the envelopes advancing means further includes an envelope stack feeder shaped to receive a stack of envelopes with their flaps in pocket closing position; means for removing envelopes one at a time from the stack; a flap engaging hook in operative contact with the front envelope in the stack and below the edge of the closed flap with the flap engaging hook being selectively shaped to catch the flap of an envelope being removed to orient the flap to an open position prior to arrival at the stuffing station.

Claim 8

The apparatus for stuffing empty envelopes as claimed in claim 5 wherein said holding means further includes a pair of closely spaced rotating envelope feed rollers oriented to receive envelopes removed from the stack; means for sensing the passage of an envelope; and means to terminate rotation of the envelope feed rollers when said pocket opening edge is operatively engaged by the pocket opening roller.

Claim 9

The apparatus for stuffing envelopes as claimed in claim 6 wherein said envelope sensing means is formed of an envelope trip switch having a trip arm, said trip arm being selectively located to be operatively engaged by the flap of a passing envelope, with said means for terminating rotation including an envelope feed drive responsive to the actuation of the envelope trip switch and coupled to the envelope feed rollers.

Claim 10

The apparatus for stuffing envelopes as claimed in claim 7 and further including means for sensing the arrival of enclosures and producing a signal indicative thereof; and means effectively actuated by the enclosure arrival signal for rotating the pocket opening roller to open an envelope held at the envelope stuffing station.

Claim 11

The apparatus for stuffing envelopes as claimed in claim 8 wherein said enclosure advancing means further includes a plurality of folding rollers and buckle chutes arranged to produce a folded enclosure for stuffing into an envelope, with said pocket opening roller driving means alsO being coupled to drive the folding rollers.

Claim 12

The apparatus for stuffing envelopes as claimed in claim 9 and further including a timing motor provided with a plurality of cam controlled switches, said timing motor being actuated by the enclosure arrival signal, with one of said cam controlled switches being coupled to latch operation of the timing motor for a predetermined cycle, and with other cam controlled switches being coupled respectively to the envelope feed drive and the pocket opening roller driving means for operation thereof during selected portions of the predetermined cycle.

Claim 13

The apparatus for stuffing empty envelopes as claimed in claim 7 wherein the stack of envelopes, the flap engaging hook, the envelope trip switch and the envelope stuffing station are generally arranged in a vertical orientation with the envelope stuffing station at the bottom end.

Claim 16

The apparatus for folding and stuffing enclosures as claimed in claim 12 wherein the stuffing station is located along a downwardly inclined path from the second pair of folding rollers.

Claim 17

The apparatus for folding and stuffing enclosures as claimed in claim 13 and further including an enclosure infeed tray oriented with a downward incline in alignment with a pair of folding rollers to feed enclosures towards the first buckle chute; an enclosure sensing element operatively disposed on the enclosure infeed tray; and means actuated by the enclosure sensing element for controlling the operational cycle of the folding and stuffing apparatus.

Claim 18

A compact letter folder and envelope stuffing apparatus wherein envelopes have a closure flap sized to overlap an outer edge of the pocket of the envelope comprising a housing having means for advancing letters along a letter feed path and means for advancing envelopes along an envelope feed path, said letter feed path and envelope feed path being respectively oriented to feed letters and envelopes generally towards each other to meet in stuffing relationship at an envelope stuffing station; letter folding means located along the letter feed path to receive letters at one side and dispense folded letters from an opposite side along the feed path in the vicinity of the envelope stuffing station; means located at the envelope stuffing station for retaining the closure flap of an envelope with the pocket of the retained envelope oriented to receive folded letters dispensed along the letter feed path; means, including a friction roller operatively located at the stuffing station in contact with the outer pocket edge at the inside of the envelope closure flap, for driving the friction roller into rotation to urge the outer pocket edge away from the retained closure flap and to stuff folded letters into the envelope pocket.

Claim 19

A compact letter folder and envelope stuffing apparatus wherein envelopes have a closure flap sized to overlap an outer edge of the pocket of the envelope comprising a housing having means for advancing letters along a letter feed path and means for advancing envelopes along an envelope feed path, said letter feed path and envelope feed path being respectively oriented to feed letters and envelopes generally towards each other to meet in stuffing relationship at an envelope stuffing station; letter folding means located along the letter feed path to receive letters at one side and dispense folded letters from an opposite side along the feed path in the vicinity of the envelope stuffing station; means located at the envelope stuffing station for retaining the closure flap of an envelope with the pocket of the retained envelope oriented to receive folded letters dispensed along the letter feed path; means, including a friction roller operatively located at the stuffing station in contact with the outer pocket edge at the inside of the envelope closure flap, for driving the friction roller into rotation to urge the outer pocket edge away from the retained closure flap and to stuff folded letters into the envelope pocket.

Claim 20

The compact letter folder and envelope stuffing apparatus as claimed in claim 15 wherein the letter folding means further includes a plurality of folding rollers each having aN axis of rotation and arranged with their axes of rotations generally coplanar; and a pair of buckle chutes disposed on opposite sides of the plurality of rollers and positioned to form double folded letters with the unfolded letters entering one side of the feed rollers and being dispensed on the opposite side with a double fold.

Claim 21

A compact enclosure folder and envelope inserter assembly comprising a housing having a plurality of dove-tail shaped parallel spaced channels on opposite internal walls of the housing, with channels on one wall being in predetermined alignment with the channels on the other wall; an enclosure feed located on one lateral end of the internal walls and supported at a predetermined height along a channel; an envelope feed located on another opposite lateral end of the internal walls and supported at a predetermined height along a channel, said envelope feed being sized and shaped to support a stack of envelopes; a plurality of folding rollers disposed in the path of the enclosure feed and mounted along a common channel for general coplanar mounting of their axes of rotation; a pair of buckle chutes located on opposite sides of the folding rollers to provide a double folded enclosure on the envelope feed side of the plurality of folding rollers; and an envelope inserter station disposed in the path of the folded enclosures and envelopes, said station including an envelope pocket opening roller mounted in a channel and supported therein at a height selected to place the pocket opening roller in the path of a double folded enclosure emerging from between a pair of folding rollers, and a pair of envelope feed rollers each mounted in a channel and spaced from each other to control the passing and retention of envelopes relative to the pocket opening rollers, said pocket opening roller and the envelope feed rollers being selectively spaced along their channels to place edges of each envelope pocket in contact with the pocket opening roller to insert a folded enclosure into the pocket of an envelope.

Claim 22

A compact enclosure folder and envelope inserter assembly comprising a housing having a plurality of dove-tail shaped parallel spaced channels on opposite internal walls of the housing, with channels on one wall being in predetermined alignment with the channels on the other wall; an enclosure feed located on one lateral end of the internal walls and supported at a predetermined height along a channel; an envelope feed located on another opposite lateral end of the internal walls and supported at a predetermined height along a channel, said envelope feed being sized and shaped to support a stack of envelopes; a plurality of folding rollers disposed in the path of the enclosure feed and mounted along a common channel for general coplanar mounting of their axes of rotation; a pair of buckle chutes located on opposite sides of the folding rollers to provide a double folded enclosure on the envelope feed side of the plurality of folding rollers; and an envelope inserter station disposed in the path of the folded enclosures and envelopes, said station including an envelope pocket opening roller mounted in a channel and supported therein at a height selected to place the pocket opening roller in the path of a double folded enclosure emerging from between a pair of folding rollers, and a pair of envelope feed rollers each mounted in a channel and spaced from each other to control the passing and retention of envelopes relative to the pocket opening rollers, said pocket opening roller and the envelope feed rollers being selectively spaced along their channels to place edges of each envelope pocket in contact with the pocket opening roller to insert a folded enclosure into the pocket of an envelope.

Claim 23

The compact enclosure folder and envelope inserter assembly as claimed in claim 17 wherein the envelope stuffing station is located along a downwardly inclined path from a plurality of folding rollers.

Claim 24

The compact enclosure folder and envelope inserter assembly as claimed in claim 17 and further including an enclosure sensing element for generating a signal representative of the arrival of an enclosure to be inserted into an envelope; an envelope sensing element selectively located to sense the arrival of an envelope at the envelope inserting station; and means actuated by the enclosure arrival signal for controlling the feed of envelopes and the insertion of folded enclosures into opened envelopes.

Claim 25

The compact enclosure folder and envelope inserter assembly as claimed in claim 19 wherein said controlling means further includes a timing motor energized by the enclosure arrival signal, said timing motor being provided with a plurality of cam controlled switches actuated by the timing motor; an enclosure drive motor operatively coupled to the folding rollers and the pocket opening roller; an envelope drive motor coupled to the envelope feed rollers; and with said enclosure drive motor and envelope drive motor being each actuated by a cam controlled switch to initiate respectively an enclosure folding and envelope feeding from the stack, with the envelope sensing element being coupled to said envelope drive motor to terminate feeding of an envelope upon its arrival at the envelope insertion station.