Collator arm feed head

Claim 1

In a collating machine having paper bins with papers therein to be collated, paper ejection arms reciprocating with ejection and return strokes over said bins, feed heads on said arms moving the uppermost sheet in each bin on ejection strokes of said arms, and a system collecting uppermost moved sheets from said bins, the improvement comprising, in combination, a collator feed head on each of said arms, each of said feed heads having a bracket attached to one of said arms, projections of said bracket containing slots extending generally in the direction of the ejection strokes of said arms, a shaft journalled in said slots, rollers mounted on said shaft, a rachet wheel mounted on said shaft, a pawl fixed to said bracket adjacent to said rachet wheel, said pawl being disposed in the direction of return strokes of said arms, said rollers contacting the uppermost sheet of papers in said bin therebelow so that, on ejection strokes of said arms, said shaft moves in said slots engaging said rachet wheel with said pawl locking said rollers to move an uppermost sheet and, on collection of uppermost sheets and on return strokes of said arms, said shaft moves in said slots disengaging said rachet wheel from said pawl enabling said rollers to freely roll on papers thereunder, and electrical contact means associated with said shaft indicating movement of said shaft in said slots and thereby the collection of an uppermost moved sheet of paper from each of said bins.