Abstract: A drive arrangement for folding blades in sheet-processing machines with a pair of folding rollers to support the sheet material to be folded and a folding blade movable in the direction toward the sheet material includes a linear motor with a secondary part movable along the stationary part of the motor. A transmission device coupled with the secondary part of the motor and connected to the folding blade is provided to effect the reciprocating movement of the folding blade to and from the material to be folded.

Abstract: An operator safety device includes a plurality of covers for covering parts of a machine to protect an operator against contact with these parts when the machine is in operation. At least some of the covers are movable between a closed position where the covers do not cover these parts and the latter are readily accessible and constitute a danger of accidents. A switch is operable for shutting down the machine when at least one of the covers moves from the closed into the open position. A linkage connects the covers with the switch for actuating the latter whenever at least one of the covers moves from the closed into the open position.

Abstract: A detecting capacitive structure undergoes changes in capacitance value depending upon whether it is detecting, in the sheet transport path of a printing machine, a normal or single sheet, an absent sheet, or a double or stuck-together sheet, so that corrective action can be initiated, such as the skipping of a printing cycle. The detecting capacitive structure and also a reference capacitive structure constitute the capacitances of two RC circuit stages to which an input signal is applied and then removed. The variations with respect to time of the output signals from the two RC circuit stages are then compared, both during application of the input signal and subsequent to removal of the input signal. This comparison of time responses of the two RC circuit stages serves as the basis of the detection.

Abstract: The method comprises the steps of feeding from a stack of sheets to be printed the first sheet on a feedboard, aligning the leading edge of the sheet with a preliminary stop line whereby the sheet is brought to a rest position, sucking from below the preliminarily aligned sheet and removing the preliminary stop line, forwarding the preliminarily aligned and positively coupled sheet in feeding direction to a second stop line and relieving the suction whereby the leading edge of the sheet is finally aligned and a successive sheet is fed to the first stop line or the preliminary alignment of its leading edge, laterally adjusting the register of the first sheet abutting against the second stop line, removing the second stop line and advancing the first sheet into the press.

Abstract: The friction bearing for supporting a journal of a cylinder of a printing press includes a bearing sleeve supported in a tubular bearing block and being manufactured with conventional machining tolerances. To minimize the radial play of the bearing, at least three axially directed cylindrical bores are provided in the annular face of the bearing sleeve and extend in the axial direction. Tapering pins are driven into respective bores to expand on discrete locations the bearing surface of the sleeve, thus minimizing the gap between the supporting bearing surfaces and the periphery of the journal. The remaining gap is larger in size than the adjusted gap and serves for conducting oil into the bearing.

Abstract: A rotary printing machine has at least two successive printing stations. A self-contained aggregate is located between these printing stations and can be inserted and removed from between them as a unit. The aggregate has a transfer roller which receives sheets from one of the printing stations, one or more heaters for heating the sheets on the transfer roller, and a reversing roller which receives sheets from the transfer roller, selectively reverses them and furnishes them to the other of the printing stations.

Abstract: An elongated array of partially overlapping sheets advances to a printing machine and, prior to entering the same the individual sheets of the array, one after another, are aligned both along their front edges and along one of their lateral edges. This is accomplished by first displacing the respective sheet transversely of the array so that a lateral marginal portion adjacent to the one lateral edge becomes exposed, after or during alignment along the front edge, and by subsequently engaging the exposed lateral marginal portion of the respective sheet and displacing the latter a further distance only transversely of the array into a position in which the one lateral edge is aligned. Subsequently to the alignment along both of the above-mentioned edges, the respective sheet may be partially returned by a given distance prior or during feeding of the sheet into the printing machine.

Abstract: A pair of parallel blanket rollers have their ends received in respective eccentrics themselves received in respective spaced-apart holes in a support frame. A pair of plate cylinders each tangentially contacting a respective blanket cylinder are similarly received in respective eccentrics also received in respective holes in the machine support. Each of the holes receiving an eccentric for a respective cylinder is of greater diameter than the respective cylinder so that the cylinders can be mounted in the machine frame by slipping them axially through these holes. A web to be printed is passed between the two blanket cylinders for simultaneous printing on both sides. The plate cylinder to one side of the web being printed and the blanket cylinder to the opposite side lie in one plane and the other two cylinders lie in another plane parallel to but spaced horizontally from the first-mentioned plane.

Abstract: The sheet-presenting unit presents received sheets to the printing instrumentality of the machine. The sheet-feeding unit feeds sheets to the sheet-presenting unit. The two units have activators which can be enabled and disenabled. The operator of the machine initiates a start signal. A sheet detector generates missing-sheet, skew-sheet and muliplee-sheet signals, indicating the condition of the sheet at the sheet-presenting unit. Enablement stages determine whether the activators for the feeding and presenting units are to be enabled or not. When the activators are enabled, the start signal is automatically extinguished. A logic circuit receives the start signal and the signals from the sheet detector. The logic circuit has pre-start-up and post-start-up modes of operation, corresponding to generation and termination of the start signal.

Abstract: A printing machine operates at a variable speed, and includes a rotary reference component. Activation and deactivation of positioning units for printing cylinders and other functional units for the printing machine is performed in synchronization with the rotation of the rotary reference component. The positioning units exhibit dead times in their response to applied activating or deactivating signals. The duration of each such dead time expressed in terms of the extent of angular movement of the rotary reference component varies in dependence upon printing machine operating speed, tending to produce improper synchronization between activation and deactivation of positioning units, on the one hand, and machine operation, on the other hand.

Abstract: The printing cylinders or other functional units of a printing machine are engaged and disengaged by positioning units. When a positioning unit receives an activating signal, its response thereto includes a dead time or delay time. Because the activation of the positioning units proceeds in dependence upon the angular position of a rotary reference component of the printing machine, and all operations are synchronized in terms of angular positions and angular spans, the dead time of the positioning units, when expressed in angular units, is a function of the operating speed of the printing machine. If the operating speed is variable, proper angular synchronization tends to be lost. The invention includes a clocked control unit clocked in angular synchronism with machine operation and determining when positioning units are to be activated and time-delay stages which introduce compensatory time delays into the application of activating signals to the positioning units.

Abstract: A device for holding down sheets which are stacked on a support has a vertical cylinder mounted above the support and provided with a piston and a piston rod extending from the piston through and to the outside of the cylinder where it carries a sheet-engaging member which exerts pressure on sheets resting on the support. A pair of conduits communicates with the cylinder chambers above and below the piston and a valve is provided which can either connect both conduits with a channel supplying compressed air or which can connect the conduit for the lower chamber with a suction channel. The positive or negative pressure in the respective conduits can be regulated.

Abstract: A web travels along a predetermined path. A regulating system automatically keeps the position of the preselected first tolerance range. The system includes sensing, position-correcting and regulator units. The sensing unit senses the position of the lateral edge of the travelling web. The position-correcting unit effects corrective movements of the travelling web in a manner causing the lateral edge thereof to change positions. The regulator unit is connected to the sensing and position-correcting units and causes the latter to effect corrective movements of the travelling web at a first speed when the sensed position of the web edge is outside the first tolerance range and at a different second speed when the sensed position of the web edge is outside a preselected different second tolerance range.

Abstract: An apparatus for orienting a flat workpiece has upper and lower hubs rotatable on a support about respective spaced-apart upper and lower rotation axes. Respective radially extending elongated upper and lower arms are mounted on the upper and lower hubs and carry respective upper and lower levers pivotal on these arms about respective upper and lower pivot axes parallel to the upper and lower arms at locations thereon spaced from the upper and lower rotation axes. Respective upper and lower workpiece-engaging needles are mounted on the upper and lower levers at substantially like spacings from the upper and lower rotation axes. Each lever is pivotal between an operative position with the respective needle engageable with the workpiece and an inoperative position unengageable with the workpiece and can be locked in the operative position by locking means.

Abstract: A printing machine has a plurality of rubbing rollers which are rotatable about respective rubbing axes and serve to transfer ink to a form roller. Each of these rubbing rollers is connected via a link to a respective cam follower engaging in a respective continuous circumferential cam groove in a cam that rotates about an axis parallel to the roller axis. The cam follower is normally nonrotatable about the cam but its angular position about the cam can be adjusted so as to closely control the inking characteristic of the respective rubbing roller. The angular position of each rubbing roller is determined by means of a calculator which is set up to hold a diagram on which is plotted the inking density of the material to be printed against the form roller position. A plurality of sliders each corresponding to a respective rubbing roller are independently displaceable on the support adjacent the diagram and each carry indicia indicating the inking characteristic of the respective rubbing roller.

Abstract: A sheet-representing signal is registered by successive shift-register stages in simulation of the travel of a sheet through a printing machine. Signal detectors connected to different register stages actuate moving units which in turn change the state of activation of the functional units of the printing machine. Upon a changeover from one-side to two-side printing, there arises a sheet travel path length change composed of a fixed component determined by machine geometry and a variable component determined by sheet length. Each moving unit moves cyclically and can move the associated functional unit only during a certain portion of the cycle. Upon a printing mode changeover, moving units undergo a phase shift of their cycles of motion and signal detectors are disconnected from certain register stages and reconnected to others, thereby compensating for the variable and fixed components of the sheet travel path length change.

Abstract: An ink or liquid pickup roller is partially immersed in a bath of liquid and is rotated about a horizontal axis in one rotational sense. An applicator roller spaced from the pickup roller is rotated about its horizontal axis in the same rotational sense. A transfer roller is rotated in the opposite rotational sense about its horizontal axis and radially continuously engages the applicator roller. This transfer roller also is oscillated about the axis of the applicator roller into periodic contact with the roller to receive therefrom a coating of ink or other printing liquid. The transfer roller therefore rolls off the pickup and applicator rollers, but the peripheral velocities of the transfer roller is different from the peripheral velocities of the pickup and the applicator rollers.

Abstract: A first and a second printing roller are provided, each of which prints a different side of a sheet. A transfer roller is located between these printing rollers and forms tangent points with the same.

Abstract: A four-bar kinematic chain has an input member which includes a portion formed with a guide channel, an elongated output member that is pivoted intermediate its end portions, and a link member having one end pivoted to one end portion of the output member and another end portion provided with a sliding block received in the guide channel. A crank drive is connected with the input member for oscillating the same and the guide channel, to thereby effect oscillatory movement of the other end portion of the output member and concomitant movement of an element to which the other end portion is coupled. An arrangement is provided for arresting the sliding block at selected locations in the guide channel, to thereby permit a variation in the stroke and frequency of the movements of the other end portion of the output member.

Abstract: The stack of sheets is moved towards the distributor at a control velocity corresponding to the distributor operation. If the stack in the operative vicinity of the distributor becomes too low, indicating too slow a stack advance, a mechanical sensor sensing the position of the top of the stack rotates to a position interrupting the signal furnished by the first and second inductive input signal generator. The interruption of the signal results in the furnishing of a second sensor output signal which, at a time determined by a synchronizing signal sets a monostable multivibrator whose output then energizes a relay which in turn applies voltage to a winding of a servomotor moving the arm of a potentiometer in a direction for increasing the speed of advance of the stack.