Abstract: The in-line stacker machine for stacking cookies has a frame with a stacking station, and a conveyor on the frame for receiving a line of cookies. A rotary platen mechanism carried on the frame cooperates with the conveyor and includes camming means for elevating alternate cookies from the conveyor onto a shelf spaced above the conveyor. Pusher mechanism is provided for moving a cookie on the conveyor and for moving the cookie on the shelf into substantial alignment with the cookie on the conveyor and then moving the cookies from the stacking station, with the cookies being stacked one on top of the other.

Abstract: The invention is a sheet feeder for engaging and removing a sheet of paper or other material from a stack and feeding it along a path. The sheet feeder can include a sheet separator designed for advancing the engaged sheet while retarding any adjacent sheets. The separator has a driven advancing roller nipped with a driven retarding roller coupled to its drive by a friction clutch. The clutch normally slips and permits the retarding roller to be driven forward by the advancing roller when one or no sheets are engaged between the advancing and retarding rollers. The clutch engages and drives the retarding roller backward so long as a multifeed of two or more sheets is engaged between the advancing and retarding rollers.

Abstract: Plain or filter cigarettes are expelled from selected or successive axially parallel peripheral flutes of a rotary drum-shaped conveyor by a rotary shaft-like valving element which is adjacent the internal surface of the cylindrical wall of the conveyor. The flutes of the conveyor communicate with first radial orifices which are connected to a suction chamber to attract the cigarettes to the surfaces of their flutes. When a cigarette is to be expelled from its flute, ports which are provided in the valving element connect a second set of orifices, communicating with the flute from which a cigarette is to be expelled at an ejecting or transferring station, with a source of compressed air the pressure of which is being built up ahead of the actual ejection and which is permitted to escape from the ports as the ejecting step is completed.

Abstract: In an image forming unit system, a sheet handling unit having a fixed sheet carrying-in rate is connected to an image forming unit having a sheet ejection rate controlled variably so that stable sheet carrying can be achieved. The sheet carrying rate (VF) of a sheet carrying-in roller pair (26) provided in a sheet handling unit (2) is defined to be higher than the sheet carrying rate (VU and VD) of a sheet ejection roller pair (16) provided in an image forming unit (1). The pressing force (F2) between the rollers of the sheet carrying-in roller pair is defined to be smaller than the pressing force (F1) between the rollers of the sheet ejection roller pair.