Abstract: The method and apparatus for registration of a lithographic plate includes a means for ensuring that the plate is in contact with registration pins on imaging and bending devices and a means for finely adjusting an initial position of the plate with respect to registration pins on the bender to bring the plate in registration with the specified plate lock-up position on the press cylinder. Three separate electrical circuits ensure that the plate is in contact with the registration pins if each separate circuit is able to conduct current between the respective pins and the plate. The fine adjustment is accomplished by rotation of eccentric registration pins until the plate is within tolerance.

Abstract: Transportation of a lithographic plate uses an indexer to load plates into pods for delivery to a press cylinder via a pod elevator or a pod cart. The plates are imprinted with a bar code, imaged, punched, bent, sheared, corner notched, and registered to a press cylinder. The plates are loaded into the indexer, which moves the loaded plates into a position in alignment with designated pod compartments, and loads the plates into each of the designated pod compartments by indexed movement of an elevator within the indexer. The pod elevator or the pod cart moves the pods proximate to a press cylinder where the plates are unloaded from the pod and loaded onto a press cylinder. A computing device, such as a PLC, directs the process. A vision system senses information from the indexer, pod, pod elevator, and the plate for feedback to a PLC, which initiates operations of foregoing.

Abstract: A golf club has a clubhead upon which is rotatably mounted a rotary member or roller. The roller is exposed at the front of the club to engage the golf ball and is free to rotate upon a horizontal axis while in contact with the golf ball to facilitate rotation of the golf ball as the club moves the golf ball across the ground. The clubhead preferably has a front face that is directed toward the ball and the roller is mounted on the clubhead as a part of the front face of the club so as to engage the ball and to rotate freely while in contact with the ball. Typically, the clubhead has a pair of horizontally spaced apart supporting walls with an opening between them to accommodate the roller and to support the roller for rotation about a horizontal axis with the roller located at an elevation adapted to engage the center of the ball but to be held out of contact with the ground.

Abstract: A printing plate carrier for transporting at least one printing plate that has tabs along two opposed edges has at least one supporting bracket connected to the carrier as part of the carrier. The supporting bracket has an elongated, upwardly facing horizontal edge that acts as an elongated hook for engaging and supporting the printing plate when the tab of the printing plate is hung upon the edge of the bracket. A plurality of floor-engaging wheels are connected to the carrier to support the carrier for movement from one location to another. The carrier includes a supporting framework preferably having a pair of spaced apart upright frame members and at least one horizontal supporting beam member releasably removably connected between the upright frame members. The latter serve as supporting columns for holding the beam in place when the carrier is assembled.

Abstract: A scanning light contact duplicating apparatus is described which includes an explosure frame having a front and rear edge between which extends a backing plate that is used for supporting an original sheet such as a negative transparency to be copied, together with a photosensitive sheet in contact with it. A transparent cover is connected to the exposure frame. Provision is also made for pressing the transparent cover toward the backing to force the original sheet (negative) into close contact with the copy sheet (photosensitive sheet). An elongated light, usually a gas or vapor lamp, is positioned parallel to the front edge of the exposure frame. The light is supported for rectilinear movement toward the rear of the exposure frame and parallel to the plane of the exposure frame. A collimator is preferably provided between the light and the exposure frame. The collimator has a honeycomb array of parallel open-ended cells, each of the cells having walls perpendicular to the exposure frame.

Abstract: The present invention provides an improved vacuum frame having upper and lower frame members of rectangular shape, the upper one of which supports a plate of glass. Connected to the lower frame is a flexible sheet such as a rubber sheet with a backing member connected to its lower surfae. Resilient members such as springs urge one edge of the sealing sheet upwardly toward the glass plate and the other edge downwardly away from the glass plate to produce a wedge shaped vacuum chamber which upon being evacuated becomes progressively smaller as air is progressively and directionally removed proceeding from one edge of the glass plate to the other.

Abstract: A diazo developer is described which is useful for both ammonia vapor developing and for thermal developing. A heated chamber is provided with inlet and outlet slots through which the sheets pass during operation. Adjacent the inlet slot is a pair of inlet rollers that carry the sheets through the chamber. Adjacent the outlet slot is a pair of outlet rollers. At least some of the rollers are driven by a motor and one or more are preferably yieldably biased toward its mating roller, e.g. by the provision of a thin ribbon-shaped sealing strip engaged against the roller at a point opposite the nip or contact line between the rollers to yieldably bias them together while at the same time sealing the chamber against the leakage of vapor when used. Side plates are provided at the ends of the rollers and resilient gasket sheets formed from elastomeric material are compressed between the roll ends and the fixed side plates to seal the chamber.

Abstract: A rotary open-ended tubular drum of transparent material is supported within a housing by a pair of spaced support rolls and an endless flexible belt entrained over a pair of spaced apart feed rolls, the belt being generally opposed to the support rolls. The belt and drum are driven by a motor to feed a master sheet and a sensitized sheet to be printed, in face-to-face contact, between a drum engaging feeding flight portion of the belt and the portion of the drum engaged by the belt. An ultraviolet lamp is mounted in outwardly spaced relation to one end of the drum, and delivers ultraviolet light axially toward the interior of the drum. A stationary mirror within the drum is positioned to reflect ultraviolet light from the lamp toward an interior surface of the portion of the drum that is engaged by the feeding flight of the belt.