JPS6335313B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a paper sheet processing apparatus, such as a mail processing apparatus, in which an optical reading device, a stamp processing device, and a preliminary sorting processing device are combined into one system.

Recently, an optical character reading device (hereinafter simply referred to as OCR), a stamp processing device (hereinafter simply referred to as CDS), and a preliminary sorting device (hereinafter simply referred to as PRES) have been combined into one system. Mail processing equipment that increases processing speed has been developed and put into practical use.

Figure 1 shows an example of this, where mail processed by OCR 1 and mail processed by CDS 2 merge into one conveyance path at connecting section (hereinafter simply referred to as CPL) 3, and are transferred to PRES. supply is becoming available. That is, in the OCR 1, the reading unit 5 reads the postal code on the postal item P supplied from the supplying unit 4, and the recording unit 6 records the barcode corresponding to the read postal code on the postal item P.

As shown in FIG. 2, the supply section 4 takes out the mail P one by one using a hole (not shown) provided in the take-out belt 7 and a suction chamber 8. Note that the hole in the take-out belt 7 is detected by an optical detector 9 consisting of a light emitting element and a light receiving element. Thus, the mail P whose postal code cannot be read by the reading section 5 is conveyed to the CDS 2 by the conveyance path 10. In this CDS 2, the mail P supplied from the conveyance path 10 is supplied to the stamp processing units 12, 12, . Record the code.

The postal item P on which this barcode has been recorded is conveyed to the merging section 14 via the conveying path 13 at a predetermined timing, and the postal item P on which the barcode has been recorded by the OCR 1 is transported to the merging section 14 at a predetermined timing.
transport path 15 at a predetermined timing.
transported by. The transport speeds in the transport paths 13 and 15 are designed to be equal.

Then, at the merging section 14, as shown in FIG. be done. As shown in FIG. 4, in this single-letter take-out section 17, the mail P supplied from the conveyance path 16 is taken out one by one by the conveyance belt 18, the suction chamber 19, and the take-out regulating member 19a, and transferred to the conveyance path 20. Roll and transport.
The mail items P conveyed along this conveyance path 20 are arranged in a buffer stacker 21, which is a stacking section, and then conveyed to PRES (not shown), where they are roughly sorted.

However, in such a device, when the mail pieces Pa and Pb fed from the conveyance path 13 and the conveyance path 15 merge at the merging section 14, the mail piece Pa from the conveyance path 13 merges with the mail from the conveyance path 15. If the item Pb overlaps with the item Pb, or the mail item Pa from the conveyance path 13 and the mail item from the conveyance path 15
When the tips of the Pb are aligned, as shown in FIG.
The next mail item Pa is defined by the take-out regulating member 19a, and only the previous mail piece Pb can be taken out, and the mail take-out section 17 can accurately take out one mail piece at a time.

Furthermore, when the mail pieces Pa and Pb fed from the conveyance path 13 and the conveyance path 15 merge at the merging section 14, the mail piece Pa from the conveyance path 13 comes before the mail piece Pb from the conveyance path 15. If they overlap,
As shown in FIG. 7, when taking out the previous postal item Pa in the single-mail takeout section 17, the next postal item Pb cannot be specified by the regulating member 19a, and the previous postal item Pa and the next The mail pieces Pb and Pb were taken out at the same time (two pieces were taken out), and it was difficult for the single mail take-out section 17 to take out the mail pieces one by one accurately. In this case, there is a drawback that problems such as jams (transport abnormalities) occur in the transport path 20.

Therefore, conventionally, a detector for detecting mail is provided on one conveyance path before the merging section 14, and, for example, the detector detects a break in the mail on the conveyance path. By supplying the mail items, it is ensured that the single mail take-out section 17 can take out the mail one by one. However, such a processing method has a problem in that the processing speed decreases, which negates the effect of combining OCR and CDS.

This invention was made in view of the above circumstances,
The purpose is to be able to synchronize the conveyance of paper sheets from the two devices, ensure that the paper sheets are merged without any abnormalities in the ejection, and one sheet at a time without slowing down the processing speed. It is an object of the present invention to provide a paper sheet processing device that can reliably transport paper sheets and prevent the occurrence of transport abnormalities.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. Note that since the overall configuration is the same as that shown in FIG. 1, a description thereof will be omitted, and only the main parts will be described in detail below.

FIG. 5 shows the mail 4 in the OCR (second device) 1 after a predetermined time has elapsed since the CDS (first device) 2 started taking out the mail P.
This shows a control circuit that performs control to start taking out the CDS, and a logic "1" signal is supplied to the signal line 31 when the power of the CDS 2 is not turned on. The signal from this signal line 31 is supplied to one input terminal of a NAND circuit 32, and the output of this NAND circuit 32 is supplied to one set input terminal of a flip-flop circuit (hereinafter simply referred to as FF circuit) 33. Due to the set output of the FF circuit 33, a take-out belt drive circuit (not shown) is activated, and the take-out belt 7 in the OCR 1 is activated.
is now being driven.

Further, the discharge timing pulse generation section 34 is
A timing pulse is output when the pick-up of the mail P in the punch processing units 12, 12, . . . in the CDS 2 is started. The output of the discharge timing pulse generator 34 is supplied to a delay circuit 35. This delay circuit 35h outputs a logic "1" signal after a predetermined period of time has elapsed since the output of the discharge timing pulse generator 34 was supplied.

During the predetermined time period, the mail Pb supplied from the conveyance path (second conveyance path) 15 is changed from the mail Pb supplied from the conveyance path (first conveyance path) 13 at the merging section 14.
It is set to overlap and merge so that it is ahead of Pa. As a result, the mail pieces Pa and Pb are always conveyed one by one to the conveyance path 20 in the one-piece takeout section 17 of the merging section 14, and the two pieces of mail Pa and Pb taken to the conveyance path 20 are not conveyed, and It is possible to prevent conveyance abnormalities such as jams at 20.

The mail P is then accumulated in the buffer stacker 21. The output of the delay circuit 35 is supplied to a first input terminal of a NAND circuit 36, and a signal from the signal line 31 is supplied to a second input terminal of the NAND circuit 36 via an inverter circuit 37. The output of the NAND circuit 36 is supplied to the other input terminal of the FF circuit 33. Furthermore, when the power of the OCR 1 is turned on and preparations are completed, an extraction command signal, such as a logic "1" signal, is supplied to the signal line 38.

The output of the signal line 38 is supplied to the third input terminal of the NAND circuit 36 and also to one input terminal of the NAND circuit 40 via the inverter circuit 39. The output of this NAND circuit 40 is
It is supplied to one reset input terminal of the FF circuit 33. Furthermore, a detection signal from the detector 9 in the OCR 1 is supplied to the signal line 41.

The signal from the signal line 41 is sent to the NAND circuit 40 via a delay circuit 42 and a tip differentiation circuit 43.
is supplied to the other input end of the . The other reset input terminal of the FF circuit 33 is supplied with a jam signal output from a detection section (not shown) when a jam occurs in the conveyance path of the processing device. .

The operation in such a configuration will be explained. For example, right now, with the power of CDS2 turned off,
When the extraction command signal is supplied, the signal lines 31, 3
A logic "1" signal is supplied to each of the terminals 8 and 8. Then, the NAND circuit 32 is established and the FF circuit 33 is set. As a result, a take-out belt drive circuit (not shown) is activated, and the take-out belt 7 in the OCR 1 is driven. As a result, the mail items P are sequentially taken out from the supply unit 4 in the OCR 1 and transported.

The postal code on the transported postal item P is read by the reading unit 5, and the barcode corresponding to the read postal code is recorded in the recording unit 6.
to be recorded. The postal item P on which the barcode is recorded is conveyed by the conveyance path 15, and further passes through the merging section 14, the conveyance path 16, the one-mail takeout section 17, and the conveyance path 2.
0, and PRES via buffer stacker 21
transported to.

Further, mail P whose postal code cannot be read by the reading section 5 is conveyed by a conveyance path 10 to stamp processing sections 12, 12, . . . in the CDS 2.

Also, while the CDS2 is powered on,
When the take-out command signal is supplied, a logic "0" signal is supplied to the signal line 31, a logic "1" signal is supplied to the signal line 38, and the NAND circuit 3
Gate 6 will be opened. Furthermore, when the pick-up of the mail P in the punch processing units 12, 12, . . . in the CDS 2 is started, a timing pulse is output from the discharge timing pulse generation unit 34. As a result, a logic "1" signal is output from the delay circuit 35 after a predetermined period of time has elapsed.

The output from this delay circuit 35 establishes a NAND circuit 36 and sets the FF circuit 33. As a result, a take-out belt drive circuit (not shown) is activated, and the take-out belt 7 in the OCR 1 is driven. As a result, the punch processing units 12, 12 in the CDS2...
After starting to take out the mail P at ......
After a predetermined period of time has elapsed, the mail items P are sequentially taken out from the take-out section 4 in the OCR 1 and conveyed. Therefore,
It is possible to synchronize the transport timing of the mail P transported by the transport paths 13 and 15, and moreover, the mail P supplied from the transport path 15 is synchronized with the transport timing of the mail P transported by the transport path
It is possible to merge the mail pieces P in such a way that they are always ahead of (overlapping) the mail pieces P supplied from the mail pieces P.

As a result, each mail P from the merging section 14 is always taken out one by one at the take-out section 17, and the conveyance path 20,
and transported to PRES via the buffer stacker 21.

In this case, the mail P is always transported one by one on the transport path 20, and transport abnormalities such as jams on the transport path 20 can be prevented.

Note that the slight difference in the conveyance speeds of the conveyance paths 13 and 15 is accumulated, and as a result of this accumulation, the mail P fed from the conveyance path 13 is delivered earlier than the mail P fed from the conveyance path 15. When items are being conveyed in duplicate, the abnormality in conveyance is removed, the process is reset, and the process is restarted from the beginning.
That is, by applying a logic "0" signal to the signal line 38,
By temporarily stopping the take-out belt 7 and applying a logic "1" signal to the signal line 38 again, the same operation as described above is performed.

In addition, in the above embodiment, OCR, CDS and
Although we have described a mail processing device in which PRES is combined into one system, the present invention is not limited to this. Paper sheets conveyed from at least two devices through different conveyance paths are combined at a merging section, and the The same method can be applied to any paper sheet processing apparatus in which sheets are conveyed along a common conveyance path by taking out sheets one by one at a takeout section after merging.

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, paper sheets can be conveyed synchronously from two devices, and can be merged without any unloading abnormality, without reducing processing speed. The present invention provides a paper sheet processing device that can reliably transport one sheet at a time and can prevent transport abnormalities from occurring.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of the mail processing device, Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of the extracting section in OCR, Fig. 3 is a diagram for explaining the merging section, and Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of the single mail extracting section. , FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a control circuit in an embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 6 and 7 are diagrams for explaining the taking out state in the one-letter take-out section. 1...OCR (optical character reading device; second device), 2...CDS (print processing device; first device), 3...CPL (coupling unit) 4...supply unit, 7...
... Take-out belt, 9 ... Detector, 12 - ... Punching processing section, 13 ... Conveyance path (first conveyance path), 15
... Conveyance path (second transport path), 16, 20 ... Conveyance path, 14 ... Merging section, 17 ... Single takeout section, 1
8... Conveyor belt, 19... Suction chamber, 19
a... Removal regulation member, 31, 38, 41,...
Signal line, 32, 36, 40... NAND circuit, 33
...FF circuit, 34...discharge timing pulse generator, 35...delay circuit, 37, 39...inverter circuit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Paper sheets from the first device are sequentially transferred one by one to the first device.
a first conveyance means that conveys the paper sheets from the second device one by one through the second conveyance path; a merging section for merging the paper sheets conveyed by the conveyance path and the paper sheets conveyed by the second conveyance path; and a merging section for taking out the merged paper sheets one by one at the merging section. After a predetermined period of time has elapsed since the first conveying means started conveying the paper sheets at the take-out section and the merging section,
The paper sheets fed by the second conveyance means are arranged such that the paper sheets fed from the second conveyance path overlap and merge in front of the paper sheets fed from the first conveyance path. A paper sheet processing device comprising: a conveyance control means for starting conveyance of leaves;