Method and apparatus for feeding items of laundry to a laundry treatment device, in particular a mangle

摘要

Items of laundry have to be stretched out by a spreading device (14) before they are inserted into a mangle or any other laundry treatment device. To this end, the spreading device (14) has spreading clips (15) which can be moved away from one another. In the case of relatively large items of laundry, the spreading clips (15) have to cover a relatively large distance in order to spread out the item of laundry. This reduces the insertion rate. The invention provides for the items of laundry to be preliminarily spread out before being passed to the spreading clips (15), so that the spreading clips (15) receive the item of laundry in a state in which it is already virtually spread out. The spreading clips (15) only have to cover a small residual distance in order to spread out the item of laundry completely. As a result, the spreading device (14) can spread out the item of laundry very quickly. It is particularly advantageous to measure the width of the item of laundry and to then preliminarily spread out the item of laundry as far as possible as a function of the measured width.