HOPPER LOADER HAVING ARCED CONVEYOR FOR FORMING AN OVERLAPPING STREAM OF SIGNATURES FROM A VERTICAL STACK

摘要

The invention pertains to a hopper loader apparatus for separating and formi ng an overlapping shingled stream of individual signatures of sheet materials from a vertically aligned, parallelepiped shaped stack of such signatures for subsequent handling operations. The hopper-loader has a chassis; a first continuous, downwardly inclined planar conveyor mounted on the chassis which moves a stack of vertically aligned signatures and deposits them onto a second conveyor as a separated, shingled stream of the signature s. The second conveyor is mounted on the chassis and aligned with an end of the fir st conveyor. It has a plurality of driven belts which travel over each of an upwardly inclined planar ramp segment, an arched transition segment, and a planar exit segment. The arched transition segment comprises either a belt slide or a plurality of serially arranged rollers.