FEEDER DEVICE HAVING ADJUSTABLY FLEXIBLE GATE APPARATUS AND ASSOCIATED METHOD

摘要

A feeder device (100) for feeding a unit of media from a stack of media (400) to a. receiving apparatus (500) is provided. The feeder device (100) comprises a drive mechanism (200) for driving the media in a feed direction through an opening (310) defined by a gate apparatus (300). The opening (310) extends from a first (320) to a second edge (325) of the gate apparatus (300) and defines a fixed height greater than the thickness of the media. A flexible blade member (600) is fixedly engaged with the gate apparatus (300) at a fixed end (610) and is cantilevered with respect to the gate apparatus (300). The blade member (600) defines a length (625) and extends from the first edge (320) toward the second edge (325) to reduce the opening height. The blade member (600) is further configured to have an adjustable flexibility to allow the feeder device (100) to feed media of varying thickness to the printing apparatus. An associated method is also provided.