| 摘要 |
A machine for applying tubing over any desired area of an object, including a supply of flat, flexible tubing having sharp creases on either side of the tubing, apparatus for reducing slightly the creases to open partially the tubing, a knife for cutting the partially opened tubing to provide a predetermined length of cut tubing, a mechanism to hold externally at the reduced creases the tubing which is being cut and to shape the cut tubing into any desired shape corresponding to the shape of the object which is to receive the cut tubing, and apparatus for moving the cut and shaped tubing around the object. In one embodiment, the holding and shaping mechanism is moved together with the cut tubing over the object, the mechanism then releasing the cut tubing around the object and returning to an initial position to hold and shape additional cut tubing. In another embodiment, the mechanism is held away from the object, but the cut tubing is caused to slide out of the mechanism and over the object. Two embodiments for feeding the flexible tubing in relation to the cutting knife are also disclosed, one embodiment including a shaft encoder-decoder and photoscanner technique which is used with tubing having printed matter, and the other embodiment including only the shaft encoder-decoder technique which is used with plain tubing.
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