Importance

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Abstract

Apparatus for collecting tickets cut from ticket stock, and for stacking these tickets in a horizontal array. Tickets are collected and oriented to stacking position by a vacuum transport belt assembly and uniformly aligned by a horizontal stacker. The transport assembly is mounted on a housing which includes a vacuum drum to maintain ticket engagement with the transport belts, as the belts traverse a path having a horizontal to vertical orientation about the top and front of the housing. The stacker is mounted perpendicular to the front base of the housing and incorporates a stacking belt extending the length of, and parallel to the base of the housing. The stacking belt is incremented in the stacking direction, in synchronization with a cutter. Stacker infeed disks are mounted on the transport terminus roller in a unitary arrangement which both releases tickets from the transport and feeds tickets to the stacker, to improve processing efficiency. A friction-loaded back stop moveable along the stacking axis maintains successively fed tickets in an orderly array, in cooperation with the stacking belt. This arrangement enables continuous, high-speed stacking operation, and reduces apparatus sensitivity to variations in ticket size and composition.

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First Claim