System and method for providing sheets to an inserter system using a high speed cutter and right angle turn

摘要

An inserter input system including a web feeder (10) providing a web of printed material to be split by a web slitting knife (11) along the web's direction of travel. The split web is then cut transverse to the direction of travel by a web cutter (20), resulting in side-by-side individual sheets. Downstream of the rotary cutter, a right angle turn mechanism (30) receives each of the side-by-side sheets and reorients them by ninety degrees. Further the right angle turn (30) reorients the sheets into a serial shingled arrangement. The right angle turn transport operates at a velocity that is a function of the product of the web cutting rate and the width of the documents. A high speed separation nip (34) pulls individual shingled sheets out from the shingled arrangement. The speed of the separation nip (34) is such that a predetermined gap between the previously shingled sheets is formed. The separation nip speed is further controlled as a function of the product of the cutting rate and the sum of the document length plus the predetermined gap.