Document separating apparatus and method

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention provides a way to use the same machine for new currency and other stiff documents and for old limp currency without adjustment or at least with only minor adjustment which is much less critical than adjustments which have had to be made in the past.
The present invention employs a slack friction belt and interposes between the belt supporting pulleys a third idler pulley opposite the region where the belt wraps around the free-wheeling pulley between the friction drums.
Opposition diameters of third pulley are preferably just bearly out of contact with the belt when no documents are passing through.
The pulley has flanges, however, which contact respective friction drums and are urged into them by a spring support for the pulleys spindle.
The spring yields as documents pass through so that the currency itself will determine whether the spring yields and how much the third pulley changes place in use.
Specifically, because of the force of the friction belt on it, limp money conforms to idler pulley between the friction drum members and displaces the third pulley only the thickness of the money.
As stiff currency passes through, however, the belt itself is lifted out of the groove and away from the belt deflecting idler pulley.
Lifting the friction belt causes the belt to engage the third pulley which also displaces the third pulley toward the part of the belt at its opposite diameter.
Thus, this action causes the belt to tension at that opposite side as well as at the place it is displaced by the money, and thereby even further increasing the tension which improves the stripping effect on the stiffer bills as they pass through.
At such times the flanges of the pulley are capable of being lifted out of contact of the stiffer money.
However, when the currency is limp, the flanges of the third pulley that would ordinarily rest on the friction drum surfaces now rests on part of the limp paper money on the opposite the friction drum surfaces and effectively act as guides to stabilize and provide equal forces to each drive to further help in preventing skewing of the money as it passes through