Control mechanism to disable driven ink metering elements in rotary printing machines

DETAILED DESCRIPTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a mechanism permitting any ink metering element which is driven by an electric motor from a remote control station to be rendered inactive in a simple way, so that is is not operated with other ink metering elements in case of a general ink metering element adjustment.
Briefly, the invention comprises a control mechanism for disabling selected motor-driven ink metering elements so that such elements are not adjusted when there is a control command to adjust all metering elements.
The control mechanism includes plural command switches, in the form of manually operable push buttons which are activated by an operator to provide metering element control signal inputs to a programmable microprocessor.
The outputs of the processor are motor control signals which are connected to corresponding drive circuits for the individual ink metering elements of an ink fountain to position the individual elements.
The microprocessor responds to its input signals to produce suitable command signals which increase or decrease.
The amount of ink supplied by each element individually or jointly and to disable selected ink metering elements by moving them to a zero position.
These disabled elements are selected to define the width of the printing area, and are not moved when a joint adjustment of all the elements is commanded.