US999670A - Machine for dealing playing-cards. - Google Patents

Description

G. MURCH.

MACHINE FOR DBALING PLAYING CARDS.

APPLICATION FILED AUG. 28, 1998.

Patented Aug. 1, 1911.

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GEORGE MURCH, 0F CAPETOWN, CAPE COLONY.

MACHINE FOR DEALING PLAYING-CARDS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug. 1, 1911.

Application filed August 28, 1908. Serial No. 450,632.

To all whom 'it may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE Minion, a subject of Great Britain, residing at Capetown, Cape Colony, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Machines for Dealing Playing-Cards, of which the following is a specification, reference being had therein tothe accompanying drawings.

The invention has relation to card dealing machines of the class exemplified by that of United States Letters Patent N o. 842,803, granted to me under date of January 29, 1907. The machine of the said patent is characterized by the employment of a r0- tary dealer-carrier, a card-holder or box carried thereby, and devices acting in the rotation of the said dealer-carrier to deliver,

cards at predetermined points in the said rotation. The particular delivering devices which are shown and described in the patent just referred to include a dealer-roll which, by its engagement with the first card of the pack within the card-holder or box, operates to eject or discharge the cards successively at the predetermined places in the rotation of the dealer-carrier.

The irst object of the invention is to provide in simple manner for correcting any tendency of a frictional dealer-roll to gain or lose in discharging the cards from the card-holder or box.

'Io this end, the first portion of the invention consists in means for varying at will the force with which the cards and deliveryroll are pressed together, thereby regulating the frictional engagement between the said roll and each card to be dealt. Most conveniently, this is carried into effect by providing means to adjust the tension of the springs which press the card-holder or box toward the delivery-roll. vWhen the said `roll loses in delivering the' cards, so that each of t-he latter is discharged later than is desired, the said means may be operated to cause the cards to be pressed with a properlygraduated increased force against the roll, which will securegreater promptness of delivery; when the roll gains, so that each card is discharged earlier than desired, the pressure may be reduced, whereupon the deliv-` ery'will be retarded. By a proper manipulation of the adjusting means, the times of delivery of the successive cards may be regulated with great nicety.

Card dealing machines such as aforesaid have been provided with a gage having for delivering action.

oneof the functions thereof to prevent more than one card from being fed at a time. Having investigated to ascertain the cause of frequent interruptions in the dealing, I have discovered that these occur in large part as a result of the engagement of the gage with a battered and thickened portion of the leading end of a card, or with the depressed portion of a card which has become bent transversely. Cards that have vbeen used some time often become battered and bruised at the edges thereof so as to thicken the latter, and card players often squeeze a pack of 4cards transversely( while holding the same and thereby bow or bend the cards, giving a more or less permanent set thereto. Various attempts have been made to remedy these interruptions of the feeding but without success heretofore.

I have disposed of the diiculty and obviated the tendency to such interruptions by the second which consists in a gaging device having acting portions arranged to engage solely with portions of the ends of the cards at or close to the side-edges of the latter, and having intermediate such acting portions a depression which accommodates any battered yand thickened intermediate portions of the end of the top card, and any downwardly bent orbowed portion of such end, thus permitting the top card to be advanced without hindrance from the gage.

The invention also has relation to means for keeping a rotary dealer-roll in working condition. Much ditliculty has been experienced in practice in the use of carddealing machines, owing to variability in the A givenmachine at times delivers 'cards of one pack with a spacing different from that with which it delivers the cards of another pack, and sometimes varies, as regards spacing, in delivering the cards of the same pack at different times. I have discovered that this is largely due to the surface of the dealer-roll becoming charged with dust, grease, or the substance with which cards are coated. Then the roll has gathered dust, etc;, its friction-al hold upon the card which is in contact therewith is reduced and its action in feeding such card is altered, and hence the succesportion of my invention,-

sive cards are not fed or discharged accurately and uniformly. This portion of my invention comprises means for obviating this drawback, and consists in a wiper for the lower portions of the the dealer-roll by which its surface is kept in proper condition for action, whereby accurate delivery is secured.

ed machine containing embodiments of the features of the invention is shown .in the drawings, in which- Figure 1 is a view of such machine 1n side elevation. Fig. 2 is a view thereoitl 1n plan. Fig. 3 is a View in vertical section on line 3, 3, of Figs. 1 and 2. Fig. 4t is a detail view in side elevation on an enlarged scale. Fig. 5 is a View of the gage, detached, also .on an enlarged scale.

Having reference to the draw1ngs,-at 1 is t-he stationary base or stand of the machine, and 2 is the revoluble dealer-carrier, the latter having the socket bearing 3 tting upon the upright supporting-pm 4 projecting from the top of the central post of the said base or stand.

At 5 is the handle upon'the dealer-carrier which is grasped for the purpose of manually turning the dealer-carrier around upon the said supporting-pin.

At 6 is the dealer-roll which is mounted upon the dealer-carrier, its supporting-shaft, which is marked 7, being tted to bearings which are provided \at 8, 8, in connection with the dealer-carrier.

The card-holder or box is designated 9, the guide-rods on which it is mounted t 1de vertically toward'and from the deale"roll` being shown at 10, 10, and at 11, 11, are the springs which act upon the card-holder or box to press the bottom 12 thereof, and the cards resting thereon, toward the periphery of the dealer-roll. The said springs encircle ide-rods, and act expansively upward against the bottom 12 and bear the card-holder or box toward the dealer-roll.

At 14: is the gage by which the dealing of more than one card at a time by the ,dealerroll is prevented, it being held by screws 11"),

15, to a supporting-bar 16 that in turn is attached by screws 17, 17, to depending portions of the dealer-carrier. For convenience in setting the saidbar 16, and setting and alining the gage, the holes 18, 18, that are formed in the said depending portions to receive the stems of the screws 17, 17, are made, in the form of vertically-elongated slots. To enable the gage to be adjufted vertically upon the bar 16, the holes 19, 19, that are formed in the latter to receive the stems of the screws 15, 15,V are made in the form of vertically-elongated slots, and a screw 2O is applied to lugs 21, 21, projecting from the bar, the said screw being passed through holes in a. pair of lugs 22, 22, projecting from the gage, and a nut 23 being threaded upon the said screw between the latter lugs. By turning this nut manually it is shifted up or down upon the fixed screw' 20, and through the engagement of the nut with the lugs 22, 22, the gage is correspondingly raised or lowered.

As here shown, though not necessarily in all embodiments of the invention, the dealerroll derives its movement of rotation from the turning movement of the dealer-carrier, through the engagement of a pinion 2li, which is operatively connected to the dealerroll, with circularly-disposed stationary teeth at 25 Fig. 2 upon the top of the post of the base 0r st-and, the said stationary teeth being arranged concentrically with relation to the axis of the supporting-pin a. 'llo enable the number of deliveries made in a round to be varied at will, a plurality of concentric series or racks of the teeth 25 is provided, as shown in Fig. 2, the different seriesor racks containing diderent numbers of teeth, and pinion 24. is adapted to be shifted from one of such series or racks to another. In Fig. 4 the said pinion is shown fined in place upon its carrying shaft by means of a screw 25, and screw-threaded holes are tapped in the shaft at 26, 26, etc., at the'places to be occupied by the pinion when in engagement with the respective series or racks. To permit the pinion24f to be shifted from one circular series of teeth, or ralr, to another, and adapt the teeth of the pinion for engagement at different times -with teeth describedon pitch-circles of different diameters, the said pinion, instead of being a. bevel gear of customary shape is 4of modified construction to suit such-.requirements. Its teeth are made much narrower than usual, for instance, in the shape of pins as in Fig. 4f.

In order to enable the force with which the cards and delivery-roll are pressed together to be varied at will, so as to regulate the frictional engagement between thesaid roll and the cards to be dealt, for the purpose of compensating for tendency of the dealer-roll to gain or lose in dealing the cards, l screw-thread the lower portions of the guide- rods 10, 10, as indicated in Figs. 1 and 2, and apply to the same the nuts 13', 13, against which the lower ends of the springs 11,V 11,.take their bearing. By ,turning the nuts up on the guide-rods so as thereby to increase the tension of the springs and the degree of pressure, a tendency of the dealerroll to lose in dealing may be corrected, while tendency to gain may be corrected by turning them down so as to decrease the said tension and the degree of pressure. To prevent the guide-rods from becoming bent or sprung out of parallelism with each other,

axis of the dealer-roll is correspondingly stance, one having the surface thereof cor- .in taking hold inclined with respect to the radius. The machine shown is arranged to deliver rearwardly, and therefore, as a result of such inclination of the said aXis the Acard is extended at an outward inclination rearwardly 1n being fed by the dealer-roll. A rear delivery machine having the axis of the dealerroll forwardly inclined, as shown in Fig. 2, will distribute the `cards farther from the center than one having the axis of the dealer-rolLradial or parallel with a radius. y varying the inclination, the action indelivering may be varied to meet requirements. Thus, the card shall be directed inward in being delivered, the card may be dropped closer to the center, and othery advantageous results may be attained by arranging the dealer-roll to stand at right angles to a radius. v

In the present instance the driving arrangements for the dealer-roll have been adapted to thev inclined position of the latter by providing the shaft i of such roll with a bevel-gear 27, and mounting the pinion 24 upon a short secondary shaft 28 carrying a bevel-gear meshing with bevel-gear 27. The said secondary shaft is mounted in bearings at 30 and 31 upon the arm of the dealer'- carrier, and its socket 3, respectively.

In the separate detail View of the gaging device 14.- .shown'in Fig. 5, the said device is represented as a strip having acting portions 14, 14a, the said acting portions being, as heretofore stated, separated from each other and so located as to engage with the ends of the cards of edges. The space or depression intervening between such acting portlons accommodates any enlargement or bend'at or near the middle of the width of the top card, and hence the improved form of gage permits the card to beadvanced without being ob'- structed.

The dealer-roll 6 is provided with a rubber covering 6a. I secure the greatest power of a card and feeding the same from the machine through the employment of a rubber covering which has the acting surface thereof formed with alternate elevations and depressions, as, for inrugated, as shown in the drawings. The Wiper by The arrangement of the Wiper the cards by reversing the inclination, so that the pack contained in `the holder or box only close to their sidetion, a card-holder,

which the acting surface ofthe* In testimonfy dealer-roll is kept in working condition is and hangingdown upon may be varied. The wiper takes from the eriphery of the dealer-roll such particles of dust, lint, and the like, as' become adherent thereto, and also removes grease and coatingmaterial transferred from the surfaces of to such periphery. The cleaning action is greatly facilitated by forming the acting surface of' the roll with corrugations, etc.

I claim las my invention l. In a card-dealin' machine, in combination, a frictional dea er-roll, a card-holder, means acting to produce pressure between such roll and the top card, and means for regulating the time of delivery ofthe respective cards by adjusting the frictional engigement of the roll with the'said top car 2. In a card-dealing machine, in combination, a frictional dealer-roll, a/card-holder, a spring by which the said card-holder and roll are pressed toward each other, and

means for regulating the -time of delivery of the respective cards" by adjusting the tension of the said spring'so as to vary the frictional engagement of the roll with the card presented thereto by the card-holder.

In a card-dealing machine, in combination, card-delivering means, and a ,deliverygage having separated acting portions with intermediate space, said acting portions arranged to engage with theend of a card at or near the side-edges ofthe latter.

4. In a card-dealing machine, intcombination, a card-dealing roll, and a deliverygage having separated acting portions with intermediate space, said acting portions arranged to engage with the end of a card at or near the slde-edges of the latter. A

5. In a card-dealing machine, in combination, a card-holder, a dealer-roll having a frictional surface for engagement with the surface of a card to be fed, and a..wiper actin to 4keep the said surface of the dealerroll rictionally active. f

6. In a card-dealing machine, in combination, a card-holder, a rubber-surfaced dealerroll, and a wiper acting to keep the surface of said roll-friction'allyactive.y c

In a card-dealing machine, in combinaa dealer-roll having Aa corrugated rubber acting surface, and a wiper acting upon such surface to keep the same frictionally active. x

whereof I affix my signature two witnesses.

GEORGE vMURCH.

111 Presence O Witnesses:

CHAs. F. RANDALL, EDITH J. ANDERSON.

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