US Patent 7363858 Printing apparatus with plate feeding mechanism having transport rollers

A printing apparatus includes a printing plate feeder for feeding printing plates to a first plate cylinder. The printing plate feeder has a pair of transport rollers acting as a leveling roller and a driven roller. The leveling roller is fixed to a leveling roller rotary shaft extending parallel to a rotational axis of the first plate cylinder, and is opposed to middle and opposite end regions of the first plate cylinder. The leveling roller rotary shaft is connected to a driving device, a one-way clutch for permitting rotation only in a transport direction of the printing plates, and a torque transmission clutch acting as a loading device for applying a load to rotation in a direction opposite to the transport direction of the printing plates.