Tape winding device

A device for rapidly winding a load of paper tape from a computer into a relatively tight roll that can be fed directly to a phototypesetting machine. The device has a round deck, positioned to rotate in a horizontal plane on which are mounted three posts. The posts are equiangularly spaced around the center of the deck to serve as a hub about which the tape roll is formed. Each post has a slot to receive the tape and one end of the tape is threaded through the slot of one of the posts and bent around that post prior to the winding procedure. An electric motor then drives the deck in a spinning motion about its axis to rapidly wind the tape around the three posts. Two tension rollers are mounted at the periphery of the deck to guide the incoming tape and hold it under sufficient tension to ensure the formation of a relatively tight roll during the winding operation. To make this possible, one of the rollers is stationary and the other is spring-loaded to bear resiliently against the first so that the two rollers subject the tape to sufficient squeezing pressure to provide the proper tension for good roll formation. The outer edge of one of the hub posts on the tape deck slopes slightly towards the center of the deck from its lower end so that the tightly wound roll of tape can be slipped easily off of the hub when the winding operation is completed.