Did You Know...
...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7383973 | Drive rollers for wire feeding mechanism A wire feeding mechanism for advancing a continuous length of wire along a pathway includes a housing having two roller supports each rotatable about a corresponding axis transverse to a wire pathway. The roller supports are on opposite sides of the pathway and are ... | 06/10/2008 |
| 7377029 | Wire winding device for electrical components A wire winding device for electrical components has a transmission member, a wire feeding member, a wire winding member, a spool feeding member, and a driving member. Spools are respectively inserted into the wire winding member via the spool feeding member and rota... | 05/27/2008 |
| 7264240 | Document feeder A document feeder includes a housing, a control lever and a sheet pick-up module. The housing includes a feeding path defined by a first sidewall and a second sidewall. The control lever is mounted on the first sidewall, and includes a pivotal part, a collar and a h... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7247098 | Combination fingerprint reader and I/O devices for gaming machines A replacement device for a conventional bill acceptor in a gaming machine, located in the same space as the bill acceptor, has a bill acceptor or voucher reader/printer, plus at least a fingerprint reader. In one preferred embodiment, the new device has a bill accep... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7223033 | Pinch control in a printer A pinch control apparatus in a printer for controlling a pinch force exerted on a medium which is being fed into a printing zone is provided. The pinch control apparatus includes a camshaft rotatably mounted across a width of the medium, at least one cam attached to... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7198187 | Spring manufacturing machine To improve a spring processing performance, a spring manufacturing machine is structured such that a rotating casing (26) is rotated around a common center line (C1), a final wire rod guide (17) is rotated around the common center line (C1 | 04/03/2007 |
| 7176411 | Wire feeder A wire feeder for supplying consumable welding wire to a welding gun includes a housing and a wire advancing mechanism connected to the housing for paying wire from a wire spool to a welding gun. A storage tray is formed with the housing. A wire spool support is con... | 02/13/2007 |
| 7163552 | Stent delivery system with hydraulic deployment A hydraulic stent and stent graft delivery system utilizing at least two different structural materials to effectuate the easy retention and release of the stent and stent graft, while maintaining structural and sealing integrity for a pressurizable fluid chamber. A... | 01/16/2007 |
| 7001017 | Drive roller releasing apparatus for ink-jet printer A drive roller releasing apparatus for an ink-jet printer includes a drive roller separating mechanism at a drive roller to transport a printing material to a feed roller, to separate a pinch roller from the drive roller, and a controller to control the drive roller... | 02/21/2006 |
| 6993276 | Belt apparatus and image forming apparatus having the same A belt apparatus having an endless belt which is wound around and movably driven by a plurality of support rollers. The speed fluctuations of the endless belt due to the variations in thickness of the endless belt are prevented. A driving apparatus for driving the e... | 01/31/2006 |
| 6959849 | Drive roller assembly There are described drive roller assemblies for pulling print media within, or in conjunction with, a printing apparatus. In one embodiment the assembly includes a rigid drive roller having a hard outer surface in conjunction with a pressure roller having a deformab... | 11/01/2005 |
| 6923034 | Wire spring forming apparatus A wire spring forming apparatus which can twist a direction of the wire material so as to coincide with a forming direction of the forming tools with a small moment of inertia by positioning a center point of gravity of the pressure feed rollers and a power transmit... | 08/02/2005 |
| 6916132 | Double-sided printing apparatus The present invention is made to provide a double-sided printing apparatus at a relatively lower cost having little possibilities of dust generation or slowing feed speed of a continuous paper without complex mechanical structure nor control process, which includes:... | 07/12/2005 |
| 6829992 | Paper web width adjustment device The present invention relates to a device for adjusting the width of a paper web at a rotary lithographic press and the object of the present invention is to prevent ink or specks of paper from becoming attached to contact parts of a pressing member so as to contami... | 12/14/2004 |
| 6776602 | Filament cassette and loading system Disclosed are a filament cassette and a filament loading assembly for supplying filament in a three-dimensional deposition modeling machine. The filament cassette contains a rotatable spool of filament, and has an exit orifice through which a filament strand may exi... | 08/17/2004 |
| 6626343 | Method and apparatus for pinless feeding of web to a utilization device A system and method for utilizing web that is free of tractor pin feed holes comprises the driving of the web along a predetermined path within the utilization device. A web guide is provided in an upstream location from a utilization device element. The ... | 09/30/2003 |
| 6536644 | Tool-less feedroll for wire feeder A wire feeder comprises a feedroll with through slots that open into a bore and that extend between the feedroll ends. The feedroll has blind slots in the ends that also open into the bore. A shaft on the wire feeder has a radial pin. The feedroll is asse... | 03/25/2003 |
| 6537126 | Amusement device An amusement device having an endless flexible strand forming a loop and an inline traction drive unit that drives a portion of the strand to impart inline linear velocity to the strand to create an elongated loop extending from the drive unit. The amusem... | 03/25/2003 |
| 6481045 | Capstan shaft cleaning device A capstan shaft cleaning device has a cleaning member removing dirt attached to a capstan shaft and a moving mechanism moving the cleaning member between a position at which the cleaning member contacts the capstan shaft and a position at which the cleani... | 11/19/2002 |
| 6318614 | Ceramic wire feed rollers Wire feed rollers made of ceramic material which virtually eliminate wire feed roller wear enabling continuous wire feed to the welding tip without discernable weld wire slippage. Adjacent ceramic wire feed rollers are used in sets where one roller includ... | 11/20/2001 |
| 6230954 | Paper feeding device and printer having the paper feeding device A paper feeding device has a first guide portion through which paper having a preselected width and thickness is introduced, a second guide portion for receiving the paper introduced into the first guide portion, and at least one connecting guide portion ... | 05/15/2001 |
| 6207001 | Method for cutting thin tapes and films Improved method and apparatus for cutting or severing thin webs, especially adhesive transfer tapes, and other relatively thin materials which prevents or minimizes tearing.... | 03/27/2001 |
| 6196783 | Tape feeders and systems using the same A tape feeder 200 includes a sprocket 201 having a plurality of teeth 202 for engaging holes of a tape. A pawl 205 engages selected teeth of sprocket 201. A first lever 203 is coupled to pawl 205 and a second lever 204 is coupled to first lever 203 and a ... | 03/06/2001 |
| 6094945 | Device for feeding an elastically extendable yarn to hosiery knitting machines A device for feeding an elastically extendable yarn to hosiery knitting machines, which includes a positive yarn feeder composed of two mutually opposite contrarotating rollers which have parallel axes and between which the yarn to be fed passes. Elements... | 08/01/2000 |
| 6076719 | Transport system for propelling photographic film through an automatic film processing machine A film transport device for an automatic film processor that sequentially transports film from a dry environment into and out of liquid solutions. The device includes a series of gear driven, opposed roller pairs which are pre-aligned and bearing mounted ... | 06/20/2000 |
| 5983954 | Roller type weft yarn feeding device A weft yarn feeding device includes a feed roller which rotates at a circumferential speed equal to a running speed of a weft and a pinch roller which moves in and out of contact with the circumference of the feed roller with the weft in between. The roll... | 11/16/1999 |
| 5967448 | Metal strip shearing and coiling An apparatus for coiling successive lengths of metal strip onto mandrels changes the strip path from a path leading to the mandrel currently being wound to a path to a new mandrel when the current strip ends and a new strip appears. The new mandrel has a ... | 10/19/1999 |
| 5901893 | Apparatus and method for conveying a web A method and apparatus for conveying a web utilizes magnetically coupled first and second rotatable elements. Rotation of one of the rotatable elements causes the simultaneous synchronous rotation of the other rotatable element. Both first and second rota... | 05/11/1999 |
| 5727724 | Method and apparatus for transporting a web material An apparatus for transporting web material, such as a folded paper web in a web-fed rotary printing press, is disclosed which includes a first nip roller having a first set of driven and non-driven wheels which are arranged side by side along a rotational... | 03/17/1998 |
| 5645275 | Damped pinch-roll for document feed A document feed array comprising a pinch-roll mounted to rotate about its center to engage documents, being mounted on a cantilever-arm pivoted at a point distal from said roll-center and including an elastomeric sleeve which, alone, couples the arm to it... | 07/08/1997 |
| 5624207 | Ocean bottom cable handling system and method of using same A marine seismic cable deployment and retrieval system for utilization in conjunction with a marine vessel. The present, searched for invention teaches a large wheel mounted in the front of the vessel for retrieving seismic cable from the water, and a hor... | 04/29/1997 |
| 5584426 | Welding wire holding device A welding wire holding device comprising a wire dispensing housing, the lower floor thereof extending downward and forming a handle, the handle being of a size and shape suited to be gripped by a welder's gloved hand, a wire compression roller rotatably m... | 12/17/1996 |
| 5540373 | Pinch roller type tape drive A pinch roller type tape drive for driving a magnetic tape on a VTR or the like comprises a capstan for driving the magnetic tape, and a pinch roller for pressing the magnetic tape against the circumference of the capstan so that the magnetic tape may not... | 07/30/1996 |
| 5540371 | Method of adjusting a wire feeder for a blocked tip condition A method of adjusting a wire feeder having a pusher system (12) and a puller system (14) to avoid birdnesting and collapse of the wire (11) in the wire guide or conduit (13) when the tip (15) of the wire feeder is blocked or a wire jam occurs. The pusher ... | 07/30/1996 |
| 5531853 | Linerless label applicator A linerless label in web form is fed by a pair of nip rollers to a cutting device for forming discrete linerless labels subsequently applied to a product by an applicator head. The nip rollers have circumferentially extending, axially spaced ribs in regis... | 07/02/1996 |
| 5516022 | Method and apparatus for a two speed strap take up A novel method and apparatus for a two speed strap take up usable in a strapping machine. The two speed strap take up apparatus generally comprises a high speed roller assembly driven by a high speed drive shaft, a low speed roller assembly driven by a lo... | 05/14/1996 |
| 5509594 | Device to control the feeding of the strap in a strapping machine Device to control the feeding of the strap in a strapping machine, of the type wherein the strap (R) is guided on the periphery of at least one driving wheel (1) and at least one pressure wheel (4) is provided to press the strap (R) against the periphery ... | 04/23/1996 |
| 5452833 | Magnetic-tape apparatus comprising a pressure-roller device A magnetic-tape apparatus (1) having a capstan (33) and a pressure-roller device (47) which includes a pressure roller (29) which can be pressed against the capstan (33) and which is rotatably supported on a pressure-roller spindle (50) by a bearing membe... | 09/26/1995 |
| 5441354 | Carriage support system for computer driven printer A carriage support system for a computer driven printer/plotter employs a slider rod and a slider bar mounted parallel to each other on a printer chassis wherein the bar supports the front side of a printer carriage and the rod supports the rear side of t... | 08/15/1995 |
| 5439366 | Safety device for a roll space of a calender or similar roll machine A safety device for the roll space within a calender or other roll machine is disclosed. The rolls when rotating, excite oscillations in the beam at the resonant frequency of the beam. This can occur during start-up or during normal operation. The safety ... | 08/08/1995 |
