A fork with timer for providing a cue to a user after an elapsed period of time for indicating that another bite of food using the fork may be taken.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8174223 | Method of detecting state of synchronization loss in stepping motor In a method of detecting synchronization loss in a stepping motor, a means for applying either control current or control voltage to a coil of each phase to thereby drive a stepping motor and a means for individually measuring a back EMF voltage induced at the coil ... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8159176 | Motor driving device A motor-driving device comprising: a switching element to control a current passed through a first coil of a stepping motor including the first and a second coils electromagnetically coupled; a rectifier element to be energized in a ground-side-to-second-coil direct... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8148933 | Circuit arrangement for load-dependent control of current flow time in motor windings of self-timed bipolar stepper motors A circuit arrangement for automatic, load-dependent control of at least one winding current of a respective motor winding of a self-timed bipolar stepper motor, includes a first power driver circuit for a first motor winding and a second power driver circuit for a s... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8125174 | Motor driven electronic apparatus A driving method of a high speed rotation stepping motor exhibiting good starting performance, its driving circuit, and a vibration motor and a fan motor employing them. The motor driven electronic apparatus comprises a two pole flat stator, a rotor consisting of a ... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8111032 | Indicating instrument for vehicle An indicating instrument for a vehicle includes a step motor including a field winding, a pointer, a stopper device for stopping the pointer, which is rotating in a zero-reset direction, at a stopper position, a detecting device for detecting induced voltage of the ... | 02/07/2012 |
| 8102139 | Indicating instrument for vehicle An indicating instrument includes a step motor having a field winding, a pointer, a reduction gear mechanism having gears, a stopper device for stopping the pointer at a stopper position, a detecting device for detecting induced voltage of the winding at each of det... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8089238 | Electronic device and monitor opening mechanism for an electronic device A monitor opening mechanism includes a first rotating shaft rotatably connected to a host and having a first toothed portion. A stepper motor is disposed in the host and includes a second rotating shaft having a second toothed portion engaging the first toothed port... | 01/03/2012 |
| 8072177 | Stepping motor driver In a drive of a stepping motor, an electromotive force is generated on the coil of a motor with a sinusoidal wave having the same period as an energization period by smoothly rotating a rotor with microstep driving, and an induced power is stably detected by detecti... | 12/06/2011 |
| 8063603 | System and method for using a stepper motor as a rotary sensor A method and apparatus for driving a stepper motor and using the stepper motor as a rotary sensor when the stepper motor is not being driven. ... | 11/22/2011 |
| 8040100 | Automatically determining optimal pulse duration for a stepper motor A system for calculating control pulse duration for optimal stepper motor performance. Duration of control pulses to a stepper motor is increased until stepper motor function begins. The duration of control pulses continues to be increased. It is determined whether ... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8030876 | Stepper motor device with compensating non-sinusoidal driving values and method of producing the driving values A stepper motor device uses compensating non-sinusoidal driving values to compensate for operational non-sinusoidal drive characteristics of a motor of the device due to at least design and manufacturing imperfections in the motor. The compensating non-sinusoidal dr... | 10/04/2011 |
| 8030877 | Device and method for detecting back electromotive force phase and device and method for controlling excitation In a back electromotive force phase detecting device, a timing generating unit generates a timing signal indicating a start timing, an intermediate timing and an end timing of a 180-degree electrical angle period in a detection target phase, from an excitation pulse... | 10/04/2011 |
| 7969115 | Motor drive circuit and electronics A drive circuit drives a motor in a mode selected from first and second modes. A drive unit operates in response to a control signal received from a signal generation unit to control how the motor should rotate. The control signal is applied to drive the motor in th... | 06/28/2011 |
| 7948200 | Motor drive device, image reading device, image forming apparatus, and motor drive method A motor drive device drives a stepping motor having a rotor mounted on a rotating shaft with a capability of making a transition between a plurality of excitation modes. A motor control unit drives the stepping motor by controlling the rotor to move to a position co... | 05/24/2011 |
| 7911174 | Position sensing for rotor in hybrid stepper motor A method and system are provided for sensing the position of a rotor in a hybrid stepper motor. First and second Hall sensors are positioned in a spaced-apart relationship with the first and second armatures of the rotor such that the first and second Hall sensors g... | 03/22/2011 |
| 7893648 | Stepping motor driving device, sheet processing device, and image processing apparatus A stepping motor driving device drives a stepping motor according to a drive pulse of a step signal. A phase matching unit matches, at a time when there is a possibility that a rotor and a phase signal are out of phase with each other, phases of the rotor and the ph... | 02/22/2011 |
| 7893647 | Arrangement for driving a load element In a method or system for driving a load element, a drive motor is provided on a drive shaft of the load element that establishes a drive rotation speed of the load element. A rotation torque sensor on the drive shaft emits a load torque signal proportional to a rot... | 02/22/2011 |
| 7880422 | Image forming apparatus appropriately setting current value for driving motor When a printing instruction is provided, a CPU causes a stepping motor M to drive a developer and calculates the value of a load of the stepping motor M before printing operations are performed. Then, CPU determines whether the value of the load is within a predeter... | 02/01/2011 |
| 7868579 | Micro-step driving method of stepping motor and electrically-driven device using stepping motor In a micro-step drive and driving method of a stepping motor, the stepping motor generates a drive force for movement on a prescribed path of a moving unit provided in an electrically driven device, a standard point and a target point of an operation are set on the ... | 01/11/2011 |
| 7852036 | Disk playback apparatus and stepping-motor control apparatus When the magnitude of a traverse signal exceeds a predetermined level, the value of a microstep drive signal is changed by one microstep angle so that the rotation angle of the stepping motor changes in a rotation direction in which the magnitude of the traverse sig... | 12/14/2010 |
| 7852035 | Motor drive circuit To provide a motor driving circuit and a motor driving system wherein the circuit occupation area is small and the IC size can be reduced. A polarity inversion data generating circuit is provided to use the higher-order bits of an address counter, which do no... | 12/14/2010 |
| 7852026 | Motor drive apparatus and motor drive control method A protection circuit is configured to change control modes in a drive control process of a drive circuit for a motor when overvoltage is applied to a power source line while the motor is driven. With overvoltage applied, the control process is changed to a control m... | 12/14/2010 |
| 7839111 | Stepper motor control apparatus A stepper motor apparatus controls a stepper motor by taking a maximum response speed and maximum response acceleration of the stepper motor into account. ... | 11/23/2010 |
| 7825619 | Method and apparatus for controlling stopping of vibration generating stepping motor A method for controlling stopping of a vibration generating stepping motor is a method for controlling the stopping of an vibration generating stepping motor by a control unit, characterized in that the method includes: stopping a supply of a driving pulse to the vi... | 11/02/2010 |
| 7812562 | Method and apparatus for high speed stepper motor stall detection A detector device and a method for detecting a stall condition in a stepper motor, wherein the accumulated value of the back EMF is compared to a stall threshold when the stepper motor has exceeded a pre-determined rotational velocity threshold, the accumulated valu... | 10/12/2010 |
| 7791306 | Apparatus, method, and system for controlling stepping motor A stepping motor controller that alleviates the CPU burden of motor control tasks. An acceleration control starter initializes a pointer register with a given start angle address upon receipt of a control start signal. Duty cycles for different motor angles are prev... | 09/07/2010 |
| 7759896 | Stepping motor driving device, lens driving device, and camera A stepping motor driving device which makes it possible to reduce electric power consumed by a stepping motor and at the same time suppress degradation of shake correcting performance. A CPU of the stepping motor driving device switches between a first driving metho... | 07/20/2010 |
| 7746022 | Stepping motor controller and stepping motor control program A stepping motor controller for controlling a stepping motor which drives a load, including: a load drive state detection section which detects a driving state of the load; and a control section which controls the stepping motor, when a detection result of the load ... | 06/29/2010 |
| 7733051 | Model-based active electronic damping for stepper motors A method for damping vibrations in a stepper motor with micro-stepping control which comprises the steps of identifying the force amplitudes and phase shifts of multiple harmonic detent torques of the stepper motor, such as the first, second and fourth harmonic dete... | 06/08/2010 |
| 7728543 | Stepping motor controlling device A stepping motor controlling device according to the present invention includes lead angle computing means which computes a lead angle according to the load torque current deviation of the stepping motor, adding means which adds an angle command to the lead angle to... | 06/01/2010 |
| 7719225 | Optical image stabilizer and a method of controlling the optical image stabilizer An optical image stabilizer includes an optical system including at least one image shake counteracting optical element movable in a plane orthogonal to an optical axis; at least one stepping motor for moving the image shake counteracting optical element in the plan... | 05/18/2010 |
| 7688019 | Method and system for compensating for position error of step motor The present invention relates to a method and a system for compensating for a position error of a step motor. A method for compensating for a position error of a step motor includes: sequentially inputting a predetermined number of a pulse as a rotator position comm... | 03/30/2010 |
| 7626352 | Control device for stepping motor A control device for a stepping motor is provided that can reduce torque generated by a motor and control the expansion of a speed deviation when the rotational speed of a rotor exceeds a speed command. The control device includes first judging means (27) for... | 12/01/2009 |
| 7615961 | Control device for stepping motor A control device for a stepping motor of the present invention stores setting data for controlling a state of the stepping motor in a data storage unit for each of a plurality of basic control items obtained by classifying control from activation to stoppage of the ... | 11/10/2009 |
| 7612517 | Stepping motor controller and gaming machine A stepping motor controller includes: a pulse frequency adjustment circuit that receives a command pulse having a first frequency from an external controller that outputs the command pulse in accordance with an interrupt process performed periodically by the externa... | 11/03/2009 |
| 7586284 | Synchronization control system A synchronization control system includes plural controlling object apparatuses connected through first and second wired OR lines. Each controlling object apparatus includes a function of switching an output to the first wired OR line from a first state to a second ... | 09/08/2009 |
| 7570007 | Method of controlling stepping motor, apparatus for controlling stepping motor, and printer A method of controlling a stepping motor including a stator having a driving coil wound therearound, and a rotor, the method comprising: performing a driving control of driving the rotor at a predetermined step angle and a stop control of stopping the rotor at a pre... | 08/04/2009 |
| 7560892 | Method of controlling stepping motor, apparatus for controlling stepping motor, and printer A method of controlling a stepping motor, comprising: performing a driving control of driving a rotor at a predetermined step angle; and performing a stop control of giving a driving circuit of the stepping motor a stop instruction for stopping the rotor at a positi... | 07/14/2009 |
| 7560893 | Dual mode stepper motor A method and structure receives a desired rotational speed and/or step frequency for an electric motor. If the desired rotational speed is above a predetermined limit, the method performs closed-loop mode control of coil current of the electric motor by varying the ... | 07/14/2009 |
| 7495409 | Method and apparatus for eliminating stall and cogging in multi-phase stepping motors The lead or lag relationship between the stator and rotor of a stepper motor is monitored on a continuing basis by an incremental encoder, in feed-back relation, and adjusts the lead or lag to within optimum range values to thereby prevent motor stalls and motor cog... | 02/24/2009 |