Did You Know...
...that the Eveready Battery began as an invention called the "electric flowerpot," which was a tube with a battery and light bulb inside? The idea was to fasten this gizmo to the side of a flowerpot so it would illuminate the flowers from the bottom. The idea died on the vine and the businessman who licensed the flower pot, Conrad Huber, was left with a pile of useless tubes -- until he found a way to market them as batteries to light the world!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7252259 | Independently drawing and tensioning lines with bi-directional rotary device having two spools A method of drawing lines into a housing includes: rotating a dial in a first rotational direction of the dial such that a first spool located in an interior of the housing is mechanically rotated in a first rotational direction thereby winding a first line thereabo... | 08/07/2007 |
| 7219579 | Apparatus and method for actuating control surfaces An apparatus for actuating a control surface includes a first spur gear, a first drive assembly engaged with the first spur gear, a second spur gear, a second drive assembly engaged with the second spur gear, and a gear assembly capable of being coupled with the con... | 05/22/2007 |
| 7159482 | Electric actuator An electric actuator comprises a gear mechanism which transmits the rotary driving force of a rotary driving source, and a ball spline mechanism which includes a ball spline shaft provided movably back and forth from a connecting block to the outside and which conve... | 01/09/2007 |
| 7143845 | Drilling apparatus with anti-vibration inertial body A blast-hole drilling rig includes a carriage, a mast disposed on the carriage, and a rotary head mounted on the mast for up-and-down movement. The rotary head includes: a housing forming an internal chamber, a hydraulically driven motor, and a rotation transmission... | 12/05/2006 |
| 6446660 | Valve assembly with multiple mode actuators A multiple mode valve assembly including valve actuators equipped with a combination of a shaft (4) and a spindle (5), coaxial and immobilized in an axial direction, but capable of rotating freely one with respect to the other, so that by means of the spi... | 09/10/2002 |
| 5310138 | Wing fold actuator system for aircraft An improved actuator system is provided for safe displacement of a folding wing section of an aircraft between a folded storage position and a deployed position for normal flight operations. The actuator system comprises an electrohydraulic actuator formi... | 05/10/1994 |
| 5245769 | Trencher for mounting on a tractor A trencher for mounting on a conventional three point hitch of a tractor. The trencher is driven from the power takeoff of the tractor and uses the hydraulic system of the tractor to operate a hydraulic cylinder for raising and lowering the boom and diggi... | 09/21/1993 |
| 5136332 | Overridable worm gear drive for multicolor image forming apparatus A multicolor image forming apparatus creates a series of different color toner images on a rotatable image member. The toner images are transferred in registration to a receiving sheet carried by a transfer drum. The transfer drum is driven by the image m... | 08/04/1992 |
| 5031477 | Multiple accessory drive gearbox with alternative inputs A gearbox to drive six accessory units from a vehicle prime mover or alternatively from an auxiliary engine. A continuously variable ratio unit in the drive line from the prime mover provides a constant speed at a first input to the power transmission gea... | 07/16/1991 |
| 4932290 | Power seat apparatus A power seat apparatus in a vehicle body includes a first shaft through which the rotational torque is transmitted to a first mechaism for moving a front portion of a seat-cushion vertically, a second shaft through which the rotational torque is transmitt... | 06/12/1990 |
| 4858490 | Two motor redundant drive mechanism Motors (42,44) each have a pinion driving ring gear (62). Motor (42) is mounted on the platform and motor (44) is mounted on ring gear carrier (56). Rotation of either motor rotates carrier (56), hubs (40) and shaft (30).... | 08/22/1989 |
| 4819507 | Device for simultaneously driving the screws of two parallel screw-and-nut systems The invention relates to a device for clamping the rolls (5 and 6) of a rolling mill. It comprises two screw-and-nut systems (1 and 2) controlled by two epicyclic planetary gear trains (7 and 8) coupled to each other and to a first motor (18) for controll... | 04/11/1989 |
| 4787270 | Robotic manipulator An improved robotic manipulator of the type having a plurality of serially-connected drive shafts and a mounting surface affixed to one end thereof. The manipulator includes a first shaft rotatable about a first axis coincident with one ordinate of a mutu... | 11/29/1988 |
| 4785362 | Driving force branching gear mechanism A driving force branching gear mechanism, which is useful for a tape recorder provided with a rotary head, etc., is disclosed, in which a driving gear consisting of two great diameter cam gears fixed to each other in one body and two small diameter cam ge... | 11/15/1988 |
| 4760989 | Valve operator A valve operator powered selectively either by an electric motor or by a manually operable handwheel, the driving connections from both the motor and the handwheel to the valve including one or more planetary gear sets each having a central pinion rotatab... | 08/02/1988 |
| 4658722 | Postal meter base drive system A postage meter has a print drum with print wheels which are shiftable to select the value of the postage. The positions of the print wheels are controlled by the positions of gears. The mechanism for selecting a postage value is controlled by the same dr... | 04/21/1987 |
| 4315439 | Drive apparatus for rotary unit The invention relates to a drive arrangement for a rotating unit designed to be driven by a main motor or an auxiliary motor. A shift clutch is provided for arresting an overriding clutch in both directions of rotation. In this way the torques emanating f... | 02/16/1982 |
| 4270410 | Gearbox with high speed flywheel A speed reducer gearbox includes input, intermediate and output shafts rotatably mounted therein and a flywheel mounted for independent rotation about the intermediate shaft. The flywheel includes a toothed gear portion in mesh with an additional gear on ... | 06/02/1981 |
| 4165657 | Multistage automatic transmission A multistage automatic countershaft transmission adapted for mutually independently shifting the first and second phases of the gears of a transmission to thereby effectuate a smooth gear change within a narrower range of speeds. The countershaft transmis... | 08/28/1979 |
| 4140195 | Power plant for prime mover-equipped bicycles A power plant for prime mover-equipped bicycles wherein a bicycle running and engine running can be changed over to each other. The running speed can be changed over to a low speed and high speed. The power transmitting system, including the speed changin... | 02/20/1979 |
