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 |
| 7322458 | Orienting and feeding apparatus for manufacturing line Apparatus for orienting and feeding blow molded preforms which are elongated generally cylindrical plastic objects, one end of which is a threaded neck portion for the ultimate blow molded container, and the other end of which extends from the opposed end of the cyl... | 01/29/2008 |
| 7284667 | Apparatus for separating laundry articles There is provided an apparatus and methods for separating an article of laundry from a bundle of articles. The bundle is located in a truck which is clamped into a carriage by means of clamping arm or attached to guide rails. The truck is moved by suitable drive mea... | 10/23/2007 |
| 7111754 | Coin roll dispenser and system incorporating same An apparatus for use in dispensing coin rolls is disclosed. The apparatus includes a receptacle, to hold the coin rolls in a vertically stacked array, a dispensed, to dispense the coin rolls from a bottom of the receptacle, and a controller, to control the dispensin... | 09/26/2006 |
| 7086520 | Device for conveying and arranging cylindrical elements, such as bottles, in a row A device for transporting and arranging cylindrical elements in a row has a first conveying belt, operated by first motor means to pull a plurality of cylindrical elements in a feeding direction. A second conveying belt is situated in cascade with respect to the fir... | 08/08/2006 |
| 7055672 | Baggage positioner for baggage conveyor A baggage positioner having a horizontal conveyor, a position sensor, a pair of positioning arms with bi-directional vertical belts and a positioning arm controller. Other sensors can be added to provide additional data for enhanced effectiveness. The vertical belts... | 06/06/2006 |
| 7004353 | Counting and feeding device for small article A counting and feeding apparatus for small article, characterized in that tablets are fed intermittently from a feeding means (2) to the outer peripheral surface of a transfer drum (1) multiple pieces at a time and suckingly held on the outer periphera... | 02/28/2006 |
| 6997326 | Apparatus for separating laundry articles There is provided an apparatus and methods for separating an article of laundry from a bundle of articles. The bundle is located in a truck which is clamped into a carriage by means of clamping arm or attached to guide rails. The truck is moved by suitable drive mea... | 02/14/2006 |
| 6961456 | Method and apparatus for reading and decoding information A method and apparatus is disclosed for reading and decoding information extracted from a form. In the system of the present invention, packages are randomly placed on a conveyor belt, with their labels facing a two-camera subassembly. As the conveyor belt moves, th... | 11/01/2005 |
| 6928915 | Slicing machine with plug prevention device A plug prevention device is provided in a slicing machine having a rotary impeller for carrying products such as potatoes or the like into engagement with cutting knives to form lattice cut slices, wherein the plug prevention device prevents the products from lodgin... | 08/16/2005 |
| 6832681 | Tobacco leaf elevator The invention provides an elevator for separating and distributing a plurality of whole freshly harvested tobacco leaves including clumps of agglomerated tobacco leaves. The elevator has an inclined frame longitudinally extending between a lower end and an upper end... | 12/21/2004 |
| 6811017 | Egg transfer apparatus with converging-diverging guides that facilitate even distribution of eggs on a moving conveyor An egg transfer apparatus is configured to distribute eggs substantially evenly with reduced breakage on a moving conveyor. The egg transfer apparatus includes a conveyor having opposite first and second ends, a pair of elongated members that extend along the direct... | 11/02/2004 |
| 6736255 | Conveyor system for feeding small parts to a chain assembly unit It is the intention to improve a conveyor system for supplying small parts to a chain assembling unit, the system comprising a track system transporting the small parts, and a feed device loading the track system with the small parts. To this end the track system co... | 05/18/2004 |
| 6575305 | Arrangement for identifying and removing associated preforms from a continuous transfer line An apparatus transfers performs traveling along an inclined path from an upper loading station to a lower unloading station. The apparatus includes a device that includes plural rotary forks which rotate so as to engage and remove from the inclined path p... | 06/10/2003 |
| 6513644 | Apparatus and method for aligning parts A subject part-aligning apparatus has a simple structure and causes less damage to chip parts, and operates well even if a chip discharge passage thereof is clogged or overflows with the chip parts. The apparatus has a part-holding chamber for accommodati... | 02/04/2003 |
| 6287066 | Device for separating items of laundry According to the invention, the items of laundry (11) are grasped successively by a gripper (23), are lifted up and taken over by a transfer means (24) which transports the respective item of laundry (11) through a gap (29). The gap (29) of the transfer m... | 09/11/2001 |
| 6089810 | Method and device for separating items of laundry Items of laundry (11) released from a washing machine as a pile of laundry (10) have to be separated before they can be processed further. The aim is to automate this separating procedure. Known methods for automating the separating of items of laundry (1... | 07/18/2000 |
| 5934442 | Process for separating wires of a wire bundle In a process for separating wires of a wire bundle the latter is delivered onto feed plane (3) which is sloped in feed direction (3) so that it or the wires move under the action of gravity onto guide element (6) with a control gap. The control gap has a ... | 08/10/1999 |
| 5871080 | Product aligning system A product aligning system specially adapted for receiving and aligning product items in bulk quantity, includes a hopper for receiving masses of product items in bulk and including a hopper conveyor extending across the bottom of the hopper, a hopper nose... | 02/16/1999 |
| 5769204 | Singulator conveyor system having package-return conveyors A singulator conveyor receives randomly oriented articles and positions those articles in single file. The conveyor includes skewed rollers for driving articles longitudinally and laterally against a side wall. The width of the singulator conveyor becomes... | 06/23/1998 |
| 5507380 | Stacked package separating system By providing a package processing system with pulsed or intermittently applied package retardation or separation forces, a highly effective package handling system is attained which is able to process all packages without tearing, ripping, or damaging any... | 04/16/1996 |
| 5497871 | Tire singulation system Singulation apparatus (10) for transforming a plurality of randomly oriented tires (T) in an inlet hopper to a linear alignment of tires reposing on their sidewalls including, a singulator assembly (20) having a plurality of stepped conveyor stages (21-24... | 03/12/1996 |
| 5377812 | Apparatus for orientating and feeding rod-like objects An entrance opening, i.e., the upper end of an orientation passage, is open in the bottom of a hopper, and the upper portion of the orientation passage is tapered. A pair of entrance agitator rollers are located on the opposite sides of the entrance openi... | 01/03/1995 |
| 5372238 | Method and apparatus for singularizing objects A method and apparatus for transforming a stream of non-singularized objects (e.g., packages) into a stream of singularized objects. A rotating conveyor receives non-singularized objects from an input conveyor and transmits singularized objects to an outp... | 12/13/1994 |
| 5363972 | Conveyor apparatus with powered leveling roll A sorting conveyor is shown and described for moving composite material through the output gate of a bin and then past a sorting station to remove unwanted elements of the composite material. At the interior side of the output gate rests a powered levelin... | 11/15/1994 |
| 5355988 | Coin supply device for coin-operated gaming machine A coin supply device includes a conveyor belt and a separating roller disposed above the conveyor belt. Upper coins of two or more overlapping coins are pushed back and separated by the separating roller rotating in a direction opposite to that of the con... | 10/18/1994 |
| 5337882 | Transport system for mutually independent caddies A transport system for mutually independent caddies carrying bobbins or bobbin tubes and having base plates, includes one transport path and another transport path entering the one transport path at a converging point. Moving surfaces, in particular surfa... | 08/16/1994 |
| 5129504 | Single file conveyor system A conveyor is provided for producing a single file from a mass of articles comprising a conveyor surface, an article engager for engaging articles in the mass and transporting a single file of them off of the conveyor surface, and a guide rail mounted alo... | 07/14/1992 |
| 5129505 | Paper metering device A paper metering device is disclosed which is adapted for handling a flow of bulky and unmanageable paper such as newspapers or computer printouts and metering the paper into a manageable flow for delivery to further processing. The flow of paper is carri... | 07/14/1992 |
| 4928808 | Machine for unscrambling and positioning containers An unscrambler for unscrambling and orientating containers such as plastic bottles includes a hopper (1), having straight or slightly curved walls, a plurality of travelling carriages (20) having holding elements (5) with openings (6) for receiving indivi... | 05/29/1990 |
| 4852714 | Accumulator table An overflow or accumulator table for use with items to be processed to receive on its operating surface, and discharge therefrom, a plurality of containers or other items. The accumulator table is suitable for use with items being moved along a conveyor l... | 08/01/1989 |
| 4766991 | Device for feeding rod-like articles, particularly filter plugs for filter-tipped cigarettes A feeding device for withdrawing from a feeding hopper (1) rod-like articles, particularly filter plugs in the manufacture of filter-tipped cigarettes, and for singling these articles. The device comprises a rotary fluted drum (2) forming at least part of... | 08/30/1988 |
| 4550820 | Apparatus for orienting and stacking hollow, frusto-conical containers Apparatus for orienting and stacking hollow, frusto-conical containers or other articles has a downwardly inclined ramp for receiving the articles in random orientations. A deflector wall spaced by a gap from the bottom end of the ramp serves to deflect t... | 11/05/1985 |
| 4436226 | Material metering device A metering device for particulate material in which backups and caking of material is inhibited by the provision of a "live" metering gate consisting of an upper blocking section and a lower material contacting surface. The lower surface is continually mo... | 03/13/1984 |
| 4379504 | Article feeding device The feeding device comprises a horizontal circular singling disc, which rotates continuously or intermittently and has a peripheral crown of recesses acting as article receiving pockets. The surface of the singling disc is subdivided into a first, larger ... | 04/12/1983 |
| 4271953 | Automatic feeding hopper employing an anti-jamming mechanism An automatic feeding hopper employs a reservoir for storing disk-like objects in a plurality of substantially horizontal rows in a substantially vertical plane. A conveyor adjoins the reservoir for engagement with a substantial portion of the lowermost ro... | 06/09/1981 |
| 4185732 | Arrangements for and methods of improving ampul handling capacity in ampul processing machines Ampuls are processed through a plurality of workstations successively arranged along a path in an ampul processing machine. At one station, an anti-jammer device is operative for preventing ampuls being guided through a continuously converging infeed chut... | 01/29/1980 |
| 4119024 | Refuse crusher A conveyor carries cans or other refuse from a source of cans to a jaw crusher. The conveyor is adapted to drop cans generally one at a time into a bin, and the bin has an opening to release each can when the jaws open to receive it. In the open position,... | 10/10/1978 |
| 4063633 | Vacuum plug feed machine An apparatus for the high speed transportation of cigarette filter rods from a magazine containing the rods to a transfer drum. The apparatus has a magazine, a downwardly extended chute connected to the magazine adapted to receive filter rods singularly, ... | 12/20/1977 |
| 4054201 | Luggage sortation device A luggage merging device comprising a luggage carrying conveyor belt, two luggage guiding conveyor belts disposed generally perpendicularly to the luggage carrying conveyor belt and defining a converging path for the luggage, and a buck roller. One of the... | 10/18/1977 |
| 4014460 | Spike orienting and positioning system In a spike orienting and positioning system, kegs of spikes are discharged onto a spike receiving surface. The spikes on the spike receiving surface are engaged by fingers which are first extended from and then retracted into a rotating drum whereby indiv... | 03/29/1977 |
