Did You Know...
...that power steering was invented by independent inventor Francis W. Davis? As chief engineer in the 1920s of the truck division of the Pierce Arrow Motor Car Company, he saw how hard it was to steer heavy vehicles. So that he would be able to keep the profits from his future invention, Davis left his job, rented a small engineering shop in Waltham, Mass., and developed a hydraulic power steering system that led to power steering.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7819256 | Heavy material separator The present invention refers to a separator for separating heavy material components, particularly stones, ceramic material and glass, from a flow of solid material comprising heavy and light material components, comprising a first conveying means for conveying the ... | 10/26/2010 |
| 7743927 | Adjustable slide width reducer for gravity slide sorter An apparatus, and method of use, for reducing the operable width of the inclined slide of a gravity fed sorting machine includes an upper section for reducing the flow rate into the slide and for directing the reduced flow to the operable portion of the slide and a ... | 06/29/2010 |
| 7658292 | Apparatus for textile counting, sorting and classifying system An apparatus is provided for transporting textile items into sorting bins with reduced energy consumption and improved load measuring accuracy and which provides textile item counting and sorting for a commercial laundry using vacuum air systems to move textiles int... | 02/09/2010 |
| 7407047 | Disk-shaped object sorter Disk-shaped object thickness-restricting means is provided in a disk-shaped object guiding path for transferring a disk-shaped object, inserted through a disk-shaped object slot, in an inclined direction. The disk-shaped object thickness-restricting means comes into... | 08/05/2008 |
| 7249671 | Roller-belt conveyor for accumulating and moving articles laterally across the conveyor A conveyor using a roller belt with rollers arranged to rotate on oblique axes to urge articles toward a side guide. The conveyor includes an oblique-roller belt supported on a carryway for running in a direction of belt travel. Rollers extend above an outer conveyi... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7249669 | Apparatus and methods for high speed conveyor switching Disclosed are conveyors and methods for making and using a conveyor. In some embodiments, the conveyor comprises a modular conveyor belt that includes at least one mat-top chain having at least one cavity and at least one first roller disposed in the cavity of the m... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7225990 | Card stripper for removing cards from card carriers An automated system for preparing cards for further processing includes an envelope feed hopper configured to receive a plurality of envelopes, each having contents including a card carrier and one or more cards attached thereto. The systems also includes an envelop... | 06/05/2007 |
| 7210681 | Paper discharge unit and printing apparatus employing the paper discharge unit A printer having a plurality of printing engines that eject papers to a common chute box is provided, wherein papers are discharged in an aligned state, even in the case that papers of different sizes are ejected. Papers of different sizes are inserted through slots... | 05/01/2007 |
| 7191894 | Variable angled-roller belt and conveyor A conveyor constructed of a single belt or a plurality of abutting belts arranged side by side in the conveyor, in which the belt or belts have rollers arranged to rotate on axes oriented at multiple angles oblique to the direction of belt travel. A gradual or monot... | 03/20/2007 |
| 7175068 | Method and apparatus for containing mail articles deposited in a mail drop box A mail box configured to contain and reduce exposure to hazardous particulates, which includes a container having a deposit port at an upper end and a collection chamber at a lower end. There is at least one door at the upper end for mail to be placed into the depos... | 02/13/2007 |
| 7128217 | Bun laner A bun laner sorts buns into a predetermined number of lanes, for providing buns to a packaging unit. The bun laner detects when some lanes are filling faster than other and closes those lanes while the other lanes fill. A vacuum may be used to hold buns in a filled ... | 10/31/2006 |
| 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 |
| 7029002 | Drop pocket system for reorienting flat articles A drop pocket system and method reorients flat articles in a serial stream, by horizontally receiving a horizontally moving, serial input stream of substantially vertically oriented flat articles, sensing reception of each flat article, engaging each sensed flat art... | 04/18/2006 |
| 7007792 | Angled-roller article-rotating belt conveyor A conveyor system including a pair of roller-top belts arranged side by side, each individually controllable to cause articles conveyed atop both to rotate into preferred orientations. The roller-top belts include rollers that rotate about axes oblique to the direct... | 03/07/2006 |
| 6964330 | Elevated grade station drive system An elevated grade station drive system includes a plurality of conveyor sections for conveying workpieces downstream at a variable transfer speed along and between the plurality of sections according to control instructions provided by a control system. The output f... | 11/15/2005 |
| 6915909 | Device for receiving multi-format envelopes This invention relates to a device for receiving envelopes, or stacker, for a mail handling machine, comprising a conveyor belt arranged at the exit of the mail handling machine, for receiving these envelopes and conveying them perpendicularly to a direction of adva... | 07/12/2005 |
| 6660953 | Multi-fire and variable fire diverter conveyor system and method A conveyor system (10) for transporting items in a first direction and diverting the items to the appropriate ones of a plurality of stations (50, 52) spaced from one another in the first direction. The system includes at least one diverter region (DR) an... | 12/09/2003 |
| 6555776 | Single feed one pass mixed mail sequencer A letters/flats transporting, handling, and sorting system is disclosed for handling an initially random mixed input of letters and flats and for sorting the letters and flats into a delivery address sequence for delivery by postal service personnel as a ... | 04/29/2003 |
| 6536599 | Method and system for portioning and orientating whole fish or other elongate, non-symetrical articles A method and system for packaging batches of elongate, non-symmetrical products that are soft and/or flexible in nature, such as fish, in which the products are arranged in mutually reversed orientations for maximized utilization of package space. The pro... | 03/25/2003 |
| 6523697 | Mail processing machine drop box and method A mail processing system drop box assembly. The drop box assembly includes a diverter and a sliding board. The sliding board is positioned below the diverter. A top edge of the sliding board is substantially parallel to the bottom edge of the diverter and... | 02/25/2003 |
| 6484886 | Feeder reader subsystem In one embodiment, an article sorting system includes successive coarse and fine singulators and a recirculating loop for processing a disordered stream of items including three-dimensional non-flat articles. A coarse singulator includes cascaded ramped c... | 11/26/2002 |
| 6401936 | Divert apparatus for conveyor system In one embodiment, an article sorting system includes successive coarse and fine singulators and a recirculating loop for processing a disordered stream of items including three-dimensional non-flat articles. A coarse singulator includes cascaded ramped c... | 06/11/2002 |
| 6076683 | Sorter mechanism Coded articles are conveyed through an orienting section which tends to arrange the articles in single-file, spaced apart relationship. The articles are then conveyed through a reader/sensor mechanism where the codes are read and the spatial relationship ... | 06/20/2000 |
| 6045323 | Device for eliminating defective flat objects and for forming stacks of flawless flat objects A device for eliminating defective flat objects, which are being conveyed individually and at a distance from each other, preferably tubular segments or sack workpieces during the production of sacks, and for forming stacks of flawless objects, said devic... | 04/04/2000 |
| 6044796 | Apparatus for separating seeds from husks Apparatus for separating seed from husks which consists of one or more separating units. Each separating unit includes a series of impact plates fixed at angles with respect to each other and to the vertical axis. In use, the seed and husks fall freely un... | 04/04/2000 |
| 6023034 | Inter-article gap adjustor for controlled delivery to a sorting device using a plurality of gap sensors A paper sorting apparatus includes first to fourth gap measuring units to measure gaps between sheets of paper. Using the gaps between the sheets varying between the respective gap measuring units, target gap correction values are stored for respective so... | 02/08/2000 |
| 5981892 | Food handling conveyor apparatus having sound detection means A food handling conveyor apparatus includes a sound detection system for detecting the presence of a foreign object, such as a stone, among food product being conveyed. The apparatus includes a generally elongated vibratory conveyor bed along which food p... | 11/09/1999 |
| 5896999 | Sorting system The Invention relates to an apparatus and a method for sorting objects into destination containers arranged along one or both sides of a continuous conveyer belt apparatus wherein appropriate portions of the belt can be raised and lowered at times and loc... | 04/27/1999 |
| 5810174 | Sorter system having a plurality of sorters connected to one another The present invention provides a sorter system wherein sorters that can perform sorting operations such as destination and delivery sorting operations and sequencing operations such as a carrier route sequencing operation for sheets with sorting informati... | 09/22/1998 |
| 5779026 | Apparatus for sorting articles An apparatus for sorting articles on a conveyor system that includes a pair of parallel conveyors each having an endless conveyor member or belt. The belt of a first of the conveyors is tilted laterally to the horizontal, and the belt of the second convey... | 07/14/1998 |
| 5649629 | Two tier offset gate The present invention provides for a two tier gate device that is adapted to be removably secured to an existing mail sorting machine. The two tier gate device of the present invention includes a first gate and a second gate. The first gate is secured to ... | 07/22/1997 |
| 5542547 | Document sorting section having a plurality of primary sorting paths A document sorting section for sorting flat documents wherein a plurality of primary document conveying paths are interposed between rows of opposing document stacking elements and document diverters are positioned in the primary paths. Each of the primar... | 08/06/1996 |
| 5513782 | Device for removing merely partially turned stockings on a stocking turning machine A device for a stocking turning machine for automatically separating only partially turned stockings from completely turned stockings. Each stocking which leaves the automatic stocking turning machine is conducted by a chute into a pneumatically operating ejec... | 05/07/1996 |
| 5421463 | Card convey device A card convey device includes a first convey path, a second convey path, a third convey path, jam detector, convey controller, and card sorter. The first convey path conveys a loaded card. The second convey path is branched from the first convey path and ... | 06/06/1995 |
| 5335790 | Method and device for separating pieces of wood A method and apparatus for separating pieces of wood into different qualities in a wood sorting process is characterized in that the brightness as well as the texture of the surface of the wood are measured, and the pieces of wood are separated into diffe... | 08/09/1994 |
| 5156802 | Inspection of fuel particles with acoustics An apparatus and method are disclosed for determining the integrity of coated fuel particles via acoustic characterization. Particle supply means (4) drops the nuclear fuel particles (2) individually onto the face (6) of a transducer (8). The generated si... | 10/20/1992 |
| 5145050 | Reversed can end ejection system A reversed can end ejector system for detecting and ejecting a can end in reverse orientation with respect to a moving stack of otherwise similarly aligned and nested can ends is disclosed. The system utilizes a reversed end extractor bar having a hook fo... | 09/08/1992 |
| 5092470 | Method and apparatus for grading objects in accordance to size In a method and apparatus for grading objects according to their size, the objects are advanced along a broad, flat and divided conveyer path. Image data relating to the size of respective objects is obtained with the aid of a camera scanning against a li... | 03/03/1992 |
| 5009550 | Article handling device with low profile side guides An air conveyor system is provided for transporting a stream of articles en masse along a channel from a generally upstream position in a generally downstream direction towards a generally downstream position. A conveyor surface has opposing edges with th... | 04/23/1991 |
| 4921106 | Selection device for sweet confections A selection device for candy, in which confections are dispensed loose onto a first table turning at relatively low speed and spiralled around a fixed guide before being scattered onto a second, annular table that is concentric and coplanar with the first... | 05/01/1990 |
