Nigrelli Systems, Inc.

Other

Brian L Thelen

Dennis L Ramaker

Michael A Balz

An electroluminescent identification device includes an enclosure which supports a variety of opaque alpha-numeric characters, a luminescent lamp which highlights the characters, and an electronic circuit which converts the alternating voltage typically used in doorbell electrical circuits to the higher alternating frequencies required to energize the lamp.

Electroluminescent identification device

A continuous web of material having holes and lines of perforations therein is unwound from a roll and fed onto a staging roller. From there it is pushed onto a carrier belt having pins thereon. The pins match with the holes in the web material, and the web is drawn past a fracturing station which separates sections of the web into sheets along the lines of perforations. The individual sheets then are carried by the belt around an accelerator roll which speeds up the sheets to match the speed of receiving objects with which the individual sheets are to be combined. A second staging roller is installed at the in-feed end of the apparatus and coordinated with the first staging roller, so as to provide continuous and uninterrupted feeding of the web and hence individual sheets to the receiving objects.

Sheet feeder

A heat/process control is disclosed which takes advantage of the characteristics of some plastics in that they absorb medium wavelength infra-red heat waves in a comparatively wide range of temperatures (and therefore wavelengths). The heaters used in this equipment are of quartz-tube construction which can be used through a wide temperature range. Tests have indicated that lamp wattage and machine processing speed were mathmatically related. For plastics of different formulation and/or thickness a series of parametric curves exist. Each curve is resident in the machine control and can be incorporated with a simple selector switch. For a given plastic a mathmatical equation relating speed and heater temperature is selected. If an increase in speed is required, the target speed and associated temperature is calculated and then loaded into the controller. Since the heaters cannon respond instantaneously, the heaters are fitted with temperature feedback devices which are used to vary the machine speed in accord with the heater actual temperatures. As the heater temperatures rise, the actual temperature of the heaters is input into an equation which calculates an appropriate increase in machine speed. This correlation of speed and temperature results in the most efficient use of energy because when operating, the machine never used more energy than required at a given operating level.

Heat/process control

A multi-part tray is provided to carry a plurality of objects in precise and accurate array through a process device. The tray parts are each fastened to a flexible plate and also to a conveyor. The conveyor is caused to travel a circuitous route around convex curves which thereupon splay the tray parts apart beneath a loading station and also beneath an unloading station where the objects are slidably moved onto or removed form the tray. A plurality of loading and unloading fingers slide in corresponding grooves in the bottoms of the tray-parts and beneath the objects.

Pocket plate

The process and apparatus of the present invention includes a conveyor for applying a continuous sheet of plastic to the tops of a plurality of beverage containers, the tops and chines of which are smaller than the outer diameters of the containers. A heating element applies heat through openings in a mask placed between the heater and the plastic and softens portions of the plastic in areas in alignment with the tops of the containers but smaller than the container tops. An unsoftened portion of the plastic surrounds the softened portion in alignment with the chines of the containers and a forming plate pushes the plastic sheet against the container tops so that the softened portion is above the tops, and the unsoftened portion snaps around and beneath the chines. A careful disposition of the openings in the masks and the heating elements insures that the plastic is not softened in the areas above the chines which must snap around and beneath the chines to hold the plastic in place after the forming plate is removed.

Growing community of inventors

Fond du Lac, WI, United States of America

Brian L Thelen