Other

Cosmo Tech Development, Inc.

Harvey S Fink

James A Jagodzinski

Thomas Mahany

Lawrence J Nolan

The invention pertains to a guard assembly for securement to a wheeled base. The guard assembly comprises a central support, a plurality of wheel guards positioned in an array around the central support, a plurality of struts, and a plurality of support struts. The struts are connected to and extend between a respective pair of the adjacent wheel guards in the array. Each of the support struts are connected to and extend between the central support and a respective one of the struts. The invention also envelops a method of retrofitting an existing wheeled base with the guard assembly.

Guard for wheeled base

Self-contained closed-loop cooling systems and related methods for rapidly cooling individual beverage containers of different sizes to a suitable target temperature, in the range of 35&deg; F. to 50&deg; F. Each system includes a chiller, a coolant circuit with a hyper-chilled supply reservoir, a refrigerant circuit for cooling the reservoir, and an electronic controller to operate the system upon operator command. The chiller is preferably formed like a barrel, with a cylindrical array of hollow chill elements arranged about a cylindrical area into which a beverage container, such as beverage bottle or can is placed. Then, very cold coolant from the coolant supply is pumped through the array of chill elements to rapidly cool the beverage container, which makes physical contact with the hyper-chilled elements, which are thus excellent heat absorbers. The chill elements are preferably separated from one another by keystone spacers, and are flexibly held in place with a plurality of coil springs. An ejection device may be provided to help remove the cooled container from the array. A housing structure is preferably provided to enclose the array of chill elements, and to support an operator interface panel. A system enclosure is provided therebelow to house the coolant supply reservoir and pump and the refrigerant circuit. The coolant in the reservoir is cooled by the refrigerant circuit, preferably down to 60&deg; F. to 100&deg; F. below the target temperature to which the container is to be cooled.

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Bloomfield Hills, MI, United States of America

Harvey S Fink