Other

Herbert S Lee

John Edward Campbell

Douglas A Harley

John E Juhasz

A light projecting rearview mirror apparatus comprises a telescopic mirror housing with fully pivoting light case on a bottom of the housing. Further, the housing rotates for added lighting directional control. The apparatus is fitted as replacement or original equipment and provides for safely lighting adjacent to an auto at night.

Light projecting rear view mirror apparatus

A new type of optoelectronic encoder conformed in one embodiment as a translucent cylinder having a reflective opaque coating on the lateral and end surfaces thereof, the cylindrical segment being further broken down into a set of lateral strips separated by a plurality of peripheral grooves. Portions of the reflective opaque coating are then removed, and the surface polished over selected areas of each strip to produce the desired light apertures. A first end of this cylinder has the opaque coating removed and is then polished to receive light. A second end is secured to a selected rotary shaft for measurement and selection of position of the latter, and is in effect an extension of the shaft. A bank of conventional phototransistors is then deployed over the cylinder, each respective phototransistor being exited by a light ray from the aperture associated therewith in the subjacent strip of the cylinder, thus indicating the position of the selected shaft. In a similar manner the other embodiment of the invention utilizes a plurality of optical fibers arranged in a longitudinal group in a cylindrical casting, each fiber being turned proximate one another to assume a radial position at a predetermined station of the cylindrical casting. Disposed in alignment with these cylinder stations are, once more, a plurality of conventional phototransistors, which when intermittently illuminated by rays of light from the fiber ends indicate specific shaft positions. In both embodiments the light source is provided by way of a light emitting diode or a laser beam shining directly into the polished end of the cylinder, the fibers in the second embodiment acting as wave guides to direct the light to the radially directed fiber ends.

Shaft position encoder

A selectively aligned optical switching device including two adjacent translucent discs having mask segments formed on the surfaces thereof, with the first disc including a sleeve extending from the central opening thereof which is received within the central opening of the second disc. A clamping nut threadably engages the sleeve to selectively align the masking segments of the discs relative to each other. This combination of discs is clamped in concentric alignment against a timing hub which in turn is indexed by a pin relative to a rotary shaft. The mask section of the discs is then received in an optical coupling device which provides operating signals in selected coordination with the rotation of the shaft.

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Los Alamitos, CA, United States of America

Herbert S Lee