Afe Industries, Inc.

Finishtech, Inc.

Norman Dryer Company, Inc.

James E Mitchell

Erhard E Alms

Randall R Coffman

Bruce W Johnson

An apparatus and a method controls a heating device in a laundry ironer. The apparatus includes a frame and an ironer cylinder. The ironer cylinder rotatably connects to the frame and has an interior surface and an exterior surface. The interior and exterior surfaces extend substantially from a first end to a second end of the ironer cylinder. A line of sight temperature sensor connects to the frame near the first end wherein a line of sight of the sensor is directed at a portion of the interior surface of the cylinder. As the ironer cylinder rotates and is heated by a heating element, the temperature of a portion of the interior surface is sensed. Based on the temperature and a threshold, the state of the heating element is changed.

Line of sight temperature control and method for laundry ironers

A dryer for extracting moisture from wet goods, such as linens, of the type having a tumbler cylinder, an open side of the cylinder through which goods are inserted and removed, and a shell in which the cylinder is housed. The dryer has an external support frame including a portion extending above the shell. The shell is hingedly supported at its top to the support frame and is pivotable about the hinge to permit goods to be removed from the cylinder directly beneath the shell. A door is included for closing the open side of the tumbler cylinder and has a lower door segment which is fixed to the support frame and an upper door segment which is attached to the shell for shifting across the face of the shell to open and close an upper portion thereof.

Dryer having top pivot for tumbler

An end gate cleanout apparatus which includes a plurality of slidable trays that can be connected end to end and moved into the bottom of a grain dryer or other apparatus and including driving means for removing or inserting such removable troughs so as to allow material to fall from the dryer.

End gate positive cleanout

An annunciator readout unit for continuously monitoring and indicating to an operator of a machine such as a grain dryer, the condition and stage of the grain drying process and further including warnings and unusual conditions including a grid structure surrounding a plurality of indicating lights with sealing material between the backing plate and the grid structure and further including composite layers of masks, opaque sheets, a thick clear plastic sheet and a top indicating sheet including a mask portion mating with the grid structure and including clear and colored panels overlying the various indicator lights with printed material formed thereon and wherein due to the structure of the composite sheets light from a particular light source does not fringe into adjacent chambers.

Annunciator readout unit

A grain dryer is disclosed in which a blower forces air past a burner and then through a duct into a bin made of oppositely curved columns of grain defining between them and an end wall a plenum chamber for drying the grain in the bin. The invention resides in the use of a plurality of spaced baffles of particular configuration designed to take a stream of air of non-uniform pressure and temperature over a cross section of the stream, and transforming said stream into a stream in the plenum chamber of substantially uniform pressure and temperature over any cross section thereof, said stream, if desired, having a predetermined temperature gradient lengthwise of the bin which compensates for a lengthwise dryness gradient in the grain in the bin.

Growing community of inventors

Algonquin, IL, United States of America

James E Mitchell