Helix Technology Corporation

International Shoe Machine Corporation

Brooks Automation Gmbh

Gulf & Western Manufacturing Company

A. S. Laboratories, Inc.

Martin L Stein

Peter W Gaudet

Alan L Weeks

Robert J Lepofsky

Gerald J Fortier

Steven C Rosner

Sol Aisenberg

Michael J Eacobacci

Stephen R Matté

William T Sand

Robert E Khederian

David Edward Roche

Stephen R Matte

Stephen J Yamartino

Gregory A Williams

Robert D Welch

Stephen R Matt&eacute;

Stephen R Matte'

A vacuum system comprises, as an integral assembly, a vacuum pump with drive motor, a purge valve, a roughing valve and an electronic control module. A cryogenic vacuum pump and a turbomolecular vacuum pump are disclosed. The control module has a programmed processor for controlling the motor and valves and is user programmable for establishing specific control sequences. The integral electronic control module is removable from the assembly and is connected to the other devices through a common connector assembly. In the turbomolecular pump system proper introduction of a purge gas through the purge valve is detected by detecting the current load on the pump drive or by detecting foreline pressure. To test the purge gas status, the purge valve may be closed and then opened as drive current or pressure is monitored. After power failure, the controller will continue normal drive of the turbomolecular pump so long as the speed of the pump has remained above a threshold value. Otherwise the vent valve will have been opened, and a start-up sequence must be initiated. During shutdown, power to the pump drive motor is discontinued and the vent valve is opened before the roughing valve is closed.

Electronically controlled vacuum pump

Electronically controlled vacuum pump with control module

An apparatus and method for monitoring the torque load condition of a cryopump motor includes a power transducer for monitoring the electrical power input to the cryopump motor. A preferred embodiment of the power transducer includes a Hall-effect multiplier which measures the instantaneous and average electrical power input to the cryopump motor to determine torque load. Another preferred embodiment includes a power transducer which measures the Power Factor of the electrical power input to the cryopump motor to determine torque load. The Power Factor transducer includes a phase detector which detects the phase difference between the input voltage and the input current applied to the cryopump motor.

Cryopump synchronous motor load monitor

A method for regulating the cooldown of multiple cryogenic refrigerators supplied with compressed refrigerant from a common compressor includes the following steps. The cooldown of the refrigerators is monitored. The cooldown of at least one refrigerator is then governed to regulate the gas flow distributed from the compressor to each of the refrigerators to enhance the cooldown of an individual refrigerator. Governing a refrigerator to achieve the objectives of this method can be achieved by various processes. These processes include supplying heat to the refrigerator, slowing the speed of the displacer in the refrigerator, halting the motion of the displacer, and profiling the speed of the displacer as a function of the first and second-stage temperatures. A system for performing the above-described method includes a compressor; a plurality of refrigerators, each receiving compressed gas from the compressor; and a network terminal programmed to govern the cooldown of at least one refrigerator to accelerate the cooldown of another refrigerator.

Enhanced cooldown of multiple cryogenic refrigerators supplied by a

A method for detecting the absence of a pressure differential across a cryogenic refrigerator includes the following steps. At least one measurement of load in the refrigerator is taken during both a warmstroke and a coldstroke of a refrigeration cycle. These measurements are then compared to determine whether the differential load across the cryogenic refrigerator has been lost. A system for performing this method includes a compressor that circulates compressed gas through a compressed gas line routed through a cryogenic refrigerator. Within the refrigerator, a displacer is driven through a refrigeration cycle by a motor. A means for measuring the load on the motor is provided, and an electronic module monitors the load measurements to detect a loss of differential pressure across the refrigerator by comparing the load on the motor during the warmstroke to the load on the motor during the coldstroke.

Method and apparatus for detecting a loss of differential pressure in a

A vacuum system comprises, as an integral assembly, a turbomolecular pump with drive motor, a vent valve, a purge valve, a roughing valve, a heater and an electronic control module. The control module has a programmed processor for controlling the motor and valves and is user programmable for establishing specific control sequences. The integral electronic control module is removable from the assembly and is connected to the other devices through a common connector assembly. Proper introduction of a purge gas through the purge valve is detected by detecting the current load on the pump drive or by detecting foreline pressure. To test the purge gas status, the purge valve may be closed and then opened as drive current or pressure is monitored. After power failure, the controller will continue normal drive of the turbomolecular pump so long as the speed of the pump has remained above a threshold value. Otherwise the vent valve will have been opened, and a start-up sequence must be initiated. During shutdown, power to the pump drive motor is discontinued and the vent valve is opened before the roughing valve is closed.

Turbomolecular pump with valves and integrated electronic controls

In an integrated system to achieve a number of operations on a footwear upper assembly, an automatic rougher that includes a roughing tool adapted to remove material--and hence rough--the cement margin (or bonding surface) of the footwear upper assembly to provide a cementing surface onto which an outer sole is later applied. The cement margin (or bonding surface), as is known in this art, typically follows a closed-loop path that rapidly changes in all directions of an X-Y-Z coordinate system and the roughing tool must be continuously re-oriented to the many direction changes of the cement margin in order to track the margin. According to the present teaching the upper assembly, and hence the cement margin thereof, is ordinarily moved in rotational movement, rocking movement, transverse translational movement, and, also, vertical translational movement (i.e., movement toward and away from the roughing tool) during the course of roughing. According to the present teaching, real-time data is assembled which may be used to achieve a later operation: e.g., the path of the cement margin is digitized and that digitized information is used to guide a cementer to apply adhesive unto the cement margin to adhere an outer sole to the upper assembly.

Roughing machine for footware upper assemblies and a system that

Apparatus (and method) for automatically roughing the cement margin of a shoe or other footwear assembly, which footwear upper assembly includes an upper mounted on a last and an inner sole disposed upon the bottom of the last and connected to the upper. The apparatus (i.e., a roughing machine) typically includes a disc-shaped wire wheel (or other roughing tool) positioned with the plane of the brush approximately perpendicular to the cement margin at the region of contact between the two. The roughing machine includes a mechanism to receive the upper assembly and provide some combination of movements between the upper assembly and the periphery of the wire wheel to achieve a constant region (or area) of contact between the two as the cement margin moves with respect to the wire wheel in the course of roughing. The wire wheel is supported at one end of an intermediately pivoted action arm; a load measuring beam is connected to the other end of the action arm to provide electrical signals proportional to or representative of the pressure force between the wire wheel and the cement margin at the region of contact. A servo-valve actuated air cylinder drives the action arm to load the wire wheel upon the cement margin, the amount of loading being closely controllable (e.g., about one-half.+-.psi) in response to the electrical signals which are connected as input to the servo-valve as control signals.

Machine for automatically roughing the cement margin of a footwear upper

Vitreous optical fibers are useful in an expanding number of technologies. A process, corresponding apparatus, and a hermetically sealed fiber of the above nature are disclosed wherein high energy ionized plasmas are used in a continuous production of a coated vitreous optical fiber. Drawn fibers are axially aligned by ambient gases discharging through high vacuum gas locks. These fibers are then continuously fed through a high energy plasma zone so that the surface of the drawn fiber is subjected to ionized bombardment. This provides plasma-milling of the fiber surface for improving the fiber strength and for superior bonding of subsequently applied coatings. In preferred practice, a vacuum zone is used to deposit, from a plasma ion source, a diamond-like elemental carbon film onto the moving fiber. Another plasma vacuum zone may be used to deposit, over the carbon film, a very thin film of a conductive elemental metal illustratively; tin, indium and aluminum. To increase the thickness of the previously deposited metallized coating or film, the moving, pre-coated fiber is immersed in and passed through a more condensed molecular form of the metal used in the previous coating process. A molten liquid and/or vapor phase of the metal may be used in this latter process, although the former is preferred.

Apparatus for coating optical fibers

Vitreous optical fibers provided with hermetically sealed coatings applied by method and apparatus comprising; drawing a fiber directly from a fiber extruder into and through an elongated chamber having inert gas air locks at its opposite ends. Between the air locks, the optical fiber passes successively through a series of evacuated chamber sections comprising: first, a plasma-ion milling zone wherein fiber surface contaminants are removed and microscopic surface defects are diminished; second, a carbon film depositing zone wherein elemental carbon, propelled in plasma-ion form, coats the surface of fiber with a diamond-like elemental carbon film of submicron thickness; third, an elemental metal film depositing zone wherein a selected metal such as indium, tin, aluminum or gold is plasma deposited onto the fiber to form a coating of less than micron thickness; and finally a second metal depositing zone wherein a coating, in the order of microns in thickness, of such a selective metal is applied by immersing and passing the fiber through a more condensed molecular form of the metal.

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Bedford, MA, United States of America

Martin L Stein