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Keuffel & Esser Company

Mitch Marcovici

A mechanical rectifier efficiently rectifies or converts alternative clockwise and counterclockwise rotation of a main handle or other active driving element into unidirectional rotation of a main shaft. This mechanical rectifier is useful in manual tools such as a 'no-waste screwdriver', which eliminates the wasted hand motion inherent in all ordinary hand tools, and in energy-saving devices such as a wave-powered electrical generator. The basic mechanical rectifier includes a shaft, two driving elements, and a reversing mechanism coupling the two driving elements so that they can only rotate in opposite directions. Each of the two driving elements has a separate one-way roller clutch pressed in its bore in proper orientation and riding on the shaft so that, whichever direction a driving element is rotated, it always turns the shaft in the same direction. Therefore, a tool bit at one end of the shaft always serves to tighten a fastener, while a tool bit at the opposite end only serves to loosen a fastener. To switch from tightening a fastener to loosening it (or vice versa), the main handle is pulled out of engagement with a hub of one driving element and inserted for engagement with a hub of the opposite driving element.

Efficient mechanical rectifier

A linear actuator mechanism which comprises skewed roller members arranged about a drive shaft and translates rotation of the drive shaft to linear displacement along the shaft includes a pair of body members having a ball joint between them which serves as a pivot about which adjustable spring compression constrains each of the three normal degrees of freedom in the body member pair to provide a kinematic union which eliminates indiscriminate displacement between the actuator mechanism and the drive shaft.

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Murray Hill, NJ, United States of America

Mitch Marcovici