Multifeeder Technology, Inc.

Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc.

Cardio-Pace Medical, Inc.

Nonin Medical, Inc.

Neal F Nordling

Arild Vedoy

Mark F Nordling

Philip O Isaacson

David W Gadtke

Vernon D Heidner

A conveyor belt for transporting articles having a plurality of apertures therein such that a vacuum applied to the apertures aids in forcing articles to stay on the conveyor belt while the articles are being translated. The conveyor is particularly useful for moving sheet articles such as a sheet feeder removing sheet articles from the bottom of a stack of sheet articles in a sheet feeder. The vacuum adds to the frictional force of the article on the conveyor belt and increases the productivity of the sheet feeder by reducing jams and increasing the frictional contact of the sheet article on the conveyor belt by removing chaff and other material form the conveyor belt.

Vacuum-assist friction belt for sheet feeder

An automatic product loader adapted for loading flat sheet products into a hopper of a friction sheet feeder, upon demand, and includes a frame that adjustably supports a horizontal bed that can readily be elevated and lowered as well as be longitudinally shifted in a forward and rearward direction. The bed supports the upper flight of at least one endless belt. Also supported on the bed on either side of the endless belt run are vertically extending side guide plates. The forward edges of the side guide plates are slotted so as to receive the rear edges of the side guides defining the hopper of the friction sheet feeder so that there will be no edge or shoulder at the transition on which a sheet product might catch and become skewed. Photoeyes are used to control the automatic product loaders drive motor based upon the level of sheet products in the friction feeder's hopper.

Automatic product loader for use with sheet feeders

An electromechanical friction feed device for controlling the single feed of sheet-like articles from a stack of such articles has a feed belt and stripper wheel that are used to draw a single article from the bottom of the stack to the discharge section of the feeder. The stripper wheels slowly rotate in a direction opposite to the feed movement to hold the penultimate sheet and those above it in a stack while the lowermost product is translated by the feed belt through the machine. The reverse rotation of the stripper wheel is accomplished using a dual ratchet mechanism along with unidirectional needle bearing assemblies that provide a smooth, continuous rotation of the stripper wheels. The two ratchet mechanisms are driven 180.degree. out of phase with respect to one another to achieve the smooth continuous stripper wheel rotation. By using a dual ratchet mechanism instead of gears, the center distance between the feed belt drive shaft and the stripper wheel shaft can be adjusted to accommodate various product thicknesses. A discharge section of the friction feeder pulls the product from the feed belt and moves it at a higher velocity than that of the feed belt so as to provide separation between adjacent products being fed from the stack.

Sheet feeder

An electronic apparatus for sensing the percentage of different blood constituents in arterial blood. Light of a plurality of separate wave lengths is sequentially made to pass through a portion of the body, either by direct transmission or scattering so that the pulsatile blood flow modulates the intensity of the light. A signal processing circuit functioning in accordance with the Lambert-Beer Law is used to determine the percentage of different blood constituents from the fluctuations component of the logarithm of the light absorption. The sampling of the separate wave lengths is time-multiplexed through a common channel, thus obviating the need for a separate channel of similar electronics for each constituent to be monitored. The signal processing circuitry is also effective to compensate for noise due to ambient light or other stray sources, thus improving the overall accuracy.

Single channel pulse oximeter

An implantable programmable pulse generator provides electrical stimulation signals to the heart of a patient. The operating parameters of the pulse generator, such as stimulation rate, refractory period duration, and operating mode are programmable by a physician after the pulse generator has been implanted surgically in the patient. An external programmer device includes a transmitter of coded radio frequency (RF) signals. The pulse generator includes a receiver antenna for receiving the coded RF signals. The receiver antenna includes a first wire-wound, air core, planar coil antenna carried on a flexible insulating substrate adjacent an inner wall of a first major side surface of the pulse generator housing and a second wire-wound, air core, planar coil antenna carried on the flexible insulating substrate adjacent an inner wall of a second major side surface of the pulse generator housing. The planar coils are series additive connected to the programmable pulse generator circuit so that the RF signals will be received regardless of the orientation of the pulse generator when it is implanted in the patient. The planar receiver coil antenna provides reliable reception of the RF signal even when the transmitter coil of the programmer is slightly misaligned or tilted with respect to the receiver coil antenna. In addition, the antenna provides a shallow Q factor so that individual high tolerance tuning of the receiver circuits of the pulse generator is not required.

Planar receiver antenna coil for programmable electromedical pulse

An improvement in a demand-type heart pace system in which the normally high input impedance of the R-wave sensing amplifier is reduced for a predetermined time interval following the generation of a heart stimulating impulse such that the charge on the pulse generator's voltage doubling capacitor following the generation of the stimulating impulse may more rapidly be restored to thereby prevent false detection of naturally occurring R-waves. Following the predetermined time interval, the input impedance of the R-wave amplifier is again returned to a high value in anticipation of the receipt of a natural R-wave signal following the completion of a refractory period. Digital logic circuitry is utilized for controlling the conduction state of semiconductor switches which are connected in parallel with the resistors normally establishing the amplifier's input impedance and the recharge path for the voltage doubling capacitor.

Demand-type cardiac pacer having dynamic impedance switch

A frequency divider for converting a standard frequency output from a crystal controlled oscillator to a lower frequency which is compatible with digital devices operating in a decimal mode. The oscillator output pulses and the complement thereof are fed to first and second AND gates which are respectively enabled by the complement and true outputs of a control flip-flop. The outputs from these two AND gates are ORed together and applied to the clock input of a synchronous, programmable, multi-bit counter whose carry output terminal is connected to a first D-type control flip-flop, through an inverter, the state of which determines the initial values to be periodically loaded into the multi-bit counter and which also controls the setting of the second D-type control flip-flop.

Growing community of inventors

White Bear Lake, MN, United States of America

Neal F Nordling