Rite-hite Holding Corporation

Rite-hite Corporation

Peter S Schulte

Jason Dondlinger

Tom Jansen

Rodney Kern

David P Leppert

Carl David Hardison, Iii

James P Schwingle

Wayne E Gruben

Dean Shanahan

James Schwingle

Carl Hardison

Mark D Beringer

Dave Leppert

Joe Korman

Perry W Knutson

James C Boerger

Mark S Ungs

Bill Hoerner

Allan H Hochstein

Glenn A Nicol

David R Noon

Richard J Dunkin

John Oltahfer

Thomas Jansen

Carl D Hardison

Carl David Hardison Iii

Carl D Iii Hardison

A vertically operating door and its drive system can be configured to push a door panel along a track to various overhead storage configurations including vertical, horizontal, inclined and coiled. Semi-flexible drive strips extend continuously along lateral edges of the curtain. The system includes a drive gear that engages a series of projections on at least one drive strip so that the gear can push the door between its open and closed positions. To protect the door from being damaged by collisions, the track can include a breakaway feature that allows at least a portion of the panel with its drive strip to separate from the track without permanent distortion. The drive strip and panel remain together as they break away from the track. The threshold of the breakaway force can be changed by selecting a retention strip from a plurality of interchangeable strips having different degrees of flexibility.

Track and guide system for a door

An example of a door with a pliable curtain includes various washdown features that make the door particularly suitable for use in food and drug related environments that demand cleanliness. To prevent product contamination, such as bacteria and other microorganisms, some examples of the door include a curtain storage track with a spiral groove machined in a unitary block of plastic, a ventilated side frame with a removable curtain guide track and a removable seal, and various curtain seams that not only join multiple sheets of the curtain together but also promote and strategically direct liquid runoff to avoid creating water-holding surfaces and to prevent liquid from dripping on products passing through the doorway.

Washdown door

A horizontally sliding door includes a resilient retention system that helps hold a door panel tightly against its seals when the door is closed, and resiliently releases the door panel when an external force displaces the panel beyond its normal path of travel. If the door panel is displaced off its normal path, the resilience of the retention system or simply opening and closing the door automatically returns the panel back to normal operation. The resilient retention system can be installed off the floor, so the system avoids creating a tripping hazard and avoids being damaged by nearby vehicles.

Resilient retention system for a door panel

An impact sensing system for a powered roll-up door combines an electrical switch and a breakaway coupling. To avoid damage or injury resulting from the door's roll-up curtain accidentally closing upon an obstacle or something striking the curtain, the breakaway coupling responds to such a collision by breaking away, which releases a lower portion of the curtain from between its two vertical guide tracks. Each breakaway coupling includes a set of electrical contacts that make or break in response to the coupling breaking away. When the curtain's lower portion becomes effectively derailed from its guide track, the electrical contacts disable continued operation of the door to prevent the door's drive motor from jamming the curtain. In some embodiments, the breakaway coupling is releasably held together by way of magnetic attraction between two coupling segments, with one electrical contact on each segment to comprise one set of functional contacts.

Industrial door system responsive to an impact

A cable tensioner for an industrial door helps keep a cable neatly wrapped on its take-up drum. In some embodiments, the tensioner functions in a first mode during normal door operation, and operates in a second mode when the tension in the cable decreases to a predetermined low level. When operating in the second mode, the tensioner is able to take up slack in a cable that supports a door member, such as a door panel or a deadweight that counteracts the door panel's weight. The tensioner includes a shock absorber that resists a reaction force pulling on the tensioner when the tensioner is in the second mode. The tensioner may be adapted for use on various doors including, but not limited to, sectional doors, roll-up doors, high-lift doors, horizontally storing doors, vertically storing doors, and various combinations thereof.

Cable tensioner and shock absorber for a door

A release mechanism for protecting a sectional door under impact allows one or more door panels to breakaway from its guide track without damaging the door. The release mechanism includes a snap-in pin that can be selectively repositioned to provide various operating modes. Examples of operating modes include unidirectional release, bi-directional release, and a disabled mode. In some cases, the breakaway threshold is greater in one direction than another. In the disabled mode, the release mechanism is not meant to release. Some embodiments include a door locking mechanism that still allows the release mechanism to operate.

Release mechanism for a sectional door

An impact detection system for an industrial door, the system including two members that are releasably coupled to each other to move together with the door as it travels, disposed beyond the doorway opening is a radiation emitter and a radiation detector, preferably packaged together in a photoeye device, and emitting a beam of radiation; the first member carries a reflector that, when the two members are coupled, reflects the radiation back to the photoeye, and that is movable to a position wherein it does not reflect the radiation back to the photoeye in response to separation of the two members caused by the door being impacted, the change in state from 1) the radiation being reflected to the photoeye to 2) the radiation not being reflected to the photoeye thus serves as an indication that an impact on the door has occurred.

Impact detection system for industrial doors

A counteraction system for a sectional door includes a counterweight system that helps counterbalance the weight of the door and helps hold the door in place when the door is fully open. The counterweight system comprises a suspended string of individual deadweights. As the door opens, the weights sequentially lower onto the floor, in a stacked arrangement, one atop the other. Thus, the hanging weight of the counterweight system decreases as the door opens. To avoid having the counterweight system slam the door open against a hard stop, the counteraction system also includes a brake system that helps bring the door to a smooth stop at the door's fully open position. In some embodiments, the brake system includes a cable that traverses the direction that the door travels. As the door approaches its open position, a protrusion on the door catches the cable, which deflects to decelerate the door.

Counteraction system for a sectional door

A resilient, insulated door panel for a sliding door includes a resilient core protected by a compliant outer covering with a seal disposed about the perimeter of the panel. The panel has sufficient resilience to recover from an impact that temporarily deforms it, yet has sufficient rigidity to transmit a compressive force needed for effectively setting the seals. Much of the core is filled with air to not only provide effective insulation and resilience, but to also provide an extremely lightweight door panel that can be operated to travel rapidly along an overhead track. Some embodiments include relatively rigid backup plates that provide a solid foundation to which the perimeter seals can be attached. The backup plates are segmented so as not to completely restrict the flexibility of the door panel.

Resilient door panel

A generally horizontally sliding door includes a sliding or otherwise translating door panel with a full-perimeter seal that engages sealing surfaces upon closing and at least partially disengages the surfaces upon opening. The door panel travels along an overhead track that is slightly inclined to lower the panel's upper and lower edge seals into engagement with sealing surfaces as the door closes. To provide a substantially full-perimeter seal, a leading edge seal and a trailing edge seal engage sealing surfaces as well. Some of the edge seals are joined to create corner seals. The seals are adapted for single panel sliding doors, bi-parting doors, multi-panel doors, and various combinations thereof.

Translating door with disengageable seals

A curtain guiding assembly for an industrial door is disclosed. The curtain guiding assembly is provided with a resilient member disposed adjacent the leading edge of a door curtain. The resilient member is substantially untensioned when no external force is applied to the door curtain and is adapted to at least partially conform to or at least partially deflect about encountered obstacles. The resilient member becomes tensioned upon application of an external force less than a first predetermined threshold and returns to its substantially untensioned state upon removal of the external force.

Growing community of inventors

East Dubuque, IL, United States of America

Peter S Schulte