Fmc Corporation

Other

Ronald J Billett

Bruce M Harper

David N Anderson

William M Easter

Veikko K Viitanen

Thomas E Roberts

Edward N Berticevich

Graham D Robertson

John J Busuttil, Jr

Samuel F Tutt

Charles W Shearon

Barry J Walter

A type of flexible boot sized to envelop an object mounted on a smaller shaft with one or both ends of the boot having an expandable opening. When used to protect an automotive type constant velocity joint, the boot will have one plain cylindrical end and one pleated end. The plain end of the boot mates to a housing of the CV joint, the opposite end mates to its input shaft. The shaft mating end of the boot is comprised of a circumference of radially arranged shaped pleats. During installation of the boot over the constant velocity joint, the pleated end of the boot may be spread apart and passed over the larger diameter of the joint housing. The pleats may then be closed inwardly to a nested condition where they are constrained and compacted to the shaft with a surrounding band clamp.

Expandable universal-joint boot

A cylindrical pulley over which a belt or web is looped is composed of a series of flat, annular discs, each of which rotates about its own individual axis, all discs closely adjacent to its neighbors so that the aggregate of discs forms the cylindrical pulley. All rotating disc axes are parallel and all are inclined at a chosen angle to the aggregate pulley axis creating a belt contact surface that moves laterally as well as peripherally. All discs revolve about bearing carriers that are rotated together in outboard bearings to change the orientation of the angled discs with respect to the traveling belt. Thus a belt wrapped about the pulley can be made to move in a direction perpendicular to its travel direction at a rate defined by the degree to which the individual discs deviate from the aggregate pulley axis. More importantly the belt can be made to reverse its direction of lateral travel by opposite positioning of the disc carrier group for which purpose several operating means are shown.

Reversing axes belt steering pulley

A granular dispenser for a planter having a closure means for sealing the hopper which is operated by a hydraulic cylinder which is connected in parallel with the hydraulic cylinder normally provided on a planter for raising and lowering the planter tool bar so that the closure means is fully closed before the planter begins to raise and remains closed until the planter is fully lowered.

Means for dispensing granular agrichemical products

The invention provides a plurality of tray cart containers, in which at least four tray carts are loaded into a tray cart container, and a trailer, wherein the trailers have at least one powered conveyor system, and wherein at least four of tray cart containers are loaded onto the powered conveyor system. A tractor unit is attached to the trailer and transports the trailer from a kitchen to an airport. A container loader removes the tray cart containers from the trailer and transports them to an airplane. The tray carts are removed from the tray cart containers and placed in the airplane kitchen. Other tray carts are removed from the airplane and placed in the tray cart containers. The container loader loads the tray cart containers into the trailer. The trailer is transported from the airport to the kitchen.

Airline food transportation system

A hand held cutting tool is disclosed for use in cutting articles, especially when the tool is to be used in confined quarters while protecting the operator from being cut by the tool. The tool includes a motor which drives the cutter only when one hand of the operator grasps the motor housing and closes a trigger. Portions of a cutter and cutter guard project out of a small housing, and the guard normally encompasses the projecting portion of the cutter. When it is desired to expose the projecting portion of the cutter to perform a cutting operation, the other hand of the operator must grip a portion of the tool remote from the exposed portion of the cutter and must actuate a valve or handle to expose and maintain the guard in the exposed cutting position.

Protective guard unit for metal working tool

Apparatus for extracting frozen stick confections from several mold cups of a mold strip of a stick confection freezing apparatus is disclosed. At a pre-extraction station, the sticks of the frozen confections are individually grasped and individually pulled with separate spring forces while the mold cups are heated from below by hot water sprays. Each confection is lifted from the mold cup as soon as the surface layer thereof sufficiently thaws, and before each confection is completely removed from the cup, it is released and dropped back into the cup. At a second extraction station, all of the confections are simultaneously removed and thereafter conveyed to apparatus for wrapping the frozen confections.

Apparatus for extracting frozen confections

An apparatus for making wooden pallets includes a conveyor for moving a plurality of parallel stringers under a nailing machine where deckboards are nailed transversely across the stringers to form one side of the pallet. During operation of the preferred embodiment, the gripping carriage of the stringer conveyor normally propels in front of it one set of stringers, on which three bottom deckboards have already been nailed to form a half-pallet, and pulls behind it a set of stringers that have had no deckboards at all nailed thereto. As the stringer of the half-pallet move under the nailing machine, five deckboards are nailed to its upper surface to complete the pallet and, when the trailing stringers move under the nailing machine, a set of three deckboards are nailed thereto to form a half-pallet. At a point downstream from the nailing machine, the full pallet is discharged and the gripper carriage starts to move rearwardly. During this rearward movement, the half-pallet is inverted and positioned on what is now the trailing side of the rearwardly moving gripper carriage. At a position on the upstream side of the nailing machine, the gripper carriage grasps a new set of stringers and starts forwardly again toward the nailing machine to have five top deckboards applied to the upper surface of the half-pallet to complete it, and have three deckboards nailed to the new set of trailing stringers to form a new half-pallet.

Apparatus for making pallets

An improved method for extracting frozen stick confections from several mold cups of a mold strip of a stick confection freezing apparatus is disclosed. At a pre-extraction station, the sticks of the frozen confections are individually grasped and individually pulled with separate spring forces while the mold cups are heated from below by hot water sprays. Each confection is lifted from the mold cup as soon as the surface layer thereof sufficiently thaws, and before each confection is completely removed from the cup, it is released and dropped back into the cup. At a second extraction station, all of the confections are simultaneously removed and thereafter conveyed to apparatus for wrapping the frozen confections.

Method for extracting frozen confections

An apparatus for freezing confection material includes a plurality of separate mold strips which are indexed in a closely spaced single file over several longitudinally spaced, transversely extending rows of nozzles. Coolant is forced upwardly from the nozzles in single vertical jets which impinge perpendicularly against the mold strips midway between adjacent mold cups. The mold cups are arranged with their wide side faces extending in their direction of travel, and the single jets of coolant impinge upon support wall portions of the mold strips which extend transversely between such opposing wide side faces. The mold strips have intermeshing end wall configurations that enable the coolant to be continuously sprayed without concern that the coolant may be injected upwardly between the strips to contaminate the confection material within the mold cups.

Apparatus for freezing confections

An apparatus for producing frozen confections of the type including sticks projecting from a block of frozen confection material including a plurality of detachable mold strips and a screw conveyor arrangement for indexing the mold strips through a closed rectangular path in a horizontal plane with the mold cups of the mold strips opening upwardly. The conveyor includes cradles to which the mold strips are individually and pivotally mounted, a rectangular arrangement of tracks for guiding the cradles through the rectangular path of travel, and several conveyor screws which are driven continuously for propelling the cradles along the tracks. The conveyor screws have screw grooves therein adapted to cause the cradles to dwell under a confection filler, a stick inserter, a confection extractor and mold cleaning apparatus. Between the extractor and mold cleaning apparatus a photodetector unit is mounted to scan the row of mold cups of each strip as it is laterally transferred from the extracting lane to the filling lane, and a turn-over device that is responsive to the photodetector unit is provided to invert only those mold strips found to contain confection material that was not removed by the extractor. The confection material is then dislodged from the inverted cup by an air jet, and the inverted mold strip is returned to its original orientation with the cups depending from the strip so that confection material may subsequently be deposited therein.

Apparatus for producing frozen confections

An apparatus for freezing confection material includes a plurality of separate mold strips which are indexed in a closely spaced single file over several longitudinally spaced, transversely extending rows of nozzles. Coolant is forced upwardly from the nozzles in single vertical jets which impinge perpendicularly against the mold strips midway between adjacent mold cups. The mold cups are arranged with their wide side faces extending in their direction of travel, and the single jets of coolant impinge upon wall portions of the mold strips which extend transversely between such opposing wide side faces. The heat exchanger for refrigerating the coolant includes a vertically super-imposed array of heat exchanger tubes that is located directly under the mold cups so that the coolant will drip from the mold cups onto the heat exchanger tubes. The coolant then cascades from upper to lower heat exchanger tubes and is refrigerated by the time it trickles into a collection housing situated below the heat exchanger. Mechanical seals are formed between the adjacent mold strips by intermeshing end walls of the mold strips; the seals enable the coolant to be continuously sprayed without concern that the coolant may be injected upwardly between the strips to contaminate the confection material.

Apparatus for freezing confection material

A stick inserter for inserting flat sticks into partially frozen confections in the molds of a confection machine forms a packed column of sticks in face to face engagement above a row of molds, a row of spaced thin blades is lowered and each blade forces a stick out of the column and into a confection. Upon retraction of the blades, pivotally mounted lower guide rails for the column, which have been lowered to accommodate stick insertion, are raised to restore displaced sticks back to their original positions in the column. In order to insure stick singulation, a jogging mechanism partially lowers the blades ad then retracts them slightly and a blade deflection plate releases previously deflected blades so that they spring against the faces of sticks adjacent to those to be inserted. A packer is provided between a stick feeder and the stick insertion zone of the inserter for exerting a selected constant pressure on the sticks during ejection in a manner that isolates the portion column sticks in the stick insertion zone from pressure exerted on the column by the feeder.

Inserting sticks into confections

A self-enclosed tablet dispenser for dispensing tablets into liquid-filled containers, such as swimming pools, including a first tube to hold the tablets, a base connected to the first tube with a horizontal passageway in which a plunger slidably reciprocates to move the tablet from the bottom of the first tube at one end of the passageway to the other end of the passageway, and a second tube connected to the base at the other end of the passageway to guide the tablet into the liquid by gravity means. The second tube may be open-ended on the bottom, or it may be closed so as to hold the tablets while allowing the liquid to enter and thus dissolve the tablets.

Tablet dispenser

A power strapping tool having an anvil and a tensioning wheel adapted to engage with overlapping portions of a strapping looped about a package and extending to a supply. The tensioning wheel is rotatable in a direction as to tension the loop of strapping and maintain such strapping tensioned while overlying portions thereof are connected to each other and then in an opposite direction to relax and flex away from the underlying strapping portion a span of the overlying strapping extending between such wheel and the location of strapping connection to thereby position such flexed, overlying strapping portion for easy severence. In the preferred embodiment, rotation of the tensioning wheel is also relied upon to effect projection of a knife between the overlying flexed and the underlying strapping portions and to then again tension the overlying strapping portion whereby the flexed strapping is urged against the projected knife to thereby sever the applied loop of strapped from its supply.

Power strapping tool

A vertical stack of tablets is disposed in a tubular container extending upwardly from an opening in the top wall of a housing. The tablets are dropped one-by-one in front of a reciprocable pusher, which is driven by a rotary impeller and is effective to eject the lowermost tablet out from under the stack and into a sump in the housing, where it may be dissolved by water in the sump. The impeller is driven by a jet of water from a nozzle which receives water under pressure from a conduit leading into the housing. Water under pressure from this same conduit operates a settable ratchet device and a jet-deflector so that, when the desired number of tablets have been dispensed, the jet is deflected and the impeller is stopped to stop the reciprocation of the tablet-dispensing pusher.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Ronald J Billett