Abstract: An apparatus for testing sheet material with sensors having one or more components and fastened to the front of a base plate as separate units on one and/or both sides of a sheet material path. The fastening system includes a first fastening device which is operable from the back of the base plate and permits removal of the sensor in the released state. In order to open a gap between at least one component of a sensor and the transport path, this component has second fastening device which is operable from the front of the base plate and permits only motion of the component relative to the transport system in the released state. Removal of the sensor is impossible in the released state of the second fastening means unless the first fastener device is released.

Abstract: A doughnut or puck-shaped spacer has a centrally positioned square hole. A pie-shaped cutaway portion of the spacer allows the spacer to be elastically deformed mounting on a square rod. The rod and spacers join together the bars of a bar screen rack. Bars making up a screen bed are approximately one-quarter inch thick and cantilevered sections of the screening bars benefit from being joined together to control the spacing of the bars and to add rigidity to each rack of bars which makes up the bar screen rack. For ease of assembly, canted slots receive a square rod. The spacers are readily positioned between legs on the square rod. The individual bars are then joined by tightening a nut at the threaded end of the rod, clamping the bars in spaced parallel relation.

Abstract: A flexible sheet to which manufacturing processes are to be applied is tensioned within a carrying fixture having tacky surfaces to which the flexible sheet is fastened. One version of the fixture includes an "L"-shaped attachment surface on a frame member and two tensioning members deflected toward the frame member in mutually perpendicular directions. When the flexible sheet has been fastened to the carrying fixture, the tensioning members are allowed to return toward their undeflected positions while applying tensioning forces to the flexible sheet. Another version of the fixture includes "L"-shaped attachment surfaces on both a frame member and a tensioning member. A loading station includes a stack of unprocessed flexible sheets, a fixture for deflecting tensioning member(s) within the carrying fixture, and a robot arm moving a transport fixture capable of carrying a flexible sheet and a carrying fixture.

Abstract: A sheet feeding apparatus that can be used in an image reading apparatus or an image recording apparatus to pick-up sheets of paper for one-by-one transfer to an image generating mechanism (e.g., an image reader or a print. head). The sheet feeding apparatus includes sheet pick-up member and a power transmission device that moves the pick-up member from a home position toward a sheet supply portion, from an arbitrary position to an initializing position, and from the initializing position to the home position.

Abstract: Disclosed is a sorting system configured to sort a plurality of components, such as computer chips. The handler comprises a component handler configured to sort a plurality of components into groups; a plurality of receptacles on the component handler, each of the receptacles adapted to receive one of the sorted groups of components; at least one indicator associated with at least one of the receptacles, the at least one indicator being activated when the associated receptacle is filled to a selected amount with components; a plurality of bins, each of the bins being associated with one of the receptacles on the component handler; and at least one indicator on at least one of the bins, wherein the at least one indicator on the bin is activated when the receptacle associated with that bin is filled to a selected amount.