Patents by Inventor Uberto Capra

Uberto Capra has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 4196486
    Abstract: A horizontal scrubbing brush for a vehicle-washing apparatus, vertically guided in lateral tracks on a portal frame, is suspended from two sets of cables, one set leading to a counterweight, the other being linked with a piston of a single-acting pneumatic cylinder which is pressurized to raise the brush and is cut off to let the brush descend under its own weight partly balanced by the counterweight. The piston head within the cylinder is provided with resilient peripheral lips which let the air escape slowly during the descent of the brush and also exert a braking action during its ascent.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 1979
    Date of Patent: April 8, 1980
    Assignee: Ceccato & C. S.p.A.
    Inventor: Uberto Capra
  • Patent number: 4192037
    Abstract: A portal frame of a vehicle-washing station, carrying cylindrical brushes for scrubbing the body of a vehicle moving relatively to that frame, supports a pair of oppositely disposed wheel-cleaning units with respective rotary brushes confronting the sides of the vehicle at the level of its wheels. Each wheel-cleaning unit comprises a feeler, normally retracted, which at the beginning of a traverse is extended into the path of the proximal wheel pair to sense the arrival of the leading wheel in a scrubbing position. The feeler then causes the arrest of the main drive and the advancement of the associated wheel-scrubbing brush into contact with the vehicle wheel so positioned; the same happens with the wheel-cleaning unit at the opposite side. During this operation the feeler is again retracted; when relative motion of the vehicle and the portal frame resumes, the feeler is again extended to repeat the aforedescribed procedure with the trailing vehicle wheel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 15, 1978
    Date of Patent: March 11, 1980
    Inventor: Uberto Capra
  • Patent number: 4004313
    Abstract: In order to prevent entanglement of the bristles of a rotating brush with outside mirrors or other projecting parts of an automotive vehicle being scrubbed, the brush is divided into a lower and an upper section coaxially supported on a common substantially vertical shaft, the lower section being fixed to the shaft whereas the upper one is freely rotatable thereon. Each brush section has a cylindrical core with a body of flexible bristles radiating therefrom; during rotation, the two bristle bodies assume the shape of cylinders with substantially equal diameters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 8, 1975
    Date of Patent: January 25, 1977
    Assignee: Ceccato & C. S.p.A.
    Inventor: Uberto Capra
  • Patent number: 4001907
    Abstract: A scrubbing unit for a vehicle-washing station, designed particularly for vehicles with vertically fluted sides, comprises an array of vertically superposed cylindrical brushes corotating on an upright support about horizontal axes which are parallel to the vehicular surface to be washed. The mutual spacing of the brush axes equals the diameter of their cylindrical bodies in the undeformed state of their bristles whereby these, on being urged against the vehicular surface to be scrubbed, are deflected against their direction of rotation to form a nearly continuous working area. Two such units mounted on the support alongside each other, with vertical staggering of their brush axes, insure uniform scrubbing over the height of the engaged surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 1975
    Date of Patent: January 11, 1977
    Assignee: Ceccato & C. S.p.A.
    Inventor: Uberto Capra
  • Patent number: 3931660
    Abstract: A guide structure straddling the path of a vehicle to be washed carries a vertically movable horizontal rotary brush, a pair of laterally displaceable first vertical rotary brushes moving in a first transverse plane perpendicular to that path, a pair of second vertical rotary brushes with shafts tiltably mounted on horizontally swingable main supporting arms pivoted to the structure downstream of the first pair, and a pair of vertical third rotary brushes mounted on horizontally swingable ancillary arms which intersect the main arms and are also pivoted to the structure downstream of the first pair.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 1974
    Date of Patent: January 13, 1976
    Inventor: Uberto Capra