Abstract: A roll coater for placing binder on the fibers prior to being wound around a rotating drawing drum. The drawing drum draws fibers out of orifices in the bottom of a slowly reciprocating furnace. The fibers form a mat on the drawing drum that is later removed and expanded. The roll coater includes a graphite or other material coating drum that rotates in a bath of liquid binder and/or wetting agents, and reciprocates with the furnace. The fibers scrape over the surface of the coating drum after being formed but before winding around the drawing drum. The binder and/or wetting agent picked up on the surface of the coating drum coats the fibers with binder and/or wetting agent. Liquid binder and/or wetting agent is replenished in the bath in which the coating drum is partially submerged by a float, sensor, pump and large container of binder/wetting agent.

Abstract: An apparatus and process for diagnosis or control of the ignition or load state of a two or four cycle internal combustion engine. A generator rotating synchronously with the engine generates alternating voltages which are scanned by a control and the alternating voltage amplitudes correspond to the rotational speed of the engine. The control detects at least one of the voltage amplitudes each revolution and, based upon the detected amplitude, calculates a control or diagnosis value, sets one or more flags and/or triggers a control event at an ignition control and/or data output.

Abstract: A seed envelope includes an aperture covered by a transparent sheet. The aperture is particularly spaced from the bottom and two sides of the envelope. The aperture allows the purchaser to view the seeds which fill at least a portion of the seed envelope. In order to incorporate the transparent sheet, the envelope must be filled from the top, away from the transparent sheet and aperture.

Abstract: A composite scaffold plank for resting on two spaced, substantially parallel horizontal scaffold support members. The plank has an elongated planar panel with elongated reinforcing ribs mounted at a lateral edge substantially perpendicularly to the second major surface of the planar panel. The reinforcing ribs are substantially parallel and equally spaced from one another. There are notches defining tabs at each end of the planar panel that form a finger joint with another similar plank abutting the plank's end. Transverse channels formed in the ribs fit over the frame's horizontal support members.

Abstract: A device for a baby bottle has an absorbent panel attached to a collar. The collar removably mounts in a surrounding engagement to a cap of the bottle and can be absorbent for enhancing the total absorbing capacity of the device. The panel extends from the collar toward a mouthpiece of the bottle, for gently compressing against a baby's chin when the baby is suckling from the bottle. After feeding, the panel and the collar wipe clean the baby's mouth region and are washable for reuse.

Abstract: An automated, remote control/monitoring system for a cathodic protection system for a buried metallic object based on monitoring multiple coupon test stations, buried next to the metal object, by a central processor, which can individually control multiple cathodic protection rectifiers. Preferably, the reference for potential measurements is a buried coupon having a metallurgy substantially the same as the metallurgy of the buried object.

Abstract: A means and method for inserting drivers into a surgical stapling cartridge, including a pallet that holds the cartridge firmly. The pallet has a central slot and laterally positioned lip members that are biased toward the slot. The cartridge is positioned in the slot and the lip members are released to extend their lips over the lateral flanges on the cartridge, thereby holding the cartridge in position. A finger extends into a recess formed at one end of the cartridge, thereby positively positioning the cartridge in the slot. The cartridge is released for removal by a tongue inserted between the lip members, thereby separating them by displacement.

Abstract: A casting game includes a panel with targets. The targets are doors that pivot between a closed position, in which the doors are substantially parallel to the panel, and an open position, in which the doors are transverse to the panel. A user casts an object, such as a simulated lure, at the panel aiming to hit a door with a force sufficient to make the door pivot from the closed position to the open position. The user resets the game by maneuvering the lure to cooperate with structures on the apparatus that force the door to pivot from the open position to the closed position.

Abstract: A method of forming a wear-resistant reinforcing coating on a substrate, such as concrete, wood, metal or particulate. A reinforcing fiber mat is placed on the substrate and a liquid matrix material is mixed with small colored stones. The mixture of matrix material and stones is poured onto the mat, and the liquid wets the mat and contacts the substrate. After curing, a composite coating is formed with stones as the wearing surface. A membrane can be interposed between the substrate and the reinforcing coating to prevent adhesion and “starving” of the mat.

Abstract: An apparatus that can be mounted to a quiver on a bow provides camouflage and cover for the bow and a shooter. The apparatus is a hollow shaft with a first end having a tapered tip, and a second opposite end. A plurality of holes is formed perpendicularly through the sidewall. The holes are confined to an area of the shaft body that is substantially three-fourths of the circumference of the sidewall. A plurality of artificial foliage bundles is attached to the shaft body by a basal wire stem that is mounted in a respective one of the holes.

Abstract: An electrical ignition for internal combustion engines having coils and a magnetic generator that rotates synchronously with the engine. The generator's magnetic field passes periodically through the coils and induces a sequence of corresponding alternating-voltage half-waves. These charge an energy-storage element, that is discharged by actuation of an ignition switch to trigger an ignition spark and they form the voltage supply of a microelectronic and/or programmable control that actuates the ignition switch in an ignition time instant as a function of the detected half-waves and/or of a rotational state of the engine. Within one rotation, there is chosen, for the triggering of the ignition spark to prolong its burn-time, a time interval in which the primary and/or secondary coil winding is influenced by one of the half waves and the amount or range of the magnetic flux change used to prolong the burn-time is greatest within the respective sequence.

Abstract: A heat pumping machine, such as used for home heating and cooling, has a free piston Stirling engine driving a vapor compression heat pump. The engine is mechanically linked to the compressor inside a common hermetically sealed enclosure. A fluid conducting passage connects the refrigerant flow path in communication with a working gas space in the Stirling engine. Although carbon dioxide may be used in both as the refrigerant and the engine working gas, preferably both helium and carbon dioxide are used and separated by a phase separator so that helium rich gas is directed into the Stirling engine and carbon dioxide rich fluid is directed through the heat pump.

Abstract: A mobile screening machine with a frame on tracks, having a hopper and a main conveyor mounted to a frame. The main conveyor conveys particulate matter from the hopper to a screening device positioned beneath the upper end of the main conveyor. The particulate is screened into three grades of coarseness, with the coarsest falling into a chute, the middle coarseness falling onto one lateral conveyor and the finest falling onto an underscreen conveyor, which preferably is driven downhill onto another lateral conveyor. The tracks permit the machine to be driven around the work site and onto and off of a trailer, and the entire machine can be remotely controlled. The downhill conveyor permits loading of the hopper from both sides of the frame.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for detecting the direction of rotation of an internal combustion engine using a magnet wheel which moves past an electrical ignition coil. For each revolution, at least one current or voltage pulse is induced in the coil having a polarity dependent on the direction of rotation. The magnet poles and the coil have geometric relationships that, upon each magnet wheel revolution, the curve form of the current or voltage pulse has at least two prespecified extreme points with a curve characteristic which is substantially neither rising nor falling and at least one break point with a discontinuity. A direction of rotation signal is derived from these curve characteristics.

Abstract: A heat exchanger in which a fluid and a surface transfer thermal energy effectively with a smaller pressure drop than is conventionally realized. In a preferred embodiment, gas at one end of a piston flows into a piston chamber and passes radially through a plurality of axial slots formed through the piston sidewall and into a gap between the piston sidewall and the surface of the housing in which the piston slidably mounts. Between each pair of through-slots, longer axial slots are formed that extend only partially through the sidewall radially, and almost the entire length of the piston. Thus, around the circumference of the piston the slots alternate in structure between through-slots and longer slots. Gas that enters the gap through the through-slots flows circumferentially through the gap and into the longer slots. The gas exits the longer slots at the opposite end of the piston from the first gas space.

Abstract: A weight belt for maintaining the vertical orientation of a fish which has been rapidly taken from a significant depth and placed in shallow water without time to adjust the amount of air in its air bladder. The belt is placed around the fish between the dorsal fin and the pectoral fins, and has weights at the underside of the fish to maintain its vertical orientation by gravity.

Abstract: A tool for boring has a first shaft for drivingly linking at a first end to a portable rotatable machine. At a second end, the tool has a fastener to which a modular auger section can be drivingly linked. A second shaft of the tool has an outer surface to which a radially inwardly extending edge of a helical flight is attached. A cylindrical collar is attached to a radially outwardly extending peripheral edge of the flight and is mounted radially outwardly of the second shaft. An insulator interposed between the shafts electrically insulates the shafts from each other. The shafts can be unlinked through a shear pin breaking in response to a predetermined amount of relative torque to the shafts.

Abstract: A vibration-reducing eccentric weight system mounted to the driveshaft of a screen box in a portable screening plant with the eccentric weight system's center of gravity on the driveshaft's axis of rotation. The eccentric weight system includes a weight that is radially slidably mounted to the driveshaft, but biased so that its center of gravity is spaced from the driveshaft's axis of rotation during slow and no rotation. Upon rotation above a preselected speed, the centrifugal force displaces the weight radially outwardly. This causes a gradually increasing vibration corresponding to gradually increasing distance between the weight's center of gravity and the driveshaft's axis of rotation.