Abstract: A manually operated direct-current generator, with an output voltage whose polarity and magnitude depend on the direction and speed of rotation of a control knob, charges a storage capacitor in an input circuit of an operational amplifier which works into two comparators respectively responsive to positive and negative voltages exceeding selected thresholds. A triggerable pulse source, upon actuation by either comparator, feeds back one or more discharge pulses to the storage capacitor and also steps a reversible pulse counter in either a forward or a reverse sense.

Abstract: A machine for manufacturing plastic bottles by fitting round-bottomed hollow bodies of plastic material to flat-bottomed heels or base cups of similar material comprises a turntable forming a multiplicity of peripherally equispaced seats at a lower level and a like number of outwardly open radial recesses or pockets aligned therewith at an upper level. The hollow bodies are entrained by a conveyor from a blow-molding unit, in which they are produced, on a shelf which enters the turntable generally tangentially between the two levels and continues along a fraction of its periphery to a point just beyond a feeding station at which the separately produced heels are successively deposited on seats passing below the shelf. The hollow bodies, introduced by the conveyor into respective pockets above the shelf, then descend onto the underlying heels which are coated with a bonding agent such as a plastic melt.