Abstract: In the disclosed system, recurring signals, such as from a watt-hour meter or other type of meter, are registered, by sensing the signals, converting the signals to mechanical motions, and applying them to a mechanical register so that the register accumulates the motions sensed by the amplifier and indicates a value representative of the accumulated total of the signals. According to one embodiment of the invention, a sensor senses the signals formed by gaps in the rotating disc of a watt-hour meter and an amplifier drives a stepping motor on the basis of the signals. The stepping motor advances an odometer whose non-volatile output can be read visually or scanned electronically over a telephone line.

Abstract: In the disclosed stepping motor system a band pass filter extracts error signals from currents in a stepping motor driver, and a feedback system delays command pulses to the driver on the basis of the error signals. This suppresses mid-frequency instabilities in the operation of the stepping motor.

Abstract: In the disclosed measuring system, the strain in opposingly stressed strain gauges is measured by alternately driving currents through the gauges, and measuring the resulting differences in the alternate currents. Two reversely poled transistors, or two FETs, form low impedance switches that alternately drive the currents through the gauges. A constant current source or a resistor provides a current path to both gauges.

Abstract: In the disclosed motor, a stator and a rotor are movable relative to each other about a common axis. The stator has stator poles with radially directed stator teeth arranged in a circle around the axis and the rotor includes a first axial portion and a second axial portion with a permanent magnet located between them. The first portion has a plurality of rotor teeth extending axially along the periphery of the first portion and the second portion has a substantially cylindrical surface.

Abstract: A stepping motor with toothed stator poles and two sets of oppositely magnetized rotor teeth has its stator poles energized by a driver which responds to input pulses to successively deenergize alternate poles and keep them deenergized and then successively reenergize the alternate poles in the opposite direction. Thereafter the driver successively deenergizes the poles intermediate the alternate poles and keeps them deenergized until all intermediate poles are deenergized and then successively reenergizes the intermediate poles in the other direction until all the intermediate poles are reenergized. This drives the rotor in fractional steps. For larger fractional steps, larger numbers of poles are deenergized in response to each pulse. For even larger fractions the deenergization process is eliminated.

Abstract: In the disclosed system, the stator of a motor is provided with a plurality of radially directed stator poles, each having stator teeth arranged in a circle around an axis, and includes permanently magnetized rotor teeth facing the poles. The number of poles on the stator is sixteen at regular intervals of 221/2 degrees, each having teeth offset from the teeth on the poles 90 degrees therefrom by one full pitch and offset from the teeth on adjacent poles by one-quarter pitch. According to an embodiment, the coils are energized digitally to move the rotor at one-half, one-quarter, one-eighth, one-sixteenth, and one-thirty second steps. According to another embodiment, the poles are spaced and shaped to permit large preformed windings to be mounted thereon.

Abstract: In the disclosed system, if the frequency of input signals exceeds a value suitable for a load, the input signals and output signals are stored and compared in a comparator while locking of a phase locked loop is delayed by a loop filter that allows the output of the VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) to increase or decrease only at rates slower than given rates. When the input signals end after the loop locks, the filter delay causes the VCO to keep producing signals which are passed until the comparator recognizes that the number of output signals equals the number of input signals. If the input signals end before the loop locks, a logic circuit causes the VCO frequency to keep rising until another comparator indicates that the number of output signals has reached one-half the input signals.

Abstract: A synchronous motor is driven by applying cyclical or digital data through a phase locked loop whose loop filter integrates with a time constant equal to or greater than the inertial delay of the motor from start to its operating speed. According to one embodiment, the frequency output of the phase locked loop is further controlled with a digital rate multiplier whose phase effects are minimized by operating the VCO at a multiple of the input frequency and feeding the VCO voltage back through a frequency divider. According to another embodiment, the frequency control is obtained with a preliminary phase locked loop with a normal filter but a high frequency VCO whose feedback is divided by a value n, and then dividing the output of the main loop by m. Suitable counters may be used to stop and start the drive.

Abstract: In the disclosed circuit, a bilateral breakdown switch such as a triac includes two terminals for connecting an AC source to a load. A variable input arrangement, such as one which includes an LED and a photoresistor, operates a control electrode on the switch to turn the switch on and off in response to an input signal. The switch is disabled when the momentary AC voltage exceeds a predetermined value. This is done by a sensor that senses voltage and a bilateral switching arrangement that responds to the sensor and turns off the switch in response to a voltage higher than a predetermined value. According to one embodiment, the bilateral switching arrangement is composed of two complementarily poled transistors connected in parallel with respective bases connected to the sensor. Series diodes provide unidirectionality for the transistors. Back-to-back parallel diodes connected to the control electrode compensate for the voltage drop caused by the series diodes.

Abstract: A stepping motor with toothed stator poles and two sets of oppositely magnetized rotor teeth has its stator poles energized by a driver which responds to input pulses to successively deenergize alternate poles and keep them deenergized and then successively reenergize the alternate poles in the opposite direction. Thereafter the driver successively deenergizes the poles intermediate the alternate poles and keeps them deenergized until all intermediate poles are deenergized and then successively reenergizes the intermediate poles in the other direction until all the intermediate poles are reenergized. This drives the rotor in fractional steps. For larger fractional steps, larger numbers of poles are deenergized in response to each pulse. For even larger fractions the deenergization process is eliminated.

Abstract: The disclosed apparatus operates a load in one mode in response to one cyclically occurring event and in a second mode at a specified time in the cycle regardless of the phase of the one event in the cycle. According to a specific embodiment, the apparatus turns on lights at sunset and turns them off at a later nighttime hour, preferably the same hour each night. A generator stores signals in an accumulating memory at one rate during daylight hours and at a faster rate, preferably twice the daylight rate, during nighttime hours. When the memory content reaches a preset level during the night, it turns off the switch that had turned on the lights at sunset and empties itself of storage until sunrise.

Abstract: In the system disclosed a driving circuit repeatedly scans along a plurality of aligned electrodes in an enclosure filled with ionizable gas, by sequentially grounding the aligned electrodes and repeating the process cyclically. Within each cycle, a pulse width modulator energizes an anode opposite the electrodes for a period of time corresponding to an input value. Sequential glow discharges thus occur between the cathodes and the anode over a portion of the anode length. The discharges occur with sufficient rapidity so that they are observed as an illuminated portion of a bar formed by the electrodes. A second set of electrodes is scanned and an opposing anode energized to produce two illuminated bands separated from each other. Desired upper and lower set point limits for the input quantity determine the lengths of the bands and the separation between them.

Abstract: In the disclosed motor, teeth on winding-energized stator poles project radially toward equally-pitched radially projecting rotor teeth energized by a permanent magnet. The pitches of the teeth on each stator pole vary but have an average pitch approximately equal to the pitch of the rotor teeth.

Abstract: Longitudinally extending radially-projecting and peripherally-spaced teeth on a stator member and rotor member of a synchronous electric motor, whose rotor member is magnetized by a permanent magnet, are skewed relative to each other. The overall peripheral distance of each tooth on one member is equal to or less than the space between the overall peripheral distances of the teeth on the other member. According to one embodiment the rotor teeth are skewed relative to the rotor axis and the stator teeth parallel thereto.

Abstract: In the device disclosed, a load is energized from energy-carrying lines. A detector responsive to a cyclically recurring physical condition, such as daylight, places a switch either in an operating mode or an idling mode in response to the absence of the condition. A control shifts from an idling mode to an operating mode in response to the detector being in a given one of its modes and shifts back to the idling mode after a given time less than the period of the cyclically recurring physical condition. A circuit responds to the control being shifted to its operating mode in response to the given one of the modes of the detector and responds to the detector simultaneously being in the operating mode so as to connect the lines to the load.

Abstract: Knitting-machine guide bars, which carry columns of guides through and then along a row of knitting needles and are moved longitudinally along the row on the basis of the content of a programmable read-only memory. Stepping motors which respond to the memory rotate pinions in directions and numbers of steps determined by the memory. Racks engaging the pinions articulate respective adjustable-leverage levers which reciprocate the separate guide bars longitudinally along the row. Respective springs press each rack against each pinion transverse to the rack length so as to eliminate slack. Longitudinal movement of the bars is synchronized with their transverse movements through the needle row by sensing when the guides clear the front of the needles and producing a synchronizing pulse that gates appropriate signals from memory buffers to the motors; and producing a synchronizing pulse on a separate channel when the guides are clear of the rear of the needles.

Abstract: The rotor structure of a synchronous inductor motor, such as a stepping motor, is of a compact, simplified and high-efficiency construction consisting essentially of wholly planar annular laminations which include stacks of thin externally-toothed elements bonded together and with relatively thin axially-magnetized annular washer material extending radially from a relatively large central shaft fully to the roots of the stack teeth.