Patents by Inventor Russell E. Tompkins

Russell E. Tompkins 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: 4994698
    Abstract: A vibratory linear motor system employs a comb-shaped electromagnet to excite transverse mechanical oscillations of a relatively thin, spring-like beam. The electromagnet establishes an approximate standing wave on the beam for which brakes mounted on either side of the beam provide independently established boundary conditions and produce rectified linear motion thereof. The brakes may be electromagnetically, magnetostrictively, or piezoelectrically actuated. An electronic control provides modulated currents to the exciter electromagnet and the brakes in order to control the rectified linear motion of the beam.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 13, 1990
    Date of Patent: February 19, 1991
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Gerald B. Kliman, Donald W. Jones, Russell E. Tompkins, Roger W. Brockett
  • Patent number: 4388545
    Abstract: A rotor for a self-starting permanent magnet AC motor is comprised of a permanent magnet disk mounted on a shaft of non-magnetic material. The magnet has a direction of magnetization parallel to the axis of the shaft resulting in two poles, one on each face of the magnet. Two disks of current carrying material are mounted on the shaft on either side of the magnet to act as starting coils. Pole pieces are mounted on the shaft and surround the starting disks. Claw-like projections spaced about and extending from the periphery of the pole pieces extend inwardly over the periphery of the magnet and starting disks. The claw-like projections from each pole piece are interlaced forming rotor poles of alternating polarity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 10, 1981
    Date of Patent: June 14, 1983
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Vernon B. Honsinger, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4356377
    Abstract: Amorphous metal ribbon and thin conventional magnetic material is fully cut through by an electron beam and has no or minimal bead on the edge. The ribbon is bent around a roller while under the electron beam and centrifugal force removes molten metal from the cut. An alternative method is to partially cut through and mechanically deform the material to break the thinned section metal bridges remaining below the cut. Motor laminations so cut have negligible increase in thickness and stack compactly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 19, 1981
    Date of Patent: October 26, 1982
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: James F. Norton, Gerald B. Kliman, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4345229
    Abstract: A lamp ballast has a pair of adjacent gapped "O" magnetic cores made of nested, almost complete loops of amorphous metal strip with the gaps in the loops shaped and arranged under the secondary coil to simulate any type of restricted cross section for shaping the lamp current. A long slender reactor has a similar configuration in which the gaps are staggered; a different embodiment has a long central core of compressed amorphous metal flake and a helical overwrap of ribbon. An alloy of iron, boron, and silicon with a high B.sub.r /B.sub.s ratio is preferred for these inductive devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 1981
    Date of Patent: August 17, 1982
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Robert P. Alley, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4328411
    Abstract: A rapid method of cutting thin amorphous metal sheet material is to use a focused heat source such as a laser beam or electron beam to heat local regions of the material above the crystallization temperature and form brittle crystalline lines along which the material fractures when it is mechanically deformed as by passage through a set of rollers. The material is not melted and does not form burrs. A higher packing factor is possible for motor and transformer laminations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 28, 1980
    Date of Patent: May 4, 1982
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Theodore R. Haller, Marshall G. Jones, Gerald B. Kliman, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4288773
    Abstract: A lamp ballast has a pair of adjacent gapped "O" magnetic cores made of nested, almost complete loops of amorphous metal strip with the gaps in the loops shaped and arranged under the secondary coil to simulate any type of restricted cross section for shaping the lamp current. A long slender reactor has a similar configuration in which the gaps are staggered; a different embodiment has a long central core of compressed amorphous metal flake and a helical overwrap of ribbon. An alloy of iron, boron, and silicon with a high B.sub.r /B.sub.s ratio is preferred for these inductive devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 1978
    Date of Patent: September 8, 1981
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Robert P. Alley, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4286188
    Abstract: A rotor is fabricated of a plurality of strips of thin amorphous metal wound side by side into adjacent coils about an axis, the flat sides of the strips being parallel to the axis. The rotor material is annealed to increase its coercive force to a value which may be up to 100 oersteds, rendering the rotor useful in a hysteresis type motor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 1978
    Date of Patent: August 25, 1981
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Vernon B. Honsinger, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4282046
    Abstract: A hard magnetic article made by casting a magnetically soft amorphous metal ribbon and shaping it to the form and size of the desired permanent magnet article, and then heat treating the resulting soft magnetic body and thereby converting the metal of the ribbon to the hard magnetic state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 16, 1979
    Date of Patent: August 4, 1981
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Peter G. Frischmann, Fred E. Luborsky, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4276510
    Abstract: The secondary winding of a current transformer is driven by a high frequency AC source to excite the core to alternating, uniformly equal positive and negative peaks of current excitation. An inductance sensor alternately senses the secondary winding inductances at corresponding points adjacent the positive and negative peaks of the flux wave generated in the core. Any difference in these inductances is a function of low frequency primary current and is utilized to develop a current flowing through a tertiary core winding to equalize these inductances. This tertiary winding current thus becomes a precise measure of the primary current.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 16, 1979
    Date of Patent: June 30, 1981
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Russell E. Tompkins, John P. Walden, Loren H. Walker
  • Patent number: 4234360
    Abstract: A magnetic alloy is cast as an amorphous metal ribbon and wound on a rotor shaft of a hysteresis motor and then heated to crystallize the metal ribbon and greatly increase its coercive force prior to assembling the rotor with the stator of the motor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 21, 1978
    Date of Patent: November 18, 1980
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Peter G. Frischmann, Fred E. Luborsky, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4211957
    Abstract: The magnetic core of a lamp ballast is bifilar wound from inherently thin amorphous metal strip and utilizes the laminations of the magnetic circuit as the plates of a capacitor. The outer yoke of the core encases the coils and is edge-wound from amorphous metal ribbon alternated with insulation to also be the power factor capacitor. The inner core is accordion-pleated or spirally wound and is electrically connected to be the starting capacitor. Cutaways in the inner core cause saturation and shape the lamp current waveform.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 1979
    Date of Patent: July 8, 1980
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Robert P. Alley, Theodore R. Haller, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4155397
    Abstract: Liquid amorphous metal alloy is manufactured into shaped laminations ready for assembly in an inductive component in one process. The rotating chill surface to which the melt is delivered has high thermal conductivity metal in a pattern corresponding to the shaped lamination and is surrounded by thermally insulating material. Melt coming in contact with the high thermal conductivity metal becomes amorphous and that contacting the thermally insulating areas cools more slowly and becomes crystalline. The brittle crystalline scrap is broken away from the strip of laminations and is collected and recycled to the melt.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 1978
    Date of Patent: May 22, 1979
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Vernon B. Honsinger, Russell E. Tompkins
  • Patent number: 4038625
    Abstract: An electrical connector for applications where reliability and safety are needed uses transformer couplings made in two separable sections. Upon clamping together the surrounding metal housing halves, each inductively coupled pair of transformer windings is enclosed by the associated cup-type ferrite magnetic core to minimize undesired interference and result in good magnetic coupling.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 1976
    Date of Patent: July 26, 1977
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Russell E. Tompkins, Franklin A. Fisher, Robert P. Wanger