4572results about "Building locks" patented technology

A system for controlling and monitoring portable tools at a particular work cell remotely by R-F communication to provide error proofing of various parameters including that the correct tool is to be used at a work cell, the tool is properly calibrated for the operation to be performed, that it is being used a proper number of times per part being assembled or inspected, and that the tool has been calibrated within a selected service interval. The tools will be made actuable only by R-F communication with specific factory apparatus whereby theft of such portable tools will be inhibited.

The present invention introduces a new class of lightweight tile-based illumination systems for uses wherein thin directionally-illuminating light distributing engines are embedded into the body of otherwise standard building materials like conventional ceiling tiles along with associated means of electrical control and electrical power interconnection. As a new class of composite light emitting ceiling materials, the present invention enables a lighter weight more flexibly distributed overhead lighting system alternatives for commercial office buildings and residential housing without changing the existing materials. One or more spot lighting, task lighting, flood lighting and wall washing elements having cross-sectional thickness matched to that of the building material or tile into which they are embedded, are contained and interconnected within the material body's cross-section. Embedded power control devices interconnected to each lighting element in the distributed system communicate with a central switching center that thereby controls each light-emitting element in the system.

A system and method for controlling access to a moveable enclosure are provided. The system includes a lock on the moveable enclosure, a control circuit coupled to the lock and configured to i) receive an entry code and ii) open the lock in response to receipt of the entry code, a time measurement device and/or Global Positioning System device coupled to the control circuit and configured to generate time and position data, such as latitude and longitude data, relating to the moveable enclosure; and a personal computing device wirelessly coupleable to the control circuit and configured to generate the entry code using the latitude and longitude data. The entry code may be erased after a single use. The validity of entry code may depend upon the time of its entry and the physical location of the moveable enclosure.

A method and system for providing improved handling of tractors and trailers )pr any powered vehicle and storage devices towed thereby) with a staging area. One invention relates to the provision of automatic locking or unlocking of a trailer door when the trailer leaves or enters the hub, respectively. A RFID signal strength evaluation scheme is also provided, which monitors successful RFID-to-antennae communications under various weather conditions, in order to determine an optimum read process. Under another embodiment, Geofencing and/or Wi-Fi can be used to trigger various events.

An in-vehicle monitor detects the occurrence of a meta-event related to the operation of a vehicle, such as the vehicle's operation over a maximum allowable speed, operation in a prohibited geographic area, operation during a specific time frame, or combinations thereof. The monitor signals a server via a wireless data link, and the server determines an appropriate deferred action to be taken by an in-vehicle controller, such as disabling the engine, limiting vehicle speed, and locking vehicle doors, upon occurrence of a second meta-event including conditions such as time delays, vehicle speed and direction, and vehicle location. The system can thereby allow orderly and safe control of vehicle functions for purposes such as terminating a pursuit, enforcing legal sentences and operator restrictions, and controlling fleet vehicle operations.

A secure firearm holder (10) includes an outwardly swinging hinged plate (14) that is hinged to a holder base (12) with a gun (44) mounted at a side of the plate in a ready-to-use orientation when the plate swings outwardly. In a preferred embodiment, a bore shaft (36) is mounted on the hinged plate, the bore shaft extending into the firearm. When the plate is in a first, closed, position, the holder base prevents the gun from being removed from the bore shaft, but when a motivating member (52) rotates the plate to a second position, the gun can be easily and quickly removed from the bore shaft from a ready-to-use orientation. The motivating member biases the lid toward the second position but is held closed in the first position by a latch (50), which latch is remotely releasable. A locking mechanism has three positions: a totally-locked position (B) for locking the latch (50) against remote release of the lid; an active position (A) for allowing remote release of the lid; and a manual-release position (C) for releasing the lid manually.

A system and method for managing a permit-based parking environment governed by a parking program. The permit-based parking environment includes a number of parking permits each including a unique RFID tag and tag number. One or more RFID readers are used to scan the vehicles parked in the parking environment to determine if a RFID tag is associated with the parked vehicle. The results of the scan along with information related to the parked vehicle are provided to a permit management system to determine if the vehicle is parked within the scope of privileges pre-defined for that vehicle, pursuant to the parking program governing the parking environment. The permit management system stores, manages, and monitors data related to the permits controlled under the parking program.

A medication cabinet that includes at least one drawer, a drive mechanism, and a drawer latching mechanism, is disclosed. The drawer includes a slider, and a container that includes a receptacle and a lid that moves between an open position and a closed position. The container also includes a fastener to fasten the lid to the receptacle. The slider maintains the lid in the closed position when at least a portion of the wall is coupled with the fastener, and actuates the lid from the closed position to the open position when the fastener passes through an opening in the wall. The drive mechanism controls longitudinal movement of the slider, and is mounted to the chassis, allowing the drawer to be free of electrical connections with the chassis. When the drive mechanism is not used to move the lid into the open position, longitudinal movement of the slider is inhibited.

Disclosed herein are an automatic door opening/closing apparatus to automatically open or close a door without applying any manual force to the door, and a refrigerator having the same. The automatic door opening/closing apparatus devised to automatically open or close a sliding door that is mounted, in a drawer manner, to a refrigerator body, includes a drive device coupled to the sliding door to automatically open or close the sliding door with respect to the refrigerator body, an input part to receive an user input and to operate the drive device based on the user input, a sensing part to sense an open or closed state of the sliding door, and a controller to operate the drive device based on signals from the input part and signals from the sensing part.

Devices, apparatus, systems, and methods of installing LED (light emitting diodes) for glass tiles and glass blocks. The LEDs can be housed in flexible strips having flexible bendable transparent housing sleeves with ends that can interconnect by male and female ends to one another with various types of interconnectors. Each separate sleeve can house up to 33 LEDs in a transparent plastic sleeve. A transparent connector sleeve can be slid over the interconnected ends and heat shrunk in place. The glass tiles can be laid out to uniform joints spacings between the glass tiles of approximately 3/16 of an inch. The LED strips can be placed on a surface layer of transparent grout that has been laid in the joint spacing, followed by a top layer of transparent grout. The transparent grout can be removable grout and include clear Silicon. The LED strips can have peel and stick back layers with adhesive backing that allows mounting to the lower surface. The LED strips can be placed with glass tiles, and other types of tiles such as but not limited to ceramic tiles, stone tiles and the like, as well as with glass blocks. Splitter(s) can be used to run parallel runs of LED strips at different spaced apart locations.

A hatch assembly for a marine vessel included a slam latch and a frame and a cover having the slam latch disposed therein. The slam latch includes a housing having inner and outer portions and a pivotal handle for rotation between open and closed positions. A reciprocal fastening element including a second cam surface is adapted to engage the frame for retaining the cover against the frame. A spring biases the handle into a closed position and together with the first cam surface maintains the handle in an opened position when the handle is rotated through a predetermined angle. The latch also includes a push rod for converting the rotation of the handle to the reciprocal movement of the fastening element. The latch also includes a pair of seals to prevent water from passing through the latch.

A refrigerator which allows a user to easily open a door of the refrigerator with a small force is disclosed. The refrigerator includes a main body having an upper storage compartment and a lower storage compartment defined on upper and lower sides, a door which slides to open and close any one of the storage compartments, a handle which is disposed at an upper portion of the door to be vertically rotatable, a plurality of push members which move to advanced positions from retreated positions in connection with a vertical rotation of the handle to separate the door from the main body, and an elastic member which is disposed between at least one of the push members and the door to restore the push members to the retreated positions when an external force is removed from the handle.

A bait station for containing rat poison contains a housing; at least one opening in the housing for a rat to enter; and a bait position in the housing for locating poisoned bait. A divider is provided between the bait position and each opening to prevent direct access to the bait from the opening, for example by a child. However, there are at least two different routes from the bait position leading to openings. Research has shown that rats, unlike mice, prefer not to eat in a confined space and it is believed that the choice of escape routes offered by the bait station of the invention encourages a rat to eat more of the bait. The bait station may include a hinged lid with locking means to prevent tampering with the bait.

A cabinet has a positioning device including at least one locating device. Each locating device has a fastener, a fixture group, two slots and two first holes. The fastener has a side board and a bottom board forming an L-shape, and a notch is defined in the bottom board. The fixture group includes a bridge member and a lever, and the bridge member is connected with an arm. A hook is formed in the distal end of the arm, which can further hitch itself to the channel of the fastener. When the handle of the drawer is swayed outward by the user and the hook will escape from the channel, and the drawer will open.

A vehicle on-board unit is configured to communicate with other vehicles to increase an accuracy of a lane centerline determination of a road that the vehicle is traveling. The vehicle on-board unit basically has a vehicle path history generating section, a two-way wireless communications section and a lane centerline determining section. The vehicle path history generating section generates a host vehicle path history data indicative of a travel path of the host vehicle. The two-way wireless communications section receives a preceding vehicle message that at least includes a preceding vehicle path history data indicative of a travel path of the preceding vehicle along a lane that the host vehicle is currently traveling. The lane centerline determining section determines a lane centerline of the lane that the host vehicle is currently traveling based on the host vehicle path history data and the preceding vehicle path history data.

A switching power supply which includes a sychronous rectifier circuit that performs sychronous rectification with a main switching element by using rectifying switching elements. When a current begins to flow into the rectifying switching element 6, the rectifying switching element 6 builds up rapidly by the voltage induced in the auxiliary winding 21 of low impedance. Accordingly, the rectifying switching element 6 turns on rapidly at a point showing an approximately maximum current so that the ON-state resistance of the rectifying switching element 6 can be smaller. The voltage induced in the auxiliary winding 21 is fed directly as a drive signal of the rectifying switching element 6 so that the drive signal is not influenced by an output voltage.

A camera housing comprises a four-sided frame. A first side of the four-sided frame includes a first segment, a second segment, and a latch mechanism with a first latch component and a second latch component. The first latch component and the second latch component are pivotally coupled such that in a closed position, the frame securely encloses a camera and in an open position, the first segment and the second segment are separable.

A lighting unit for producing flash light toward subjects in a photographic scene comprises an matrix array of light emitting elements arranged so as to have individual lighting fields different from one another, a selective excitation circuit for exciting selectively the light emitting elements so as to produce flash light, different in intensity as appropriate, in predetermined lighting patterns and an excitation/extinction circuit 250 for exciting or extinguishing the light emitting elements. A photographic equipment equipped with the lighting unit has directive switches or buttons for directing the lighting unit to select lighting pattern according to focal lengths, zoom rations, operation modes including a communication mode, and/or demands of pre-lighting,

The present invention discloses a quick release hitch pin which comprises an elongated member having a handle thereon which includes a locking assembly. The elongated member has a rod disposed in a central bore spring tensioned outwardly having a plunger on its inner end positioned between a pair of balls positioned in apertures which balls are urged outwardly by the plunger. As the balls are urged outwardly they form a locking member against the underside of the tow bar thereby preventing removal of the elongated member or pin. Alternative embodiments disclose a pair of tabs communicating with the lower portion of a looped rod, with the tabs having tangs thereon which tangs contact the underside of the tow bar when in the extended position thereby preventing removal of the elongated member.

The system described here is an improvement on ways to provide security and supply chain tracking for shipping containers. The system has a bolt-type seal lock module mounted on the container that has data storage capability and the capability to sense when the bolt is cut or certain environmental changes like impact. The system also includes a bolt-type seal lock that has data storage capability. The electronics module can be connected via wireless means to a centralized data base for the interchange of data. Individual modules or seal locks can be networked with each other to transmit data to and from a stack of metal shipping containers.

A refrigerator with a home bar door is smoothly and automatically opened and includes an automatic opening unit, a hook unit, a latch unit, and a damping unit. The automatic opening unit pushes the home bar door to a predetermined angle, so that the home bar door is automatically opened by gravity. The hook unit cooperates with the latch unit to lock or unlock the home bar door. The damping unit includes a casing and is connected to at least one hinge shaft. The automatic opening unit is provided with a push rod and an elastic member to open by a rotation thereof. The home bar door is rotated to be opened. A rotary member is rotatably installed in the casing, with oil contained therein to reduce rotating speed of the rotary member. An associated hinge shaft engages with the rotary member to rotate along with the rotary member.

An electronic device including a cover having an open/close structure is provided. The electronic device includes a housing including an upper face and a recess formed through the upper face in order to accommodate an earphone device, a cover for covering the recess in a closed state and to allow access to the recess in an opened state, a conductive pin disposed in the recess and biased mechanically toward the cover in the closed state, a circuit electrically connected to the conductive pin, a plurality of magnets disposed in the cover, a mechanical hook structure coupled to a peripheral portion of the cover in the closed state, and a button, when pressed, for separating the hook structure from the peripheral portion while moving a magnet to a position where the magnet faces another magnet.

Some embodiments of the present invention have a lock bolt extendible and retractable by movement of a power transmission assembly driven by an actuator and having a cam thereon which cams against the lock bolt to retract the lock bolt and unlock the steering column. In some embodiments, the cam has a curved surface with varying distance from the axis of rotation of the cam or pivot to improved lock bolt motion. The cam can have a gradual ramp surface to extract a lock bolt even in binding conditions of the lock bolt. In some embodiments, one or more sensors directly or indirectly connected to the actuator can be used to trigger deactivation of the actuator when the lock bolt has been or can be sufficiently moved to its locked and unlocked positions.

The present invention is a dead front actuating assembly, including a first layer having at least one selectively illuminated area, and a second layer having a plurality of sensors used for activating the at least one selectively illuminated area such that the at least one selectively illuminated area becomes illuminated, and the first layer is adjacent to the second layer.

With the widespread adoption of SIP-based VoIP, understanding the characteristics of SIP traffic behavior is critical to problem diagnosis and security protection of VoIP services. A general methodology is provided for profiling SIP-based VoIP traffic behavior at several levels: SIP server host, server entity (e.g., registrar and call proxy) and individual user levels. Using SIP traffic traces captured in a production VoIP network, the characteristics of SIP-based VoIP traffic behavior in an operational environment is illustrated and the effectiveness of the general profiling methodology is demonstrated. In particular, the profiling methodology identifies anomalies due to performance problems and/or implementation flaws through a case study. The efficacy of the methodology in detecting potential VoIP attacks is also demonstrated through a test bed experimentation.

Provided are a temperature control device capable of performing a temperature control of, e.g., a chamber wall of a processing apparatus with a high precision; and a processing apparatus using the same. The temperature control device 50 includes a plurality of heater units 51 for heating each of a multiplicity of zones 55 into which a wall portion of a housing 2 of a chamber 1 is divided; a multiplicity of heater power supplies 52 for supplying power to each of the plurality of heater units 51; a number of thermocouples 53 for measuring the temperature of each of the multiplicity of zones 55; and a plurality of controllers 54 for controlling a corresponding power supply unit by an ILQ control based on a signal from each temperature sensor to set a temperature of a corresponding zone to a preset target temperature.

A locking device is disclosed for interlocking two members having aligned openings extending therethrough. The device includes a hollow cap and a pin with an enlarged head at one end and a nose at the opposite end. The pin is insertable through the aligned openings of the members, with its nose received in interlocked engagement within the cap, and with the two members captured between the cap and the enlarged head of the pin. A frangible portion of the pin is severable in response to relative rotation between its nose and enlarged head to thereby destructively disassemble the locking device.

A fire door lock mechanism is provided. A handlebar is coupled to one end of an actuator whose the other end is connected with a push rod. A lock bolt is rotatably mounted in a lock cover mount which accommodates a glide mount used to drive the push rod to move horizontally. When the actuator receives a depression force from the handlebar, the actuator is driven to rotate and induces the push rod to move horizontally. By the movement from the push rod, the lock bolt is driven to rotate to engage or disengage the lock mechanism. A partition and a fire piece are coupled to the glide mount. The fire piece melts at a high temperature during a fire, making the partition moved by a force from an elastic member connected thereto and cause the lock bolt to be engaged with the partition and maintained in a locked state.

A fire retardant panel door and door frame that prevents the spread of fire through the door during a fire. The fire retardant panel door has at least one door panel and stiles and rails. The door panel includes an interior center composite section formed by a first plurality of layers of intumescent materials and a first plurality of layers of fire resistant materials disposed between and laminated to a pair of outer sections formed of wood for enclosing the interior center composite section to form a composite laminated door panel. Each of the stiles includes a first center core formed of wood enclosed by a second plurality of layers of intumescent materials and a second plurality of layers of fire resistant materials; and the second layers of intumescent and fire resistant materials are enclosed by a first applique layer formed of wood to form a composite laminated stile. Each of the rails includes a second center core formed of wood enclosed by a third plurality of layers of intumescent materials and a third plurality of layers of fire resistant materials; and the third layers of intumescent and fire resistant materials are enclosed by a second applique layer formed of wood to form a composite laminated rail. The first, second, and third plurality of layers of intumescent materials are activated to expand upon exposure to heat and/or fire to prevent the heat and/or fire from passing through at least one door panel, the stiles and the rails of the panel door during a fire for at least 90 minutes. At least one door panel is connected to the panel door by tongue and groove joints; and the tongue and groove joints have a fourth plurality of layers of intumescent materials and a fourth plurality of layers of fire resistant materials in the tongue and groove joints; and wherein the fourth plurality of layers of fire resistant materials in the tongue and groove joints are activated to expand upon exposure to heat and/or fire to seal the joints in order to prevent the heat and/or fire from passing through the panel door during a fire for at least 90 minutes.

A latch assembly is provided for a track device that includes a first track member and a second track member. The latch assembly comprises a latch handle mounted to the first track member and a latch seat provided on the second track member. The latch handle includes a latching portion and an unlatching member. The latching portion of the latch handle is releasably engaged with the latch seat, thereby preventing sliding movement of the first track member relative to the second track member. The unlatching member is operable to urge the latching portion to be disengaged from the latch seat, thereby allowing the sliding movement of the first track member relative to the second track member. Thus, the unlatching operation and pulling operation of a drawer plate to which the firs track member is mounted can be accomplished by only one hand.