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US 12,378,080 B2Granted
Continuous conveyor belt
AssigneeLawrence Equipment, Inc.
InventorEric Clay Lawrence
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for using a continuous conveyor belt. One of the systems includes a conveyor belt adapted to move a plurality of comestibles and having i) a first edge, ii) a second edge opposite the first edge, iii) a first row of apertures that is substantially parallel to the first edge, and iv) a second row of apertures that is substantially parallel to the second edge.
Claims20
A system comprising:
- a conveyor belt adapted to move a plurality of comestibles and having i) a first edge, ii) a second edge opposite the first edge, iii) a first row of apertures that is substantially parallel to the first edge, and iv) a second row of apertures that is substantially parallel to the second edge, wherein:
- the conveyer belt comprises opposing aperture row pairs on opposite sides of the conveyer belt and that comprise the first row and the second row of apertures, and
- at least one opposing aperture row pair including the first row of apertures and the second row of apertures are configured to accommodate a forming tool to align the first edge with respect to the second edge during a welding process.
A method comprising:
- aligning a first row of apertures at a first end of a conveyor belt with a second row of apertures at a second end of the conveyor belt using a forming tool configured to retain the first row of apertures and the second row of apertures during a welding process, the conveyor belt comprising
- i) a first end portion that includes a) the first row of apertures at the first end of the conveyer belt, b) a first plurality of regions that each surround a corresponding aperture from the first row of apertures, and c) a second plurality of regions between sequential regions from the first plurality of regions, and
- ii) a second end portion that includes a) the second row of apertures at the second end of the conveyer belt, b) a third plurality of regions that each surround a corresponding aperture from the second row of apertures, and c) a fourth plurality of regions between sequential regions from the third plurality of regions;
- welding, while the first row of apertures and the second row of apertures are retained by the forming tool, corresponding regions from the second plurality of regions and the fourth plurality of regions;
- and
- welding the first end portion of the conveyor belt with the second end portion of the conveyor belt.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.