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IBM flash storage helps snap 22-quarter downslide
IBM storage sales rose in the first quarter of 2017, for the first time in more than five years.
IBM snapped a 22-quarter string of storage declines on the strength of flash hardware and software-defined products, according to its earnings report this week. Big Blue didn't give much detail on its storage revenue numbers, except to say storage hardware increased 7%, with all-flash arrays growing by more than 10% over last year. CFO Martin Schroeter said IBM flash storage drove the hardware surge, across midrange and high-end platforms.
"Storage grew after repositioning for flash across our portfolio," Schroeter said on the earnings call.
"In storage, we continue to see the shift in value toward software-defined environment, where we continue to lead the market. We again had double-digit revenue growth in software-defined storage, which is not reported in our system segment," he said. "Storage software now represents more than 40% of our total storage revenue. Storage gross margins are down as hardware continues to be impacted by pricing pressure."
IBM did not provide figure for its storage revenue, but IDC put IBM's first quarter storage systems revenue in 2016 at $476 million. That would place its first quarter 2017 hardware revenue slightly above $500 million.
Storage is part of IBM's systems group. That group's $1.4 billion revenue in the quarter declined 16%, with Z Systems mainframes and Power Systems servers taking big hits.
The improved storage sales come less than a year after Ed Walsh took over as general manager of IBM storage and software-defined infrastructure. In a February interview with SearchSolidStateStorage, Walsh highlighted flash as a key to IBM's storage strategy.
"Our portfolio is going to be 'flash first.' IBM sells a lot of hybrid block arrays and we'll obviously continue to give you choices," Walsh said. "But we definitely see flash becoming pervasive. We also are thinking through flash for every workload, which is why we have multiple flash products."
The IBM flash storage strategy didn't start with Walsh. The vendor acquired all-flash pioneer Texas Memory Systems in 2012, and also launched all-flash versions of its traditional storage platforms.
Of course, every other major storage vendor is also fully stocked with all-flash systems, so IBM still has a battle ahead of it. The IBM flash storage portfolio will face fresh challenges. We're about to enter a new generation of flash products with the advent of NVM Express. Over the next few quarters, we'll see if the first quarter of 2017 was a turning point or just a blip for Big Blue.
Court to Dell EMC: Nexsan Unity branding gets priorityDell EMC
Nexsan won a court victory over Dell EMC, right in the giant's back yard.
A Massachusetts federal district court sided with Nexsan Inc. this week in its trademark dispute with Dell EMC over use of the Unity brand name. The ruling gives Nexsan Unity priority based on the timing of Nexsan's patent request. The decision also dismisses Dell EMC's claim of patent infringement.
It allows Nexsan to continue selling its Nexsan Unity multiprotocol storage array. Unless Dell EMC decides to appeal, the Hopkinton, Mass.-based division of Dell Technologies would need to come up with new branding for the EMC Unity midrange array it launched last year. Dell spokeswoman Lauren Lee said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
Nexsan CEO Ron Bienvenu hailed the court's decision in a prepared statement. "Nexsan filed its Unity trademark application first, and so we are extremely pleased today that the court has given Nexsan priority."
The dispute arose nearly a year ago, as EMC was finalizing its merger with Dell. Nexsan Unity was launched in April 2016, one week before EMC formally christened its rebranded VNX/VNXe hybrid arrays at EMC World 2016.
EMC claims it used the Unity branding in customer presentations as early as March 2015 and threatened Nexsan with legal action unless it abandoned the brand name. Nexsan countered by filing a complaint for declaratory judgment for priority to use the mark.
The decision hinged on the timing of the respective vendors' trademark request with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office. In its court filing, Nexsan said it registered the trademark and serial number for Nexsan Unity on March 22, 2016 with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office. EMC filed its patent registration 38 days later, on April 29, 2016, and formally unveiled the EMC Unity product on May 2.
Nexsan is wholly owned by NXSN, a holding company owned by Spear Point Management Capital LLC and Gsubsidiary Inc. (formerly Imation Corp.). It claims more than 100 customer installations of Nexsan Unity since the product became generally available in September. The platform supports block, file and object storage with enterprise file sync and share.
Dell paid more than $60 billion to acquire EMC in 2016. The merger closed last September, creating a company with annual revenue of more than $74 billion.
Tegile funding round gives it $33 million for NVMe pushStorage
Tegile Systems closed a $33 million funding round that the flash array vendor intends to use to invest heavily in NVMe, the next big thing in solid-state storage.
Like other flash vendors, Tegile has been looking toward non-volatile memory express (NVMe) for months. It stressed during its last product rollout in November 2016 that its new all-flash and hybrid arrays would support NVMe when drives become available.
The new Tegile funding will help market the NVMe systems.
Tegile rival Pure Storage today said it would ship an NVMe array in July. Tegile CEO Rohit Kshetrapal said his company is poised to ship NVMe as soon as drives become available.
Kshetrapal said current Tegile systems have four available slots for NVMe drives, and the vendor will also have an all-NVMe platform that it demonstrated last year at VMworld.
"We'll use this funding to continue our vision of building out storage at the speed of memory," he said. "We already have a high-density flash system. Now [with NVMe], you can get half a petabyte of data in 3U and accelerate performance to less than a sub-millisecond level," Kshetrapal said.
Storage media vendor Western Digital led the Tegile funding round, which brings Tegile's total funding to $178 million. Venture firms Meritech Capital, Capricorn Investment Group and Cross Creek Capital also participated in the Tegile funding round.
Both Western Digital and SanDisk — now part of Western Digital — were previous Tegile investors. They are also Tegile business partners. Tegile gets its flash drives from SanDisk and sells the SanDisk InfiniFlash enclosure arrays as Tegile IntelliFlash HD array through an OEM deal. Kshetrapal said the relationship is important for Tegile's product development.
"They provide us access [to NAND flash] when the market is in tight supply, and now we partner on development of our next set of platforms," he said.
Kshetrapal said he has no wild headcount expansion plans, although the Tegile funding will be used to help fuel sales. "We're looking for growth at the right cost," he said. "We can grow new markets and go into joint ventures with other companies. It's always been about the balance of performance and cost."
Kshetrapal said Tegile will build out its installed base by going after Nimble Storage customers now that Hewlett Packard Enterprise is buying Nimble. "We're seeing a lot of reach out" from Nimble customers and channel partners, he said.
Toshiba ships capacity-optimized 8 TB HDD
Toshiba has started volume shipments of its MG Series 8 TB HDD — the largest capacity-optimized, 3.5-inch enterprise HDD the company has ever produced.
The 7,200 rpm, 6 Gbps SATA HDD improves sustained transfer-rate performance by 12% over the prior MG04ACA model, according to Toshiba. The vendor said the capacity and performance characteristics of the new MG05ACA800 8 TB HDD would match up well for use cases such as public and private cloud deployments, digital archives and data protection.
The new capacity-optimized enterprise 8 TB HDD is designed for round-the-clock operation and has a workload rating of 550 total TB transferred per year, according to Toshiba. The vendor said the MG05ACA800 is the first Toshiba enterprise capacity HDD to support a new industry-standard host-initiated power-disable feature to improve device management. The 8 TB HDD also supports Toshiba Persistent Write Cache technology to protect against data loss in the event of a sudden power outage.
John Rydning, research vice president for HDDs at International Data Corp. (IDC), said the new capacity-optimized 3.5-inch 8 TB HDD is important for Toshiba to be able to compete with Seagate and Western Digital in the enterprise HDD market. Seagate and Western Digital already ship 3.5-inch 8 TB enterprise drives.
IDC predicts 8 TB capacity drives will have the highest shipment volume this year in the capacity-optimized HDD segment. IDC expects the petabyte demand for capacity-optimized 3.5-inch HDDs will grow by more than 40% in 2017 compared to 2016, according to Rydning.
Toshiba also sells 6 Gbps and 12 Gbps SAS "enterprise performance" 2.5-inch HDDs, at rotation speeds of 15,000 rpm and 10,500 rpm. Other enterprise options include capacity-optimized 12 Gbps SAS 3.5-inch HDDs, at 7,200 rpm, and cloud-targeted 6 Gbps SATA 3.5-inch HDDs, at 7,200 rpm.
Earlier this year, Toshiba launched a new line of 3.5-inch MN Series HDDs — at capacities of 4 TB, 6 TB and 8 TB — to try to bridge the gap between its high-end enterprise capacity HDDs and entry-level desktop HDDs. The 7,200 rpm, 6 Gbps SATA MN Series HDDs MN Series HDDs target mid-level, entry-level and small office NAS enclosures; remote and home office backup and archival storage; and fixed-content object storage, according to Toshiba.
Qumulo funding set for sales/marketing expansionQumulo, Scale out NAS
Qumulo closed a $30 million funding round today, which the scale-out NAS startup will likely use to hire more former Isilon employees.
Qumulo is striving to replace Isilon as the scale-out NAS system of choice in today's data centers. The company's DNA is heavy with former Isilon executives and engineers, who helped build Isilon into a $2.25 billion acquisition target for EMC in 2010.
A band of original Isilon engineers founded Qumulo in 2012. When one of the founders, Peter Godman, moved from CEO to CTO in late 2016, he hired another former Isilon hand, Bill Richter, as CEO. Richter has since brought in a new VP of worldwide sales (Eric Scollard) and vice president of marketing (Jay Wampold), both former Isiloners. Now Qumulo is poised to significantly build out its sale and marketing staffs with its $30 million funding haul. The Qumulo funding round brings its total investment to more than $130 million.
"This is the right time to grow out sales and marketing," Richter said. "We're hiring as fast as we can." He said the 150-person company will add its first international offices this year, either in Europe or Asia.
Qumulo funding will also make its way to R&D
Richter said Qumulo is still investing heavily in research and development as well to help it take on NAS giants Dell EMC Isilon and NetApp.
He said Qumulo's advantages over those vendors are that its engineers are doing this for the second time, and they have designed file systems for the 21st century.
"NetApp was built in the 1990s and Isilon was built in 2001," he said. "None of the other products out there now are built for the modern world. They're not software-defined, there's no integrated analytics. These file systems are incredibly hard to build. Our guys started in 2012. It's their second time going through this, and by starting when we did, we were aware of what the modern world looked like. We can swing for the fences."
Richter said Qumulo has already done most of the heavy lifting by building in features such as erasure coding and snapshots into its file system. "Those are big rocks to put in the bag," he said. "Now we get to focus on pure innovation."
Another focus will be on the cloud. Last year, Qumulo signed an OEM deal with Hewlett Packard Enterprise for HPE to sell Qumulo software on HPE Apollo servers. Richter said he will look for more OEM partners, as well as integration with Amazon and other public cloud providers.
"We're doing a lot of work behind the scenes with public clouds," Richter said. "You can't found a company in Seattle in 2012 and not build a public cloud strategy."
Qumulo claims it had a 425% year-over-year growth in petabytes shipped to customers, but does not say what its revenue growth is. Richter makes it clear that the young company is not yet close to break-even and the current funding likely will not be its last round.
"We're in investment mode," he said. "We're hiring sales people as fast as we can. At the same time, we're certainly cognizant of building a business structure with a long-term, sustainable profit model."
Northern Light Venture Capital led the latest Qumulo funding round with previous investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Madrona Venture Group, Top Tier Capital Partners and Tyche Partners contributing.
ZeroStack gives Intelligent Cloud Platform Nimble back-endNimble Storage, ZeroStack
ZeroStack's "private cloud in a box" software is now available on Nimble Storage boxes. The vendors this week launched a joint partnership to sell ZeroStack Intelligent Cloud Platform software on Nimble Storage arrays. The goal is to provide a pre-tested, automated private cloud system with the ability to connect to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud in a hybrid setup.
The partnership comes in Nimble's final days as an independent company, pending Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) closing on its $1.2 billion Nimble acquisition.
Kamesh Pemmaraju, ZeroStack's vice president of product management, describes the Intelligent Cloud Platform as "a self-driving private cloud." ZeroStack manages and supports the platform, either on appliances it sells or on partner hardware. ZeroStack software can move workloads back and forth from AWS to VMware-centric on-premises workloads for a hybrid cloud setup.
Customers running Intelligent Cloud Platform on other hardware can use Nimble as back-end storage. Intelligent Cloud Platform will enable customers to manage Nimble Storage volumes through the ZeroStack interfaces, supporting Nimble features such as quality of service, deduplication and encryption.
With a KVM-based hypervisor built in, Intelligent Cloud Platform can bring hyper-converged-type cloud capabilities to a Nimble array.
"This is a Nutanix killer," Pemmaraju said, referring to the hyper-converged leader that is expanding into private cloud-building.
Of course, the partnership could mean zero if HPE decides to discontinue it. But ZeroStack's Pemmaraju said his company already partners with HPE to sell its software on HPE servers, 3PAR StoreServ storage arrays and SimpliVity hyper-converged systems.
"We already work closely with HPE on a number of fronts," he said. "That relationship is strong and we're happy about this [Nimble] acquisition."
ZeroStack software is also available on Dell EMC, Cisco, Lenovo and Supermicro servers. Appliances sold by ZeroStack use Supermicro servers underneath.
GDPR compliance grips U.S. firms, tooVeritas
U.S. organizations are taking General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance at least as seriously as their European Union counterparts, according to a recent survey commissioned by Veritas Technologies.
The GDPR passed in the EU will put in place privacy rules across all EU countries. Organizations that fail to comply can be fined up to 20 million Euros or 4% of their worldwide revenue. The regulations call for organizations to disclose retention times for personal information and allow customers to demand organizations to erase their personal data if they do not consent to its collection. In many cases, companies must notify authorities of data breaches within 24 hours. To reach GDPR compliance, many companies must make significant changes to their business practices around collecting and storing data. Organizations must be compliant by May 26, 2018.
In a survey of 900 companies worldwide with at least 1,000 employees, Veritas found less than 31% of global companies meet the minimum standards today. That may not be a great surprise, considering companies still have nearly 14 months to comply. But it is a surprise that U.S organizations are running ahead of those in the U.K. and European Union in meeting GDPR compliance. Of 200 U.S. companies in the survey, 35% were in compliance, and U.S. companies plan on spending 20% more than European companies to comply.
A PwC survey released in January that polled 200 U.S. companies with more than 500 employees found 77% plan to spend at least $1 million on GDPR compliance.
"The expectation was that European organizations would be further ahead," said Zach Bosin, Veritas director of solutions marketing. "But American companies have taken a thoughtful approach and started investing in becoming compliant."
Why should U.S. companies care about an EU regulation? Because GDPR applies to any data held in connection to an EU resident. Any U.S. organization selling to customers in Europe would have to follow GDPR guidelines. That includes e-commerce companies who reach a global customer base.
Organizations need to know what personally identifiable information (PII) they have on European residents, and they must be able to present that information upon request by consumers to be in GDPR compliance.
Veritas and other data protection vendors say they can help because their technology is already used to store vast amounts of companies' data in backup and archiving systems. Bosin said Veritas has created a framework for staying GDPR compliant built around its products such as NetBackup, Enterprise Vault, Data Insight and its Resiliency Platform. The vendor is also offering assessment services to help organizations gain GDPR compliance.
Bosin said the five key stages for becoming GDPR compliant are locating the relevant data, searching it, minimizing data through retention and deletion policies, protecting data transparently with audit report and monitoring data so a company can respond to a breach within 72 hours.
"We will integrate more advance search, classification, and protection tools in our products," Bosin said.
New Drobo NAS eyes home business, department workgroupsStorage
Low-end NAS specialist Drobo is pushing further down market, launching a performance-oriented hybrid NAS aimed at small businesses and distributed collaboration.
The five-bay 5N2 Drobo NAS is a desktop model that sits between Drobo's 5C and 5D direct-attached storage and its block-based B810i and B1200i iSCSI midrange SANs.
Raw storage tops out at 60 TB with 12 TB SATA disks, with 48 TB of effective capacity. Performance characteristics include the ability to bond two Gigabit Ethernet ports for adaptive link failover. Linking does not require the purchase of special routers. A sixth drive slot, known as the Drobo Accelerator Bay, supports a hot data flash cache with mSATA devices.
Drobo said the 5N2 provides twice the performance of its 5N NAS and boosts Drobo file sharing up to seven times. DroboDR disaster recovery allows site-to-site replication between source and target Drobo NAS devices, including user configurations and settings.
The new Drobo storage targets media, prosumer and small businesses with about 250 users.
The 5N2 Drobo NAS marks the vendor's second product release after years of transition. Founder Geoff Barrall launched Drobo in 2005 and served as CEO until 2009. Barrall later started file-sharing startup Connected Data, which acquired Drobo in 2013.
Connected Data planned to integrate its Transporter file sharing and data migration technology across Drobo NAS and SAN devices, but that integration never took shape. Instead, Connected Data targeted Transporter at the enterprise market and spun out Drobo as a separate company, selling it in 2015 to a group of investors headed by former Brocade Communications' executive Mihir Shah, Drobo's current CEO. Connected Data subsequently was acquired by Imation Corp., the holding company for Nexsan Inc.
Drobo employees are glad to put the turmoil behind them and concentrate on Drobo's NAS roots, CTO Rod Harrison said.
"It took us about nine months to prime the pipeline and get new products out. We have more than 400,000 units sold and will have a lot of new stuff coming this year," Harrison said.
As with other Drobo storage gear, the 5N2 appliance supports 64 TB thinly provisioned volumes with its BeyondRAID data protection. Journaling is protected by internal backup battery. Data in flight is written to an embedded USB flash stick.
The MyDrobo software platform provides remote data access with end-to-end encryption. DroboAccess allows mobile file sharing across Drobo storage. List pricing for Drobo 5N2 starts at $499.
Reduxio Systems snares venture funds, moves closer to IPOStorage
Storage startup Reduxio Systems has bulked up its venture capital, a stepping stone to a potential public stock offering.
On Monday, the hybrid flash vendor nabbed $22.5 million in Series C financing from private and institutional investors. It is the first of two tranches anticipated in a funding round subscribed at $32 million. An additional $9.5 million is expected to be finalized by the second quarter.
London-based C5 Capital is the lead investor, with participation from original investors Jerusalem Venture Partners and Carmel Ventures, both based in Israel. Institutional investors Intel Capital and Seagate Technology also participated. The startup has collected approximately $65 million in equity capital since its 2015 debut.
Reduxio Systems sells branded block storage software bundled on standard Seagate servers. Its TimeOS provides continuous data protection with BackDating, which timestamps metadata to allow data to be recovered from any point in time. The software tiers deduplicated writes to disk and keeps active data on flash storage.
Proceeds will help Reduxio Systems expand its engineering, marketing and sales teams. A planned software upgrade this year will support cloud tiering and shared storage, said Mike Grandinetti, Reduxio's chief marketing and corporate strategy officer.
"We are an appliance-based company, but 99% of the customer value we provide is in software. Over time, our vision is to be a fully software-defined model," Grandinetti said.
Grandinetti said Reduxio has about 150 storage arrays deployed by more than 100 customers.
Reduxio's executive team includes several data storage industry veterans. CEO Mark Weiner in 2010 sold clustered NAS vendor Exanet to Dell, which integrated the technology in its EqualLogic and entry-level PowerVault iSCSI systems. Prior to that, Weiner sold virtualization startup StorAge Networking Technologies to LSI Corp. (now part of Avago Technologies).
Grandinetti claims Reduxio Systems can reshape storage "very much the way NetApp did 20 years ago." What Reduxio needs to avoid in that analogy are the fitful starts that stalled NetApp's momentum in flash and the cloud.
"We're not in this for the short term; this is a legacy play for all of us," Grandinetti said. "Our ideal is to take this thing as far as we can, and that would mean an initial public offering."
Avere Cloud NAS receives Google funding injectionAvere Systems
Google is throwing its investment weight behind the Avere Cloud NAS technology.
Google joined Avere Systems' $14 million Series E funding round that closed today, highlighting the importance of Avere's focus on the private cloud over the past few years. The vendor created virtual versions of FXT Avere Cloud NAS filers for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud in 2014, Google Compute Engine in 2015 and Microsoft Azure in 2016.
Avere founder and CEO Ron Bianchini said revenue from the cloud should save Avere from having to raise more funding after this round, which brings the vendor's total to $97 million.
"This is it," Bianchini said of Avere's funding. "Our goal is for this to take us to break-even in 2018. We've been waiting for this day for a while."
Most of the funding will go toward outbound marketing, with plans to invest in the product development to keep up with the latest cloud technology.
Bianchini said Avere's Avere cloud NAS revenue almost doubled in 2016, with close to half of new bookings coming from cloud business.
"We started in 2008 very much as a data center company. Then we started our transition to the cloud in 2014, and it's been a really big change in the company since then," Bianchini said.
'Not a one-trick pony'
The change began with Avere's FXT Edge Filers in 2012. Until then, its FXT Core Filers used flash to accelerate the performance of NAS on disk systems. FXT Edge Filers serve as gateways to move data into the cloud. Avere followed with Virtual FXT (vFXT) Edge Filers starting in 2014 that serve as NAS on public clouds, allowing customers to connect on-premises storage to AWS, Google Cloud and Azure services.
Bianchini said many Avere customers use the vendor to store data both on-premises and in the cloud.
"People don't want one product in the data center and a different product in the cloud," he said. "We can do both. We can play in the data center, in the cloud or as a hybrid. We're not a one-trick pony."
In addition to NFS and SMB protocols, Avere Cloud NAS appliances support object storage from IBM Cleversafe, Western Digital, SwiftStack and others through its C2N Cloud Core NAS platform.
As a private company, Avere does not disclose its revenue, but a source close to the company put its bookings at $7 million in the fourth quarter of 2016 and $22 million for the year. Those bookings were up from $4.8 million in the fourth quarter and $14.5 million in 2015.
Previous Avere investors Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tenaya Capital and Western Digital Technologies participated in the Series E funding.


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Contact Info / Websites
- AlbertAnimation
All 7 game Reviews
Actionscript Tutorial.
Rated 5 / 5 stars
O_O i learned IT! FINALLY!
Wow >.> Good no Copy Paste tutorials.. which still didnt work on me
but this did! :]
Blan's Guide to Buttons
Rated 5 / 5 stars
I am not worthy
-kneels down-
you are Amazing! ive been trying to learn Buttons for over 4 months now!!
you have helped me GREATLY!!
just Amazing!!!!
Spriting with samus!
Rated 1 / 5 stars
1/5.. and 2/10
hey buddy... yellow font color...i didnt even bother, you might want to change that
and re-submit it, alot of people i am sure will, and already commented you on the text color so i didnt bother to get past the first part, i am sorry, try chaning the font color to something that is easy on the eyes, but nice preloader, and i hope it is as
good as it claims to be.
Obie super smash
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars
hey it was pretty good but..
>.> the champion beat me >.>
that bastard lol
good game though
i liked it
graphics could of been better though.
thanks for the mark and the advice!
stick figures 102
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars
hey that is pretty good lol
thank you! ^_^
nice um u should of put how to show movement in running
but over all good! ^_^
Family Guy :Fighting Game
Rated 4 / 5 stars
you need to have more characters better moves
i didnt like it because i fought myslf kinda crapy but it is th gam that counts try getting more characters it would look better maybe meg as a guy well whatever makesit better right good game try having onjly 1 player peace tight game
indiana jones
Rated 4 / 5 stars
it was okay make it longer and harder
i liked it

subset: commoncrawl


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Bombeck remembered
The new year is a good time to remember Erma's philosophy
She wasn't a politician, never held public office, but offered advice from her heart that seemed to heal our souls and tickle our funny bones. I heard Erma Bombeck speak many years ago. She addressed a newspaper audience at our annual press convention at the stately Brown Palace. She confessed her addiction to smoking, which likely ended her life before her time.
As we end 2016 and begin the challenges of a new year, we all can take a lesson from Erma.
If I had my life to live over …
By Erma Bombeck
I would have invited friends over to dinner, even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
I would have eaten the popcorn in the good living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have burned the pink candle sculptured like a rose before it melted in storage.
I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more while watching life.
I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I wasn't there for the day.
I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment, realizing that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
When my kids kissed impetuously, I would never have said, "Later, now go get washed up for dinner."
There would have been more "I love you's" and more "I'm sorrys," but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute—look at it and really see it—live it. And never give it back!
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Football Activities Near
New Orleans, LA
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Join Advantage today and look for the logo to save on eligible events.


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827 Squire Drive
Commute to Downtown Wellington
Almost all errands require a car.
About your score
827 Squire Drive has a Walk Score of 2 out of 100. This location is a Car-Dependent neighborhood so almost all errands require a car.
This location is in the Paddock Park of Wellington neighborhood in Wellington.
Explore how far you can travel by car, bus, bike and foot from 827 Squire Drive.
827 Squire Drive is in the Paddock Park of Wellington neighborhood. Paddock Park of Wellington is the 9th most walkable neighborhood in Wellington with a neighborhood Walk Score of 11.


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As discussed in previous posts of this blog, a surprising number of charities make use of professional fundraisers to solicit funds on their behalf. The surprising part is that this occurs despite the fact these professional fundraisers often retain large portions of donations in the form of fees. The end result many times is that the fundraisers actually get more of the donations than the charities get. This phenomenon is present in advocacy and political groups as well, and extends to both ends of the political spectrum.
Take, for instance, the data collected by the New York Attorney General, whose 2012 report tracks fundraising campaigns conducted in New York that year (many of which were nationwide campaigns). The New York report details the donations collected by professional fundraisers and the percentage of the donations that were actually received by the nonprofit. It turns out many of these organizations are well-known advocacy groups, and inefficient use of fundraisers is all to common among them. The following chart details the percentage of donor funds that made it to the respective nonprofit (from the most recent New York report), with left-leaning advocacy groups in blue and right-leaning advocacy groups in red.
|Percentage of Donations Remitted to the Nonprofit
While those of you who are left leaning are sure to point out that less than 5% of funds raised for Tea Party Patriots, Faith and Freedom Coalition, or the Family Research Council ever made it to those organizations, those who are right-leaning are likely to find solace in the much better performance of the Heritage Foundation and quickly criticize the Brady Campaign and Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for their inefficient fundraising practices. What should we all be taking from this? Perhaps it is that the inefficient use of third-party fundraisers is not unique to a particular type of nonprofit or political persuasion. All the more reason to demand better from the organizations we support, regardless of their political agenda.


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Saturday, January 3, 2015
100 Happy Days. Day 2.
100 Happy Days 1/03/2015 2
About Sushmita
Proud Indian. Keen Learner. Blogger. Impulsive. At times compulsive.Crazy.Sorted.High on Life.Absolutely in Love.Selective Loner.Bourbon lover.That's about it
100 Happy Days
Expressed by Sushmita at 1/03/2015
Labels: 100 Happy Days
"Proud Indian. Student. Blogger. Impulsive. At times compulsive. Crazy. Confused. High on Life. Absolutely in Love. Selective Loner. That's about it." That probably says it all.
2 comments:
- Aseem said...
Loved the first part of this one :). Got this mail too and hoping to read the 2nd one soon.
He seems to have quite an interesting way to narrate the Ramayana :D.
- January 16, 2015 at 2:48 AM
- Sushmita said...
The narrative is interesting, however the thought process behind it is pretty one sided. A typical mythological story telling, without any scope of alternate thinking approach for the readers.
- January 18, 2015 at 1:14 AM
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The Reds are preparing for their second full campaign under Jurgen Klopp following the German coach's appointment as the club's new manager back in October 2015.
Klopp led the Reds to a fourth-placed finish last term as they secured a return to the Champions League in his first full season in charge.
Liverpool were talked about as potential title contenders last season but their form tailed off in the second half of the campaign as they instead set their sights on a fourth-placed finish.
Klopp will be hoping to make further progress with his team next season and steer them towards a Premier League title challenge.
However, Birmingham City boss Redknapp feels that it's unlikely the Reds will be genuine title contenders next season, although he has been very impressed with Klopp's work at Anfield.
Redknapp is quoted as saying by the Daily Express: "I don't see Jurgen Klopp taking his team to the title although he is an outstanding manager and they will be right up there.
"Liverpool will always be one of my favourite clubs. There's nowhere like Anfield when the Kop is singing.
"There is nothing better in England than hearing that. But, in terms of being champions of England, I don't think they are quite there yet.
"Of course if Jurgen gets them going like he did in the first half of last season… then who knows?"
Liverpool have made three signings so far this summer as Klopp prepares his team for a return to the Champions League, bringing in Dominic Solanke, Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson.
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text:
- 5 Beds
- 5 Baths
- 4 Half Ba
- 10843 Sq. Ft.
- Extra Kitchen
- Guest House
- Gym
- Media Room
- Office
- Swimming Pool
- Wine Cellar
Welcome to 9236 Hollow Way Road. This incredible estate features well thought-out design and impeccable craftsmanship. Located in Preston Hollow, this home provides easy access to major highways and all the best dining and entertainment that Dallas has to offer. The home sits in a quiet, private neighborhood known for its luxury homes and great location. With endless amenities, beautiful upgrades and perfect location, this house is truly the home of your dreams.
Custom designed and built, this home features an intricate and exquisite design that can be seen in every aspect of the home. An open and welcoming floor plan creates a livable feel throughout its over ten-thousand square feet of space. Greeting you at the home is a gated roundabout that features a beautifully crafted brick and stained concrete driveway. The pattern from the driveway is echoed in the home's entryway floors and backyard, creating a natural flow of design through the entire house. Design features include crafted ceilings, custom floors and walls, crystal doorknobs, archway entrances and a spiraling staircase. This three-story estate was built with stunning symmetry that emphasizes the original charm found in traditional architecture.
In addition to the multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, this home includes two living areas, a formal dining room, a den with wine cellar, media room, gameroom, craft room, two secret rooms, two laundry areas on separate floors, and a connected apartment that includes a full bedroom, bathroom, living room, laundry room and kitchenette. Three hidden staircases and three open staircases provide easy access to all points of the home.
The home also features an outdoor oasis, which includes pool, spa, covered patio, outdoor kitchen, half bath, outdoor shower, covered cabana, full-size sand volleyball court and lush landscaping. Other details in the home include two garages (five-car total), a lighted driveway and entry, gated motor court, six fireplaces (four indoor, two outdoor), ample storage, whole-home sound and security systems and water filtration system throughout the house.


text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Dec 29, 1981
|Filing date
|Apr 28, 1980
|Priority date
|Apr 28, 1980
|Publication number
|John O. Roeser
|Original Assignee
|Otto Engineering, Inc.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (15), Classifications (12)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
This invention relates to electrical switches, and more particularly, to a precision, multiposition, non snap acting, human digit operated switch.
Moving boats, off road vehicles, helicopters, airplanes, etc. encounter sudden and sometimes unexpected "G"forces when in operation. Human operators of these moving devices may be called upon to perform electrical switching control operations during encounter with these "G"forces in addition to operations during normal "G"force conditions. The switches for these switching operations are often associated with a manual grip mechanism which provides multiple control functions with switch actuation occuring simultaneously with other control operations such as movement of the entire grip in a steering operation for a vehicle or boat or a joystick for an airplane.
Thumb or finger operated snap acting switches have usually been heretofore used in such applications for their known good electrical characteristics in positive switching. However, in addition to being physically larger, the heretofore used snap switches, to impart needed contact pressures and other required characteristics have other undesirable characteristics. The normal "snap action"operation of these switches requires changing input forces and/or sudden releases of forces, both often in the range of two to five pounds usually associated with some overcentering mechanism and internal spring, the input forces being provided by the thumb or finger and the reaction to these forces being taken up either in the grip, or in the operating thumb or finger, or both. When operated during a sudden or unexpected high "G"force environment, say 8 to 50 "Gs", these input and release forces can be greatly magnified. This may make actuating movement difficult or the sudden absence of needed input force at trip-point can sometimes cause unwanted movement of the grip mechanism by the operator, etc. Since the high "G"force encounters usually occur at dangerous times when control by the operator is ofen critical and precise controlled switch actuation by the operator is most needed, it can be seen that the elimination of the changing force characteristics involved in snap action switches is advantageous.
It is important that the switches be very stable and not self actuate from an "off"to an "on"position (or vice versa) when an aircraft, boat or vehicle is subjected to sudden shock that may produce transitory "G"force on the order of 50 "Gs". Thus the elimination of snap force characteristics can not be at sacrifice of stability under shock conditions or precision.
Further as vehicles and planes become more sophisticated, more and more control features are often packed into control grips whereby space is at a premium. Thus there is considerable need and demand for a more compact precision switch which may be successively actuated into a number of different positions. However, because human and vehicular safety may often be at stake, the compactness can not be obtained at the sacrifice of ruggedness, long actuating life, repeatable precision, stability under shock conditions, good electrical characteristics and good "feel".
The invention provides a non snap action, multiposition, rugged, sealed switch which is compact yet precise. Very small actuator travel and low actuation force is required to cause actuation of the movable contact from center off to engagement with various fixed contacts. The geometry of the movable parts of the switch translates the low travel movement into good movement of the movable contact toward, high unit pressure with, and wiping engagement with the fixed contact. This may be accomplished with very low input actuation force (typically in the vicinity of 16 oz.) and is easily supplied in all modes of actuation by a human thumb or finger.
The actuator is pivotally mounted on an internal array of switch casing pivot surfaces located in predetermined relation to mode locator slots formed above the pivot surfaces. The actuator is formed with a separate set of pivot surfaces for receiving the movable contact member which initially pivots from the center off position with the actuator member. After generally radial movement to engagement of the movable contact member with a fixed contact, and upon further movement of the actuator toward overtravel stop position, the movable contact pivots on the separate set of pivot surfaces on the actuator and on the fixed contact while maintaining solid wiping contact engagement. The configuration of the parts now introduces a general change in the direction of the movement of the movable contact which moves downwardly into engagement with an abutment means formed in the switch casing while maintaining engagement with the fixed contact. The abutment means has surfaces which constrains movement of the movable contact away from the fixed contact under certain conditions. The overtravel stop function is provided by side surfaces in the central switch opening which are engageable by the actuator. When the actuator is in full overtravel stop position, the actuator is pivotal about an additional point, namely the stop surface, and small movement of the actuator about this new additional pivot point could undesirably break electrical contact between the movable contact member and the fixed contact but for the abutment means in the switch casing.
The switch casing pivot surfaces and the separate actuator pivot surfaces for a four position "on"center "off"switch embodiment (but not other embodiments) may be formed in aligned square arrays along with square arrays of complimentary coacting parts on the actuator and on the contact member so that pivotal action about one side of switch casing pivot surfaces causes pivotal action about the opposite side of the square on the separate actuator surfaces. All embodiments provide precision double hinge like action in all modes while maintaining easy assembly orientation with each other and with the mode locator slots formed in the top of the casing.
A single biasing spring is required, one end engaging the movable contact member, the other the switch casing, to serve the multiple functions of returning all parts to center off position, maintain the movable contact member against the separate pivot means on the actuator, maintain the actuator in operable relation to the switch casing pivot surfaces, overpower inertial movement of the moving parts under conditions of shock and sudden high "G"forces, help impart repeatable precision movements, and in relatively low amperage usages, be a part of the common terminal path so as to reduce cost and aid in assembly operations. A flexible seal which permits complex movement of the actuator is provided so that dust and other contaminants can be kept from the moving parts.
The switch, while providing many varied good electrical and mechanical characteristics and functions in very small size, has long actuation life, is relatively easily made and assembled and has few parts.
The invention will be explained in conjunction with illustrative embodiments shown in the accompanying drawings, in which
FIG. 1 is an end view of the top of a multiposition non snap switch formed in accordance with the invention which may be commercially made in the small overall approximate size shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3;
FIG. 2 is a side elevational view of the switch shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is an end view of the bottom of the switch shown in FIG. 2;
FIG. 4 is a sectional elevational view, greatly enlarged, of an embodiment using a common terminal for higher amperages, with portions in fragmentary section, 90� rotated along lines 4--4 of FIG. 1 with the right hand upper portions, except for the phantom lines, shown in the nonactuated position and the left hand and lower portions shown in an actuated position, some of the lines of the contact cut out slots (shown in FIG. 24) not being shown for purposes of not obscuring other detail;
FIG. 5 is an isolated sectional view of the outer switch casing alone, enlarged approximately double to size shown in FIG. 2 taken along lines 5--5 of FIG. 6;
FIG. 6 is an enlarged top end view of the switch casing disassociated with the other parts to show detail of construction, with the hub of the coacting actuator button of FIG. 7 being shown in dash lines to show relative size relationships;
FIG. 7 is a sectional view through the actuator button shaft to show the configuration of the under side of the actuator button taken along lines 7--7 of FIG. 2, with the actuator button and shaft being shown disassociated with the casing shown in FIGS. 5 and 6;
FIG. 8 is a side elevational view of the actuator shaft disassembled from the actuator button;
FIG. 9 is an end view of the actuator shaft shown in FIG. 8;
FIG. 10 is an isolated bottom view of the flexible sealing member used in the switch;
FIG. 11 is a sectional view along lines 11--11 of FIG. 10;
FIG. 12 is a sectional view along lines 12--12 of FIG. 13 of the bottom internal portion of the actuator rotated 90� from the position shown in FIG. 4 and which is shown isolated from the shaft of FIGS. 8 and 9 and in approximate double scale to the shaft to show details of construction;
FIG. 13 is a side elevational end view of the actuator portion shown in FIGS. 12 and 14;
FIG. 14 is a side elevational end view of the opposite end of the actuator portion shown in FIG. 13;
FIG. 15 is a side elevational view of the upper portion of the movable contact means rotated 90� from the position shown in FIG. 14;
FIG. 16 is a side view of movable contact portion bottom as viewed along lines 16--16 of FIG. 15;
FIG. 17 is a view along lines 17--17 of FIG. 15;
FIG. 18 is a sectional side elevational view along lines 18--18 of FIG. 19 of the upper insert portion of the switch casing rotated 90� from the position shown in FIG. 4;
FIG. 19 is a bottom view of the insert shown in FIG. 18;
FIG. 20 is a top view of the insert shown in FIGS. 18 and 19;
FIG. 21 is a sectional view along lines 21--21 of FIG. 23 of the middle switch casing insert shown in FIG. 4 rotated 90� ;
FIG. 22 is a bottom view of the insert shown in FIG. 21 and 23;
FIG. 23 is a top view of the insert shown in FIGS. 21 and 22;
FIG. 24 is a sectional view of the bottom switch closure insert along lines 24--24 of FIG. 25 and rotated 90� from the position shown in FIG. 4;
FIG. 25 is a top view of the insert shown in FIG. 24;
FIG. 26 is an enlarged perspective view of an embodiment of common terminal preferred for lower amperage applications which is inserted intermediate the bottom of the spring and the spring shoulder through an aperture shown in dash lines in FIG. 4 in substitution for the common terminal shown in that figure;
FIG. 27 is a diagrammatic presentation of the relationship of the parts when the switch is in normal center off nonactuated position;
FIG. 28 is a view similar to FIG. 27 showing partial actuation;
FIG. 29 is a view similar to FIGS. 27 and 28 showing full actuation;
FIG. 30 is an enlarged composite view of FIGS. 27, 28 and 29 superimposed on each other; and
FIG. 31 is a diagrammatic view showing the orientation of operating surfaces in alternate embodiments using the inventive concepts.
Referring first to FIGS. 1, 2 and 3, the multiposition compact rugged electrical switch 40 is shown in approximate full size of one commercial embodiment. The switch 40 is a center "off", four actuated positions "on"type, the actuator positions corresponding to the tilting of an actuator button 58 by engagement therewith by a thumb or finger to produce tilting motion at periphery adjacent the Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, shown in FIG. 1.
As shown in greatly enlarged diagrammatic form in FIGS. 27 through 30, the switch 40 is elegantly simple in operating concept. Notwithstanding the small size and simple mechanical concepts the switch is very sophisticated in mechanical and electrical function and performance and very ruggedly constructed. In the diagrammatic form, and described in general terms to aid in understanding the details, it is seen that a switch casing means 42 has a longitudinal axis 44 and first pivot means 46 for pivotal coaction with actuator means 48 about Pt. A. The lower portion of actuator means 48 is formed with separate pivot means 50 for coaction with the top of a movable contact means 54 after it engages a fixed contact means 52 at Pt. B. The top of the movable contact means 54 then is pivotable about Pt. C at the separate pivot means 50 and the lower end of the movable contact means wipes downwardly along fixed contact means 52. This causes the lower end of the movable contact means to be trapped by the abutment means 156 formed in the bottom of the switch casing means 42 preventing accidental disengagement if pivotal action occurs at Pt. D. It is to be noted that the biasing means 56 (shown in FIG. 4) is necessary to the switch, but is not shown in the diagrammatic figures for clarity purposes.
Now to a very specific description, and as shown in assembled array in section in FIG. 4, the actuator means 48 comprises an exterior button 58, an actuator shaft 60 and an actuator rocker means 62. The actuator means 48 is mounted for relative movement to the switch casing means 42. The switch casing means 42 comprises the outer switch casing means 64, upper casing insert means 66, middle casing insert 68, and bottom casing insert means 70 all of which are fixedly assembled together in rigid relationship by any suitable means to form a unitary body. Each of the switch casing means 42 components 64, 66, 68 and 70 are preferably made of a hard mouldable dielectric material. A flexible sealing means 72, to be described in detail later, is sealingly attached to the shaft 60 of actuator means 48 and to the switch casing means 42 to prevent contamination of the electrical contact areas.
Returning to the outer casing means 64 shown in isolation and in section FIG. 5, in full end view in FIG. 6 and in sectional assembled relation in FIG. 4, it comprises a cylindrical casing body 74 having a bottom end portion 76 and an enlarged circumferential shoulder 78 for mounting on a suitable control device such as a steering wheel or a joystick or the like. An exterior boss 80 aligned with the axis of the body 74 may be molded on body 74 for location in mounting as will be well understood. The top 82 of body 74 is relatively thick and its outer surface joins shoulder 78 with rounded bevel outer surface 84 which affords clearance for movement of actuator button 58 as will become apparent.
Centrally located in top 82 of outer casing means 64 is a generally condensed definitively cruciform opening 86 which coacts with the actuator button 58. As will be observed the opening 86 occupies a relatively large area of the top 82. As best shown in FIGS. 4, 5 and 6, the radially outward surfaces of opening 86 are defined by four identical, longitudinally inclined walls 88a, 88b, 88c and 88d arranged in square array radially spaced equidistance from and around the axis 44 to define and limit the radially outward movement to the four fully actuated positions of the actuator button 58 as shall be described. They are disposed transversely to the direction of movement of the button 58. As best seen in FIG. 6, each of the inclined surfaces 88a, 88b, 88c and 88d are defined by axially aligned side surfaces 90a and 92a, 90b and 92b, 90c and 90d and 92d respectively which prevent the actuator button 58 from being rotated from one to the next adjacent actuated position when in a fully actuated position as will be described. The opposed side surfaces 90a-92a through 90d-92d respectively are disposed parallel to the radial directions of movement permitted and are parallel with a radial plane through the axis intersecting the respective inclined surfaces 88a through 88d to provide four locator slots for the actuator means 48 in the movement from center off to the actuator position modes. The angle of inclination of surfaces 88a through 88d to the longitudinal axis 44 is shown to be relatively small (in the vicinity of 10�) and is determined by the geometry of the relative size and locations of the first pivot means 46, actuator means 48, fixed contact means 52, movable contact means 54 and separate pivot means 50.
Surfaces 88a through 88d individually serve as substantial rugged overtravel stop surfaces for the switch in their coaction with a square hub 202 (to be later described) of the actuator button, the relative location and size of hub 202 being shown in its center off position in opening 86 by the dash lines of FIG. 6. It will be noted that the hub 202 is spaced a relatively short distance from the respective surfaces 88a through 88d when in its center off position and in switch of the size depicted in FIGS. 1-3, on the order of 5/100 of an inch as measured at the greatest radial extent of surfaces 88a through 88d where they intersect the top surface 82.
The outer casing means 64 is formed with cylindrical interior seal chamber 94 adjacent the top end 82. The seal chamber 94 is defined at its upper end by transverse surface 96 and its lower end by radial interior seal shoulder 98. The seal shoulder 98 is intermediate the relatively radially and longitudinally larger cylindrical bore 100 which together with the insert means 66, 68 and 70 define the sealed operating internal lower chamber 102 of the switch when bore 100 is closed off by the bottom closure insert means 70. Longitudinally aligned semicircular key ways 104a and 104b are formed in the side walls of bore 100 in opposed relation to coact with the insert means 66, 68 and 70.
The upper casing insert means 66 is shown in FIGS. 18, 19, 20 and in FIG. 4 and has a cylindrical shape outer surface 106 complimentary in size to bore 100 and fits therewithin in fixed assembled relation thereto. The upper surface of casing insert means 66 is relieved to provide a radial peripheral sealing shoulder 108 in opposed relation to shoulder 98. The lower end of insert means 66 is formed with peripheral axially aligned opposed bosses 110a and 110b of relatively short axial extent. The top of the bosses 110a and 110b stops on the top of key ways 104a and 104b to locate the insert means 66 relative to outer casing means 64 to provide a small radial chamber between sealing surfaces of 98 and 108 which coact with a portion of the sealing means 72. The bosses 110a and 110b coacting with key ways 104a and 104b assure precise assembled relationship between insert means 66 to the outer casing means 64 whereby precise alignment and orientation of the cruciform aperture 86 in the outer casing means with internal surfaces of the insert means 66 is assured and now will be described.
The top of insert 66 is formed with a square central aperture 112 which opens into a large rectangular chamber 115. Aperture 112 is formed and defined by a square array of wall surfaces 114a, 114b, 114c and 114d which do not enter into critical coacting relationship with other parts in this embodiment except to be so sized and spacedly located from each other and relative to the rest of the geometry of the parts so that they are not engaged under normal conditions of use by the actuator means 48 lower portions which extends through the aperture 112 as best seen in FIG. 4. It is important that the top of chamber 115 be spaced from the top of insert means 66 sufficiently to afford backup structural strength and non flexing dimensional stability to the shoulder surface 118 under conditions of high G forces and shock.
The rectangular chamber 115 is formed with a square array of walls 116a, 116b, 116c and 116d equidistantly spaced from the longitudinal axis. Connecting each wall with corresponding wall surfaces 114a through 114d is pivot shoulder 118 which, as best seen in FIG. 19, is a square annulus in configuration. The areas where each of the walls 116a, 116b, 116c, and 116d join the shoulder 120 form the first pivot means 46 of the switch for coaction with the actuator means 48. In the configuration shown, there are four separate pivot areas, each being respectively disposed below and in diametric alignment with the locator slots that form the cruciform aperture 86 in the top surface 82. It will be appreciated that the exact dimension between the side walls, 116a, and 116c for example, may be varied with varying of dimensions of other components and surfaces; however the diametric orientation of the side walls 116a through 116d to the locator slots is critically important as will be explained. As best shown in FIGS. 18 and 19, a cutout 120 is formed in bottom surface 122 of the upper insert means 66 extending between the outer periphery and chamber 115 for access of a flexible common terminal strap. It will also be noted that the side walls between the chamber 115 and the periphery of the insert means are relatively thick and the corresponding flat surfaces 122 are relatively large, both of which impart dimensional stability and ruggedness to the assembly.
The middle casing insert means 68 is disc like in overall configuration and is assembled immediately below insert means 66 (and is shown in isolation in FIGS. 21, 22, and 23). Its essential functions are to provide biasing spring guide means and to impart stability for the fixed contact means 52. The insert means 68 also has a cylindrical surface 124 sized to fit bore 100 and axially aligned oppositely disposed bosses 126a and 126b to fit key ways 104a and 104b to orient and align the insert means 68 to the remainder of the assembly. It is formed with top surface 128 which mates with surface 122 of upper insert 66 as shown in FIG. 4. A bottom surface 130 is parallel with surface 128 and is relieved on the outer periphery and side surface with a stepped cutout 132 to accommodate the common terminal shown in FIG. 4. A central through aperture 134 is formed in bottom surface 130 having a chamfered edge 136. The size of bore 134 is of no particular criticality except to be large enough to permit non interfering movement of the movable contact means 54 which extends through it as shown in FIG. 4.
The upper surface 128 is formed with a deep conical bore 138 terminating in a radially inwardly directed spring shoulder 140 which together with sides of bore 138 retains and centers the bottom of the metal coil spring biasing means 56. The coil spring biasing means surrounds the movable contact means 54, has multiple functions to be described, and is dimensioned to afford clearance for movement of the lower portion of the movable contact means 54. As shown in dotted lines in FIGS. 4, 21 and 23, the periphery of the insert means 68 may be cut out at 142 to permit assembly of the preferred form of common terminal means 184 (see FIG. 26) for relatively low amperage application (approx. 3 amps or less).
The bottom surface 130 is formed with four axially aligned precisely orientated recesses 144a, 144b, 144c and 144d in radial alignment with one of each of the pivot surfaces of the first pivot means and in square array around through bore 134. The recesses 144a through 144d are located and dimensional to snugly receive the top portions of the respective fixed contact terminal 172a through 172d to assure fixed stable location of the fixed contacts 172a through 172d under conditions of high G force and shock. The recesses 144a through 144d and thus the fixed contact terminals 172a through 172d are in precise orientation in the same radial plane with surfaces 116a through 116d and in the same diametric plane as one of the locator slots in top 82 previously described.
The bottom insert means 70 is also disc like in shape and is shown in FIGS. 4, 24 and 25 having a top surface 146, a bottom surface 148 and an outer periphery cylindrical surface 150. The insert means 70 is snugly fitted in the bottom of the outer casing means 64 with top surface 146 mating with bottom surface 130 of insert means 68. Oppositely disposed peripheral bosses 152a-152b are formed to coact with key ways 104a and 104b to maintain assembled orientation.
The insert means 70 is formed with a cruciform shaped chamber 154 recessed into top surface 146 (best seen in FIG. 25) which, when assembled as shown in FIG. 4 is oriented with the cruciform opening 86 in the outer casing means 64. It is to be noted that this orientation does not hold for switches having an odd number of "on" modes discussed in connection with FIG. 31 where the 180� rotation orientation is required. Centrally located on the bottom of recess 154 is a truncated pyramidal shaped abutment means 156 having a small square top surface 158 and four sloping side surfaces 160a, 160b, 160c and 106d which are precisely oriented and angled as will be described in connection with the coaction with the bottom end of the movable contact means 54. The center of the top surface 158 is on the longitudinal axis 44 and the surface is transverse to that axis.
The bottom surface 148 is formed with four rectangular apertures 162a, 162b, 162c and 162d which are in square array around the axis 44 directly below recesses 144a through 144d respectively. As best shown in FIGS. 25 and 4, radial rectangular recessed cutouts adjacent the respective apertures 162a through 162b form retaining and locating shoulders 164a, 164b, 164c and 164d to coact and retain the assembled fixed terminals 172a through 172d.
A rectilinear common terminal cutout aperture 166 is formed in the periphery of the insert means to accept the common terminal 174 which is assembled therewithin. As shown in FIGS. 24 and 4, the bottom surface periphery may be relieved at 168 whereby a suitable potting compound 170 wit dielectric and adhesive qualities may be applied to the entire bottom surface 148 to assure good adhesive contact, a tight seal to the interior of the switch 40, and maintains the insert means 66, 68 and 70 in assembled relation to the outer casing means 64. The potting compound 170 also seals the fixed contacts 172a through 172d and the common terminal 174.
The fixed terminals 172a through 172d are each formed with a struck out nib (see 176a and 176c of FIG. 4) respectively to engage shoulder 164a through 164d respectively. The aforementioned top portions of the fixed terminals 172a through 172d are located in recesses 144a through 144d respectively to present flat interior contact surfaces 178a through 178d respectively to provide a square array of contact surfaces diametrically aligned with the locator slots in the top 82 of the outer casing means 64.
The common terminal 174 in FIG. 4 is offset from the fixed terminals 172a through 172d and has a flexible braided metal strap 180 soldered to the top thereof. A struck out nib 182 of common terminal 174 engages top surface 146 of the bottom insert means 68 in the cutout recess chamber 132 of the middle insert 68 to locate the common terminal. The preferred construction of common terminal means 184 for low amperage uses (approx. 3 amps and below) is shown in FIG. 26 having an elongated extending leg portion 186 and a washer like body 188 connected to leg 186 by short radially extending portion 194. The bottom 190 of the body 188 is coextensive with the rests (not shown) upon shoulder 140 of insert means 68 when assembled. Access for portions 188 and 194 to be assembled is provided by removing a complimentary portion of insert means 68 along the dotted lines shown in FIGS. 4, 21 and 23. A struck out nib 196 in leg portion 186 serves a similar function to nib 182 already described.
The top surface 192 of the common terminal engages the bottom of coil spring biasing means 56 in good electrical contact therewith. However the longer electrical path through the coil spring biasing means is conductive to too much resistance heating in higher amperage applications.
Returning now to the movable actuator means 48, it will be seen in FIGS. 1 and 4 that the top of button portion 58 is formed with arcuate downwardly stepped segments 198a through 198d in spaced array around the periphery to provide a shallow central depression area comfortably accepting a human thumb or finger pad to tilt the actuator button into any of the locator slots in the top 82 of casing means 64. The locator slots are aligned with the ends of the cruciform area 199 on the top of the actuator button intermediate the raised portons 198a through 198d. Suitable indicia means, such as the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 may be placed as shown, however it will be appreciated that in the size shown, there is little room for extensive indicia.
As shown in FIGS. 4 and 7, the underside of button 58 is formed with an annular recess 200 to define a central hub 202 which is precisely dimensioned and has a square outer periphery as viewed in FIG. 7, the recess 200 and its relationship with the top 82 and bevel surface 84 when the switch is in center off and one of the actuated positions is shown in FIG. 4. It will be perceived that the recess 200 is configured and dimensioned to defined contact zones 201 and 203 with te outer peripheral edge of bevel surface 84 and the confluence of surface 82 and one of the surfaces 88a through 88d, under certain conditions to provide stop surfaces limiting travel of the button 58 in a direction parallel (at approximately 10� inclination toward the axis) to any of the individual inclined surfaces 88a through 88d. Further, peripheral edge surface 205 of recess 200 is engageable with bevel surface 84 to limit movement of the button 58 in directions generally along the axis 44 and at angles inclined less than the inclination of surfaces 88a through 88d previously described. If additional protection is desired, coacting interfering surfaces (not shown) of the button recess 200 and the top surface 82 and bevel 84 can be arranged to limit axial overtravel of the button while permitting the tilting action shown. The limitation of axial movement just described prevents undue stress on the moving parts and precision surfaces interior of the switch 40 so that repeatable precision actuation in excess of 100,000 cycles in each of the four modes may be performed.
The hub 202 has four sides 204a, 204b, 204c and 204d in square array equidistantly spaced from axis 44 and aligned therewith when the button 58 is in center off position. As best shown in FIG. 7, the outer corners 206 are slightly rounded. The hub 202 has an end surface 207 which at its outer periphery joins side surfaces 204a through 204d which can, under certain conditions, become a pivotal edge (at Pt. D in FIG. 30) on the respective stop surfaces 88a through 88d.
Th interior of the hub 202 is formed with a central rectangular recess 208, the sides of which are parallel to outer hub surfaces 204a through 204d. A relatively heavy stubby metal rectilinear shaft 60 having a central circumferential annular channel 210 has the upper portion thereof snugly attached to the walls of recess 208. The channel 210 receives the edge surfaces of sealing means 72 as will be described.
Attached to the lower end of actuator shaft 60 below channel 210 is the actuator rocker means 62, the top surface of which also engages the flexible sealing means 72. The flexible sealing means 72 has an overall bell shape similar to a so called "plumber's helper"0 with a central through aperture 212 with a thickened margin 214 which is stretched over to sealingly engage the surfaces of groove 210 of the shaft 60. The margin 214 is integral with flexible wall 216 and the thickened outer margin 218 which is trapped between sealing shoulders 98 of the outer casing means 64 and shoulder 108 of the insert means 66 when the switch is assembled. The thickened margins 214, 218 and connecting portion 216 are preferably of a good grade of rubber or synthetic plastic which will prevent leakage of air at a rate not to exceed 1�10-8 standard atmospheric cubic centimeters per second under temperature extremes of -65� C. to +85� C., high humidity, and repeated flexings in excess of 400,000 times.
The actuator rockers means 62 is shown in FIGS. 4, 12, 13 and 14 formed with a rectangular recess 220 in the upper end to accept the lower end of shaft 60. The upper outer portion 222 is of truncated pyramidal shape as best seen in top view FIG. 14 and extends through and in the embodiment shown, does not engage the surfaces 114a through 114d of aperture 112 in any position of the actuator means 48.
It is possible to use the surfaces 222 for interaction with side surfaces 114a through 114d as stop surfaces as will be appreciated, however, the coaction of the hub surfaces 204a through 204d with surfaces 88a through 88d is preferred since they are nearer the points of application of force to the actuator means 48.
The rocker means 62 is formed with a square annular transverse shoulder having surfaces 224a, 224b, 224c and 224d which pivotally coact with shoulder surface 120 on insert means 66. A square array of side surfaces 226a, 226b, 226c and 226d are formed on the lower periphery of rocker means 62 below shoulder surfaces 224a through 224d. Each of the side surfaces 226a through 226d join the respective transverse surface 224a through 224d with a rounded edge 225a through 225d and are inclined toward the longitudinal axis so that they do not engage surfaces 116a through 116d except in the vicinity of edge surfaces 225a L through 225d on actuation of the switch.
The bottom of rocker means 62 is formed with a rectilinear recess 228 having a transverse end surface 232 with axially aligned side surfaces 230a, 230b, 230c and 230d in square array and equidistantly spaced from the axis to form the separate pivot means 50. The surfaces 230a, 230b, 230c and 230d are oriented and aligned with edge surfaces 225a through 225d respectively and thus with the locator slots in top 84 of the out casing means 64 when assembled as shown in FIG. 4.
It will be obvious from the foregoing description that the actuator means 48 of the four position "on", center "off" embodiment is symmetrical in all coactions with the outer casing means 64 and thus does not require a particular orientation in assembly unless there are predesignated indicia means on button 58 which require orientation with mounting boss 80. The symmetrical design of the actuator means 48 also assures identical precision actuation in all modes which gives the same "feel" to the human operator.
The movable contact means 54 is mounted on the actuator rockers means 62 for movement with pivotal action on the separate pivot means 50. The movable contact means 54 essentially comprises the contact rocker means 234, the current carrying shaft means 236, and the contact and latch means 238. It will be seen that the contact rocker means 234 has a complex configuration and thus is preferably made of a mouldable hard dielectric material, such as nylon or the like. The shaft means 236 is made of metal such as brass rod coated with silver, to both impart structural strength to withstand the lever forces involved and to carry electrical current; and the contact portion of the contact and latch means must be of electrical current carrying material, and is shown here as metal such as a suitable alloy or silver.
The contact rocker means 234 is formed with a bottom surface 240, a top surface 242 and a through centrally located mounting bore 244 seen in FIGS. 15, 16, 17 and 4. An enlarged retaining counter bore 246 is formed in top surface 242 and the lower surface 240 is cut out at 248 as best shown in FIGS. 15 and 16 to permit access of terminal strap 180. The contact rocker means 234 is formed with 4 axially inwardly downwardly inclined side surfaces 250a, 250b, 250c and 250d in square array, each of which join top surface with a rounded edge surface 252a, 252b, 252c and 252d which coact with the separate pivot means 50 on the actuator rocker means 62. The dimensioning and sizing of the contact rocker means is extremely critical. The distance between parallel sides 250a and 250c (and 250b and 250d) at their greatest dimension adjacent rounded edges 252a through 252d is preferred to typically be only 1/1000 of an inch less than the dimension between sides 230a and 230c (and 230b and 230d) of the actuator recess 228. This prevents skewing of contact rocker means 234 relative to the actuator means 48, permits repeatable reliable transmission of the actuator force, and permits reliable repeatable transmission of the biasing force of the spring biasing means 56 through the contact rocker means 234 to the actuator means to afford pivotal action about the separate pivot means 50 and the pivotal action about the first pivot means by the actuator means 48 on the switch casing means 42. It also insures that the parts return to alignment with the longitudinal axis 44 under the bias force of the biasing means 56 when no exterior force is applied to the actuator means 48 for repeatable precision and operator feel. It will be noted also that top surface 242 must be coplanar smooth and is transverse to the axis so as to not introduce an advertant pivot area.
The contact rocker means 234 is rigidly mounted on the reduced diameter upper stub portion 254 of the shaft means 236 by a suitable washer 256 disposed in counter bore 246, the bottom 240 mountingly engaging an enlarged stepped washer 260 which in turn is on shaft means 236 transverse shoulder 258, all as will be seen in FIG. 4. The upper washer 256 may be swaged to the stub end 254 as shown or by other suitable means, it being important that the washer 256 remains below the plane of top surface 242 and the washer 256, stepped washer 260 and contact rocker means all are in rigid precise relationship in the axial and transverse planes. The stepped washer 260 provides a spring receiving shoulder 262 whereby the biasing means spring 56 can surround the mid portion of the movable contact means 54 and provide the several functions described and not interfere with movement of the movable contact means.
The contact shaft means 236 has an elongated section 264 which is formed with an end bore recess 266 which receives combination mounting member and latching means 268 as shown in FIG. 4. The mounting and latching means 268 is generally of a conically headed nail shape having a body 269 to rigidly attach to the walls of bore 266 and a transverse shoulder 273 to engage and trappingly rigidly mount contact washer 270 to the end of shaft portion 264 as shown in FIG. 4. The outer periphery 271 of washer 270 is radially larger than shaft portion 264 and is the electrical contact surface of the movable contact means 54.
The head portion of means 268 is conical in shape as shown at 272 and angled complimentary to the angle of the sides 160a through 160d of the abutment means 156 for coaction therewith.
In the embodiment shown, movement of the actuator means 48 approximtely 71/2� of arc from the central axis 44 along any of the four paths defined by the locator slots in the top 84 of the outer casing means 64 will cause the actuator rocker means 62 to pivot at the first pivot means 46 in the same diametric plane and on the opposite side of the outer casing means. Because biasing means 56 urges the contact rocker means 234 into engagement against surface 228, the movable contact means 54 maintains columnar alignment with the actuator means 48. In the size shown in FIGS. 1-3 movement of the actuator button 71/2� of arc translates to approximatey 3/1000th's of an inch of movement. Such movement will cause contact of surface 271 of contact 270 with a fixed contact means 52 located on the same side (radial plane) as the pivotal action on the first pivot means 46 at Pt. A. This is shown diagrammatically in the movement from the center off position of the parts in FIG. 27 to the positions in FIG. 28. It is also shown in FIG. 30 where the center off position of the parts uses the same reference numbers as previously used with a suffix of an "A", the position of the parts when in electrical make position of FIG. 28 being shown with the suffix "B" and the full overtravel position of the parts of FIG. 29 being shown with the suffix "C" all for ease of reference and to aid in visualizing movement in FIG. 30.
During movement from center off to initial electrical contact position, portions of the actuator means 48 move along and relative to the longitudinal axis to in turn impart radial and a very slight longitudinal downward movement to contact 270 because of the geometry involved. This is most clearly seen in FIG. 30. The movement of actuator means 48 from approximately 71/2� of arc to approximately 15� of arc (another 3/1000th's of an inch) i.e., from first contact of FIG. 28 to full overtravel stop of FIG. 29 (positions B and C of FIG. 30) causes a number of complex interactions. As can be seen in FIG. 30, the contact surface 271 (see FIG. 4) is constrained from further radial movement by engagement with a fixed contact such as 178c and thus is forced to wipedly move downwardly from the position 270B to the position 270C when the movable contact means 54 is forced to pivot upon the separate pivot means 50 on the actuator means 48 at Pt. C on the diagrammatic drawing FIG. 30 (the confluence of side 230c and surface 228 in FIG. 4). It will be noted that Pt. C is in its entirety moving in an arcuate path with components of movement along and toward the axis 44. The movable contact means 54 pivots on moving separate pivot means 50 (Pt. C) and slightly on shifting Pt. B on the wiping zone as the movable contact means 54 moves from position B to position C of FIG. 30.
It will be observed that the downward movement of the movable contact means just described causes the conical head surface 272 to also move downwardly and become aligned and trapped behind a pyramidal side surface (here shown as 160c) of abutment means 156. It will also be observed that during the travel from 71/2� toward 15� by the actuator means, it is possible for the operator to accidentally stop arcuate movement about first pivot means Pt. A and push in a direction parallel with axis 44. However, this will not cause the contact surface 271 to leave electrical contact with the fixed contact means 52 since the contact rocker means will pivot back toward columnar array with the actuator means 48. Further, once the zone of arcuate travel about 71/2� of arc is reached and maintained, including engagement of the actuator button hub surfaces on the top surfaces (e.g. 204a with 88a) and a new pivot Pt. D is introduced, no movement of the actuator means in any direction permitted by the geometry will cause the contact 270 to disengage since the abutment means 158 prevents such disengagement (the conical head surface 272 engaging one of the surfaces 160a through 160d) until the center of button 58 is back close to the axis 44.
It will be observed that in the construction shown there are five concentric zones of operation for the actuator means 48. One, the center off or zero zone; two, the zero to 31/2� of arc zone; three, the 31/2� to 71/2� of arc zone; four, the 71/2� to 15� of arc zone; and five, the full stop at 15� of arc zone. In zone one, axial depression of the actuator means 48 causes no movement of the contact 272 toward the fixed contact, but causes the end of head 272 to engage top surface 158 of the abutment means 156 to provide position stop (unless button and top surface intereference previously described is provided). In zone two, the end of head 272 is vertically above square surface 158 unless there is axial depression of button 58 sufficient to move surfaces 224a through 224d away from contact with shoulder surface 120 simultaneously, the contact 270 moves relatively toward a fixed contact but is not in engagement unless the tilt and axial depression of button 58 together are sufficient to move the side 272 into one of the surfaces 160a to 160d of abutment means 156 and force surface 271 into engagement with a fixed contact means 52, the hub 202 on the button 58 approaches but is not in a locator slot and some pivotal action about the first pivot means 46 or about surface 158 normally occurs unless depression axially along with tilt removes the pivotal contact and there is a pivotal action on the center of motion of biasing spring means 56. In zone two it is possible to sequentially move the button 58 from one to the next adjacent locator slot without returning to dead center zone one.
In zone three, the end of head 272 is normally vertically above one of the pyramidal sides 160a through 160d of the abutment means, the contact 272 has not yet normally obtained contact with a fixed contact unless axial component of movement of the button 58 forces surface 272 down a side 160a to 160d to force engagement, hub 202 is in one of the four locator slots in outer housing means 64 top surface 82, and pivotal action about the first pivot means normally has occured unless there is some pivotal action on the center of motion of the biasing means. In zone four, contact of surface 271 with a fixed contact is virtually assured until the retreat to zone three. While it is theoretically possible to move contact surface 271 away from the fixed contact and balance the actuator means and rocker means on the spring means in the 71/2� to 8� zone of arc, the off center compression of the spring biasing means 56 will tend to urge the movable contact means 54 so as to maintain electrical contact and it is difficult to tease the switch into exact balance of forces so as to achieve electrical break in this narrow area of actuation. In the other part of zone four after approximately 8� of actuation, the geometry contact is maintained. In zone five, even though a new pivot point "D" is introduced, permitting a reverse buckling action in the absence of the abutment means 156, the abutment means in coaction with surface 272 prevents the contacts from breaking electrical connection.
The actuator movement travel is extremely small. However, the biasing force of biasing means 56, a characteristic of the thumb or finger pad of a human operator, and the geometry assures that definitive actuation is required. More particularly, when the fleshy pad of an operator (not shown) engages the cruciform depression 199 at the top of button 58, it is possible to move the top of a finger or thumb approximately 1/8 inch in all directions without the thumb or finger surfaces that actually engage the button 58 moving relative to the button surfaces or the button moving with respect to the other casing means 64. In the actuation of the switch, the biasing force of the spring means 56 assures that the skin of the fleshy pad is stretched tight in each direction of movement. Thus the top of a finger or thumb must move approximately 3/16 of an inch in each direction from center off in order to cause travel to full over travel stop. In the commercial embodiment shown in FIGS. 1-3, the geometry and the coactions provides a very stable switch however, the operating force required is only approximately 16 oz.
An alternate embodiment switch 300 is shown diagrammatically in FIG. 31. This figure diagrammatically orients the top view orientation of operating surfaces of a three position center off or a six position center off switch. The switch 40 may be designed using the inventive concepts in any of a number of regular figure forms other than the square. When a three position switch is desired, top opening 86 will be formed with top surfaces and the separate pivot means 50, both of which will be parallel with 302, 308 and 312, which are in triangular array as shown by the dotted construction lines. The surfaces of the first pivot means 46 is oriented parallel with triangularly arrayed surfaces 306, 304 and 312 i.e. 180� rotated from surfaces 302, 308 and 312 around the longitudinal axis 314. The surfaces of the abutment means and the fixed contact means will also be oriented parallel with surfaces 306, 304 and 312.
It will further be noted that while the first pivot means 46 of FIGS. 1-30 is shown above the separate pivot means 50, this is not a necessary relationship. Further the utilization of the inventive concepts permits a large number of design variables to obtain desired operating characteristics. Lever transmission of forces can be changed by changing the relative dimension between pivot surfaces.
In alternative embodiments using center off and one, two, three, five or six etc. positions, i.e. those other than the four position switch shown in detail, certain relationships of the four position switch should be maintained. The direction of the tilt of the actuator means permitted by the locator slots, the location of one of the fixed contact that is engaged by the movable contact means, the location of the first pivot means and the location of the separate pivot means are such that they are all coacting in the same diametric plane through the longitudinal axis of the switch. Further the direction of the tilt of the actuator means along a radial plane and the location of the separate pivot means are such that the latter intersects (preferably transversely) that radial plane. The over-travel stop surface is located in parallel relationship with the separate pivot means. The location of the first pivot means and one fixed contact means are such that they are parallel and intersect the same radial plane. In all switches having an odd number of "on" permissible switch positions (other than 1) such as 3, 5, 7 etc., the array of stop surfaces and separate pivot means maintain their parallel relationship to the fixed contact means and first pivot means. Also, the first pivot means, the separate pivot means, the fixed contact means, and the stop surfaces are in transverse intersection to the diametric plane of the direction of tilt. However, they are in two different sets of radial planes. Thus the stop surfaces and separate pivot means radial plane is on the opposite side of the axis (180� offset) from the first pivot means and fixed contact means radial plane.
Great flexibility in providing operating characteristics is permitted using the inventive concepts within any predetermined envelope size (switch casing parameters). Relatively strong biasing means can be used to impart good stability and shock resistance characteristics while using relatively light operating force, since lever action is used to compress the spring during actuation. This is not at sacrifice of high unit pressure of the movable contact surface 271 against the fixed contact surface because of the line contact involved dictated by the respective geometrics of these components.
It will also be observed that the components of the switch are few, are well adapted to mass production techniques, and are relatively easy to assemble.
While in the foregoing specification detailed descriptions of specific embodiments of the invention were set forth for the purpose of illustration, it will be understood that many of the details hereingiven may be varied considerably by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
|Cited Patent
|Filing date
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|Gen Motors Corp
|Center biased actuator switch mechanism
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|U.S. Classification
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification