ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,558,834, issued on Feb. 24, was assigned to Black & Decker Inc. (New Britain, Conn.).
"PEX expander" was invented by Qingyang Li (Suzhou, China), Bingxin Luo (Suzhou, China), Chenyang Xu (Suzhou, China), Kailang Peng (Suzhou, China), Guotao Wang (Suzhou, China) and Justin Burke (Bellevue, Pa.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An expanding tool for widening pipe ends having an ergonomic design. The expanding tool uses a transmission which drives a cam offset at a distance from a motor axis to drive a number of jaws which move from a closed position to an open position to widen a pipe end. The expanding tool has a balanced positioning of comp...