Auto Accessories

Spinner (wheel)

A spinner is a type of hubcap that spins independently inside of a wheel itself when the vehicle is in motion, and continues to spin once the vehicle has come to a stop. Being an attachment to the car's wheel, spinners operate by using one or more roller bearings to isolate the spinner from the wheel, allowing it to turn while the wheel is at rest. The spinner's own momentum helps it overcome what little friction is transmitted through the bearing. When the car is in motion, the small amount of friction transmitted through the bearing sets the spinner in motion. Spinners are popular within the hip-hop community of the United States. Invention In October 1992, a United States wheel spinner patent was filed by American inventor James (J.D.) Gragg who conceived and invented the original free-spinning spinner in the late 1980s. The American Tru-Spinners Wheel Enhancer spinner patent (United States Patent #5,290,094) was issued on March 1, 1994, making it the first free-spinning wheel spinner patent of its kind with foreign patents to follow, Patent(#187,015) issued in October 1997.[1] James (J.D.) Gragg from Tulsa, OK has over 80 inventions and his creative thinking has been considered so far ?outside the box? that his concepts from the 1980?s took till the New Millennium to be fully appreciated as can be seen by the phenomena his free-spinning wheel enhancers have created. He is known to be the leader in the field of the "Spinning Wheel Technology" with documented spin tests that stayed in motion for over 18 minutes as recorded by ABC/ESPN cameramen and also has versions with multiple-spinners that have 27 different spinning mode capabilities. The Tru-Spinner was so popular worldwide that the illegal pirating was on a massive scale and considered to be THE largest case of patent infringement in legal history. As of June 2007, American Tru-Spinners concluded and settled the first in a series of litigation against the first 12 of several illegal spinner pirating manufacturers, importers and retailers. The outcome within the United States Federal Courts of the Southern District of California were that the American Tru-Spinners patents were indeed valid and therefore validated and enforced by the Federal Courts and the plaintiffs, American Tru-Spinners, prevailed in an unprecedented 100% of its legal actions. American Tru-Spinners won Federal Summary Judgments against all 12 of the defendants for Patent Infringement and Permanent Injunctions were also issued against all the defendants. The awarded settlement amounts memorialized in suit are not to be disclosed and remain strictly confidential by Stipulation of Court Order mandated by the U.S. Federal Courts of the Southern District of California. In 2003, Davin Wheels was issued a U.S. patent #6,554,370 for a non-adaptable spinning wheel only version called the continuous motion wheel.[2] The invention of the spinner is generally attributed to David Fowlkes Jr., who graduated from Rufus King High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before moving on to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design when he was 17. With a sketch and a prototype Fowlkes created the first spinner for a design project in 1990. The prototype then remained stored until 1998 when Fowlkes was working at Reebok and met his future business partners, Hank Seemore and Ian Hardman. Together the three formed Davin Wheels with a $250,000 loan from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp. In the 1995 film Batman Forever, the wheels on the Batmobile used a counter-rotating gear assembly to keep the bat-emblem hubcaps upright when the wheels were in motion. Introduction to market American Tru-Spinners originally introduced its patented free-spinning wheel spinner in 1994, but back then Tru-Spinners were only on an exclusive selected group of "Custom and Concept Cars", this is when Tru-Spinners were first viewed by the public and others saw the concept and then proceeded to pirate the technology. Over 1 million U.S. Patents later, Davin Wheels introduced a non-adaptable wheel only version at the Los Angeles Auto Show. When Davin Wheels was unable to obtain a booth at the Auto Show, they were invited to join another vendor at the show, NBA star Latrell Sprewell's Sprewell Racing. Coincidentally, Sprewell is a Milwaukee native. For this reason, spinners are sometimes also called "Sprewells", although Sprewell has stated that he was not the inventor of Sprewells.[3] The Rolls-Royce Phantom has anti-spinners ? the "RR" logo in the center of the hub is mounted on a spinner with an offset weight designed to ensure that the logo is always the right way up when the car is parked. This is one means of the 27 functions that Tru-Spinners had embodied within it patents for years. The hubometers used on large trucks and buses operate basically by this same principle, but uses a liquid to reduce drag as its means to stay stationary as the wheel itself turns, rather than being counter-balanced on a roller bearing.