Patent ID: 7152745

Claim:
A liquid filter apparatus having opposed lateral walls and comprising a receiving tank for dirty liquid to be filtered; an adjacent filtrate chamber for filtered liquid; and a longitudinally movable filter medium interposed between said receiving tank and said filtrate chamber such that liquid can flow from said receiving tank through the filter medium, whereby the liquid is filtered, and into the filtrate chamber; said filter medium having opposed lateral edges extending longitudinally along the lateral walls of the filter apparatus; selectively actuatable seal members extending along the lateral edges of said filter medium for sealing said lateral edges against leakage during filtering operations; said seal members being deactuatable to release said filter medium to enable the filter medium when loaded with filtered solids to be moved longitudinally to interpose a fresh section of the filter medium between said receiving tank and said filtrate chamber; and a leakage collector disposed under the lateral edges of the filter medium for capturing any dirty liquid which leaks through the seal members when actuated or which is released when the seal members are deactuated to permit longitudinal movement of the filter medium, wherein said seal members comprise opposed members on opposite sides of the lateral edges of said filter medium, at least one of said members being movable toward or away from the other member, and wherein the movable seal member comprises a fixed, first U-shaped channel member having elongated slots in legs thereof, a second, movable channel member arranged partially surrounding said first channel member such that legs of said second channel member are positioned outside and laterally adjacent the legs of the first channel member and an actuator compartment is formed between the first and second channel members, at least one pin member extending from the legs of the second channel member through the slots in the first channel member, and an actuator in said actuator compartment which when actuated urges second channel member toward the other seal member.