Particulate material supplying apparatus with a downwardly slanting discharge gutter which rotates side to side

A particulate material supplying apparatus comprising:

• a hopper that stores a particulate material;
• a plurality of discharge gutters that extend diagonally downward from a lower region inside the hopper and dispense the particulate material in the hopper;
• a plurality of feeders that transport the dispensed particulate material to a plurality of weighing scales;
• the plurality of weighing scales that receive and weigh the transported particulate material;
• a plurality of supply shutters that receive the weighed particulate material and feed the particulate material to a collective shutter;
• wherein the collective shutter that receives the particulate material fed from the supply shutters collectively feeds the particulate material to a machine in a next process step at a predetermined timing;
• and
• a controller that controls dispensing operations of the discharge gutters, transporting operations of the feeders, weighing operations of the weighing scales, feeding operations of the supply shutters, and a collective feeding operation of the collective shutter,
• wherein the discharge gutters each include an inclined gutter portion having an opening in an upper surface thereof and having a substantially U-shaped cross section,
• wherein the controller controls the discharge gutters so that the particulate material in the hopper is dispensed to the feeders by causing each of the discharge gutters to perform a swinging motion in which a forward rotation and a backward rotation each to a predetermined angle are repeated while the openings in the inclined gutter portions face upward,
• wherein the controller controls the weighing scales so that the weighing scales receive the particulate material transported by the feeders and perform the weighing operations until a weight of the transported particulate material reaches a reference value determined for each of the weighing scales,
• wherein the controller controls the supply shutters so that the supply shutters feed the particulate material to the collective shutter at release timings determined for the supply shutters, and
• wherein the controller controls the collective shutter so that the collective shutter collectively feeds the particulate material to the machine in the next process step at a predetermined feed timing after a total weight of the particulate material fed from the supply shutters has reached a predetermined weight of material to be packed into a package bag.

A particulate material supplying apparatus comprising:

• a hopper that stores a particulate material;
• a discharge gutter that extends diagonally downward from a lower region inside the hopper and dispenses the particulate material in the hopper;
• a weighing scale that receives and weighs the dispensed particulate material;
• a supply shutter that receives the weighed particulate material and feeds the particulate material to a machine in a next process step at a predetermined timing;
• and
• a controller that controls a dispensing operation of the discharge gutter, a weighing operation of the weighing scale, and a feeding operation of the supply shutter,
• wherein the discharge gutter includes an inclined gutter portion having an opening in an upper surface thereof and having a substantially U-shaped cross section, and
• wherein the controller controls the discharge gutter so that the particulate material in the hopper is dispensed to the weighing scale by causing the discharge gutter to perform a swinging motion in which a forward rotation and a backward rotation each to a predetermined angle are repeated while the opening in the inclined gutter portion faces upward.