Seed potato cutting system with blade positioning mechanism
AssigneeSpudnik Equipment Company LLC
InventorsRainer Borgmann, Evan Steel
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A seed potato cutting system includes a cutting roller unit with an endless roller chain, having a plurality of parallel roller sets, each roller set including a plurality of cylindrical rollers on a common axle, with lateral gaps between adjacent rollers, configured to convey seed potatoes toward a distal end of the roller chain. A plurality of pairs of parallel upright blades are disposed at the distal end, the blades having common rotational axes and a cutting edge that passes within a lateral gap between rollers, each pair of blades having a common adjustable blade gap therebetween.
Claims19
A seed potato cutting system, comprising:
- a cutting roller unit, including
- an endless roller chain, having a plurality of parallel roller sets, each roller set including a plurality of cylindrical rollers on a common axle, with lateral gaps between adjacent rollers configured to convey seed potatoes toward a distal end of the roller chain;
- a plurality of discrete pairs of adjacent parallel upright blades, disposed at the distal end, the blades having common rotational axes and each blade having a cutting edge that passes within one of the lateral gaps between rollers, each discrete pair of blades having a common adjustable blade gap between the respective adjacent blades;
- and
- a blade shifting mechanism, configured to simultaneously laterally shift both blades of each discrete pair of adjacent blades in opposing directions, thereby simultaneously changing the blade gap of all pairs of blades.
A seed potato cutting system, comprising:
- a seed potato sizing mechanism, configured to segregate uncut seed potatoes into a plurality of size groups;
- a plurality of cutting roller units, positioned to receive a single one of the plurality of size groups of potatoes from the seed potato sizing mechanism, each of the cutting roller units including
- an endless roller chain, having a plurality of parallel roller sets, each roller set including a plurality of cylindrical rollers on a common axle, with lateral gaps between adjacent rollers configured to convey seed potatoes toward a distal end of the roller chain;
- and
- a plurality of discrete pairs of parallel adjacent upright blades, disposed at the distal end, the blades having common rotational axes and each blade having a cutting edge that passes within one of the lateral gaps between rollers, each discrete pair of blades having a common adjustable blade gap between the respective adjacent blades;
- and
- a blade shifting mechanism, configured to simultaneously laterally shift both blades of each discrete pair of adjacent blades in opposing directions, thereby simultaneously changing the blade gap of all pairs of blades.
A seed potato cutting system, comprising:
- a seed potato sizing mechanism, configured to segregate uncut seed potatoes into a plurality of size groups;
- a plurality of cutting roller units, positioned to receive a single one of the plurality of size groups of potatoes from seed potato sizing mechanism, each of the cutting roller units including
- an endless roller chain, configured to convey seed potatoes toward a distal end of the roller chain;
- and
- a plurality of pairs of parallel upright blades, disposed at the distal end, the blades having common rotational axes, each pair of blades having an adjustable blade gap therebetween;
- and
- a blade shifting mechanism, including
- first and second blade supports, a first blade of each pair of blades being attached to the first blade support, and a second blade of each pair of blades being attached to the second blade support;
- and
- a pivoting member, coupled to the first and second blade supports, configured to simultaneously translate the first and second blade supports in opposite directions, thereby simultaneously changing the blade gap between all blades in each pair of blades.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.