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AssigneeThurne Engineering Company Limited
InventorPeter Antonissen
Estimating the term…
A slicing machine including a rotating blade 1 and a feeding head 8 to feed a block of food product towards the blade includes a position detector 38 to detect when the feeding head 8 is a predetermined distance away from the end of its stroke, an encoder 32 associated with the drive 12 of the feeding head 8 to monitor movement of the feeding head 8 over the predetermined distance from the position detector 38 to the end of its stroke, and a cam and proximity switch 34,35 to monitor the movement of the blade 1 of the slicer. The machine also includes a computer 18 to monitor the position of the feeding head 8 as it moves towards the end of its stroke to establish when there is insufficient of the stroke of the feeding head 8 remaining to allow another whole slice of product to be cut before the feeding head 8 reaches the end of its stroke and to return the feeding head 8 to its starting position after completing the slicing of the last whole slice.
A slicing machine including a rotating blade adapted to cut slices from a product to be sliced, a feed head engaging said product, feeding means driving said feed head whereby said feed head urges said product towards said blade, a position detector to detect when said feed head is a predetermined distance from said blade, an encoder associated with said feeding means to monitor movement of said feed head over said predetermined distance, monitoring means to monitor cutting movement of said blade, and determining means responsive to said encoder and said monitoring means to determine when there is insufficient movement of said feed head remaining to allow another whole slice of product to be cut before said feed head reaches the end of its stroke, and to return said feed head to its starting position after completion of slicing of the last whole slice of said product.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.