Fruit selecting machine
AssigneeSociedad Anonima de Racionalizacion y Mechanizacion
InventorsJuan C. Ollero-Pina, Antonio Garrido-Diaz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Fruit, which may be oblong fruit such as olives, are mechanically sorted into two separate vessels, depending on whether they are, or are not individually thick enough to be clamped between a reciprocating head and a plate, while the head and plate rotate about a drum axis at a downstream end of a carrying run of an endless conveyor for the fruit. The clamped (oversized) fruit are carried further about the periphery of the drum than are the non-clamped (undersized) fruit, allowing these two classes of fruit to be collected separately. In a preferred embodiment, the fruit are individually deposited on the conveyor and subjected to common orientation before passing between the reciprocating head and the plate.
Claims8
A machine for sizing an input stream of fruit such as olives into at least two separate output streams, comprising:
- an endless conveyor entrained about longitudinally spaced, transversally extending wheel means, including an upstream wheel means and a downstream wheel means, so as to have a carrying run and a return run;
- said conveyor having a plurality of longitudinally spaced pushers mounted thereto, each such pusher being adapted to accept a single fruit to be sized and to push that fruit along said carrying run;
- a hopper associated with said carrying run of said conveyor towards an upstream end of such run, this hopper being adapted to receive a plurality of fruit to be sized;
- and to supply such fruit individually to said conveyor so that each fruit is pushed by a respective said pusher;
- a sizing means associated with said downstream wheel means and adapted to rotate coaxially therewith, this sizing means including a plate means disposed laterally to one side of said endless conveyor, and a drum means disposed laterally to the opposite side of said endless conveyor;
- a plurality of shank means mounted to said drum means for reciprocal movement towards and away from said plate means;
- each said shank means being provided with a head which spacedly confronts said plate means;
- a relatively stationary cam channel-providing member having a cam channel provided therein;
- each said shank having a cam follower connected therewith and received in said cam channel;
- said cam channel being configured to have at least two shank head position-controlling segments, in one of which each shank head in succession is brought to a predetermined magnitude of proximity to said plate means as that shank head is rotated together with said downstream wheel means until said downstream wheel means has passed an undersized fruit unloading station located rotationally past top dead center of said drum means, and in a succeeding another one of which each shank head in succession is withdrawn to a position of greater spacing from said plate means as that shank head is rotated together with said downstream wheel means through an oversized fruit unloading station;
- each said shank head being adapted to be so aligned axially of said wheel with a respective said pusher as to engage, in use, the respective fruit being pushed by that pusher with sufficient compressive force to trap that fruit against said plate means only so long as said cam follower of the respective said shank is disposed in said one shank head position-controlling segment and only if that fruit is at least equal in linear dimension laterally of said conveyor to a predetermined linear dimension, whereby undersized fruit do not become trapped by said shank heads against said plate means and fall from said conveyor at said undersized fruit unloading station, whereas oversized fruit do become so trapped and are conveyed by said conveyor past said undersized fruit unloading station until said shanks are withdrawn and said oversized fruit fall from said conveyor at said oversized fruit unloading station.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.