Pear orienting and transfer apparatus
AssigneeAtlas Pacific Engineering Company
InventorJohn W. Colombo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A pear orienting and transfer apparatus for orienting pears stem-end lowermost and subsequently transferring oriented pears with the blossom-end foremost to subsequent inspection, peeling, coring and segmenting stations which includes a channel-bottom reciprocable shaker pan and lifter at each channel for feeding singulated pears one at a time down a movably inclined and intermittently gated delivery chute to a set of orienting rolls that orients each pear stem-end lowermost and places it in one of a plurality of pneumatic gripping cups carried on an indexible rotary cup drum.
Claims16
A pear orienting apparatus comprising:
- (a) a frame;
- (b) a shaker pan reciprocably mounted on the frame and having at least one singulation channel for supporting and conveying pears and having a slotted exit over which pears pass toward an open discharge end of the pan;
- (c) an inclined delivery chute pivotally mounted adjacent to the slotted exit of each channel of the shaker pan and having an entrance end and a discharge end;
- (d) a separate lifter reciprocable in the slotted exit of each channel of the shaker pan for gating a following pear in said channel while simultaneously lifting onto the corresponding delivery chute each pear that overlies the slotted exit of said channel, and
- (e) means for pivoting the entrance end of the delivery chute upwardly into a gating position with respect to the corresponding shaker pan channel as the lifter moves downward to permit the following pear to move into position overlying the slotted channel exit, said delivery chute remaining in a gating position until the lifter begins to rise.
Pear orienting and transfer apparatus comprising
- (a) a set of orienting rolls including at least a pair of rolls mounted for rotation upon spaced horizontal axes;
- (b) drive means for rotating the pair of rolls in the same angular direction;
- (c) means feeding singulated pears to the top of the rolls intermediate said spaced axes;
- (d) a transfer cup;
- (e) means for intermittently moving said transfer cup in a cyclical path from a position beneath said rolls for receiving a pear to positions for treating the pear;
- and
- (f) means for intermittently separating the orienting rolls to drop an oriented pear with stem-end lowermost into the transfer cup.
Pear orienting apparatus comprising
- (a) a set of orienting rolls including at least a pair of rolls rotating about spaced horizontal axes;
- (b) drive means for rotating the pair of rolls in the same angular direction;
- (c) delivery means feeding singulated pears to the top of the rolls intermediate said spaced axes;
- (d) means for intermittently separating the orienting rolls to drop an oriented pear with its stem-end lowermost;
- and
- (e) means for interrupting the rotation of rolls mounted upon one horizontal axis when the pair of rolls separate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.