Fruit juice extracting machine

#The field of the present invention is fruit juice extracting machines.

#Presently, there is much emphasis worldwide on fresh single strength citrus juice, as opposed to juices made from concentrate. Fresh juices are typically not pasteurized and do not include preservatives. Consequently, sanitation in processing citrus juices is very important. To obtain adequate shelf life with fresh juices, bacteria in the juice must be kept at a low level. However, juice extracting machines are often run for e.g., 24 hours or more before they are stopped and cleaned. This allows stagnant juice and pulp to accumulate, leading to increased bacteria in the juice. Juice and pulp can accumulate and stagnate on or in various internal components and spaces, and especially on horizontal areas, leading to excessive bacteria growth. Accordingly, processing fruit into fresh juice has required frequent stopping and cleaning the machines, e.g., every 8 hours, a time consuming and relatively costly but necessary procedure. Cleaning these machines has also required removal of covers or other parts and effort intensive hand cleaning.

#A well known fruit juice extracting machine (Brown International Model 700) is shown and described in Wells, U.S. Pat. No. 2,631,625, incorporated herein by reference. This fruit juice extracting machine includes a vertically mounted rotary fruit feeder and hopper arranged to supply citrus fruit to holding cups on a pair of opposing endless cup chains. The feeder delivers fruit to the cups in the cup chain which move towards each other and carry the fruit through a halving knife. The sliced fruit halves are held into the cups by retainers or baffles as the fruit halves are moved to a reamer wheel at the front of the machine. The vertically mounted reamer wheel has a plurality of radially spaced apart spinning reamers. As the cups holding fruit halves approach the reamer wheel, they are guided towards each other by cup tracks and engage the spinning reamers, thereby extracting juice and pulp from the fruit halves. The juice and pulp fall towards to the bottom of the machine and are collected and removed from the machine.

#In the drawings, wherein similar reference characters denotes similar elements throughout the several views:

#FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the well known (Model 700) fruit juice extracting machine as described above;

#FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the peel chute used in the machine shown in FIG. 1;

#Turning to FIG. 1, the well known (Model 700) fruit juice extracting machine 10 includes a frame 12 for supporting various components. For clarity of illustration and description, the covers on the juice extractor 10, which are ordinarily in place and closed during use are not shown. Similarly, the fruit feeder and hopper towards the rear juice extractor 10, the exit chutes, motors, and various other known components, are similarly not shown. The principal operating features of the juice extractor 10 are substantially symmetrical from side to side, except for minor variations insignificant to the description of the present invention. Accordingly, the following description of the components and operation primarily of the left side of the machines, as shown in FIGS. 1, 3, 4 and 5 apply to the right side of the machines as well, the right side components being substantially mirror images of the left side components shown in the figures.

#Referring still to FIG. 1, a cup chain 14 is made up of a series of cups 16 pivotally linked together. The cups ride in a cup track 18 in the direction of the arrow in FIG. 1. The cup track 18 is formed in part by a backing plate 20 having welded gussets 36. The lower section of the cup track 18 forms a shelf 34 adjacent the reamer wheel 24. A peel retainer 22 is positioned between the backing plate 20 of the cup track 18 and a reamer wheel 24. The open front faces of the cups 16 slide along the peel retainer 22 which retains fruit halves in the cups 16 while the cups move away from the reamer wheel 24.

#The reamer wheel 24 is supported on a reamer wheel axle 30 which is turned via chains and sprockets by an electric motor. Reamers 26 are radially spaced apart from each other on both vertical flat sides of the reamer wheel 24. An internal gearing system, separate from the reamer wheel axle 30, rotates the reamers 26 at an appropriate speed and direction. Drive pegs 28 on both sides of the reamer wheel 24 engage drive holes in the cup chain 14 to maintain alignment of the cups 16 and reamers 26, and to pull the cup chain 14 through the juice extractor 10. The cup tracks 18 are moved together or apart by a screw mechanism and pneumatic cylinder, to adjust the depth of engagement of the reamers 26 into the cups 16, as well as the force of engagement.