Method of removing foreign material from a row of fiber bales and a bale opening machine therefor

#This invention relates to a method and apparatus for removing foreign material from a row of fiber bales during a bale opening process.

#As is known, the problem of contamination in pre-pressed cotton bales has been known for a long time. Such contamination may be in the form of foreign material in the bales such as metal objects like steel straps and wire parts, tools and similar objects or stones and wrapping waste such as jute remains, plastic foil remains, strings or ribbons, rags or cotton cleaning waste. Generally, this type of contamination must be removed from the bales in order to process the fiber removed from the bales. To this end, various suggestions have been made to not only detect the presence of the foreign material but also to remove the foreign material.

#For example, DE-A-34 36 498 describes the use of a foreign material detector which is arranged on the side of a row of bales and which moves back and forth together with a bale opener in order to scan the interior of the bales for metal parts. Once a metal part has been located, the bale opener is immediately stopped. An operative can then manually remove the detected metal part from the bale.

#These and other objects and advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:

#FIG. 1 illustrates a side-view of a bale opening machine constructed in accordance with the invention;

#FIG. 2 illustrates a top-view of the bale opening machine of FIG. 1;

#Referring to FIG. 1, the bale opening machine 1 is constructed with a pivotable head 2 having a protruding support arm 3 in which a conventional bale opener 4 is mounted. Such a bale opening machine is generally known and is distributed by Rieter Spinning Systems under the brand name UNIFLOC.

#The bale opening machine 1 is also provided with a pair of additional arms 5, 6 which are provided on opposite sides of the support arm 3. The forward arm 6 houses a detection unit 7 for detecting the presence of foreign material in advance of the bale opener 4 whereas the rear arm 5 mounts an extraction unit 8 for removing detected foreign material.

#As shown in FIG. 1, the bale opening machine is constructed so that the bale opener 4 is able to move across a row of fiber bales 9, for example a row of four bales 10, 11, 12, 13. As is known, the bale opener 4 operates to remove a layer of fiber from each of the bales 10-13 in sequence. After making one pass over the bales 10-13, the bale opener 4 may be reversed to strip off another layer from the bales in reverse order or may be returned to a position over the first bale 10 for repeating a cycle.