High production nutcracking apparatus having improved alignment capability
AssigneeMachine Design Incorporated
InventorJames Bland Quantz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A high production nutcracking apparatus wherein the nuts are fed from a hopper on a feed conveyor to a cracking apparatus. The cracking apparatus is in the form of a plurality of cracking units mounted on a rotatable turret, and the rotating cracking units are cyclically controlled so as to clampingly engage and lift each oriented nut from the advancing conveyor, and so as to preserve its orientation. Each nut is then cracked and thereafter released at separate spaced points along the circular path of travel of the cracking unit. A structure and procedure for aligning the cracking units of the turret with respect to the feed conveyor is disclosed.
Claims14
A high production nutcracking apparatus comprising
- a turret mounted on a machine frame for rotation about a horizontal central axis, with said turret mounting a plurality of cracking units which are uniformly spaced about the periphery of the turret,
- an endless feed conveyor including a plurality of nut transport elements mounted in succession along a feed chain, with each element including a generally semi-cylindrical receptacle which extends laterally across the element, said feed conveyor being mounted to the machine frame so as to define an upper run which extends generally tangentially with the periphery of the turret and to define a pickup point where the upper run perpendicularly intersects a radius of the turret,
- a drive system for concurrently rotating the turret about the central axis and advancing the feed conveyor such that the cracking units are aligned with the receptacles of respective nut transport elements at the pickup point, and including a releasable interconnection for permitting relative movement between the turret and feed conveyor at the pickup point,
- an indicator and locking device mounted on the turret and the machine frame for indicating when the turret is rotated to a point wherein one of said cracking units is in a bottom dead center position with respect to the pickup point and for locking the turret against rotation in said position,
- whereby the cracking units of the turret may be aligned with the receptacles of the nut transport elements by rotating the turret to an aligned position wherein one of the cracking units is in the bottom dead center position, and then moving the feed conveyor while the turret is stationary in said aligned position and until the receptacle of one of the nut transport elements is centered in radial alignment with the one cracking unit which is in the bottom dead center position.
A method of aligning a high production nutcracking apparatus of the type comprising
- a turret mounted on a machine frame for rotation about a horizontal central axis, with said turret mounting a plurality of cracking units which are uniformly spaced about the periphery of the turret,
- an endless feed conveyor including a plurality of nut transport elements mounted in succession along a feed chain, with each element including a generally semi-cylindrical receptacle which extends laterally across the element, said feed conveyor being mounted to the machine frame so as to define an upper run which extends generally tangentially with the periphery of the turret and to define a pick up point where the upper run perpendicularly intersects a radius of the turret, and
- a drive system for concurrently rotating the turret about the central axis and advancing the feed conveyor such that the cracking units are in alignment with the receptacles of respective nut transport element at the pickup point,
- the method comprising the steps of rotating the turret so that one of the cracking units is in a bottom dead center position with respect to the pickup point, and then moving the feed conveyor while the turret is stationary until the receptacle of one of the nut transport elements is centered in radial alignment with the one cracking unit which is in the bottom dead center position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.