High production nutcracking apparatus having provision for maintaining the nuts in clean and sterile condition
AssigneeMachine Design Incorporated
InventorsJames B. Quantz, Pascal W. Pitts, John L. Feaster
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A high production nutcracking apparatus wherein any whole nuts which are mis-fed or fail to be cracked, are automatically returned to the feed hopper without being exposed to possible contamination. To separate the shell fragments from the uncracked whole nuts, there is provided an inclined openwork grate, which is sized and configured to permit the shell fragments to pass directly therethrough while the whole nuts slide down and drop off a lower end of the grate. The grate is formed of a plurality of parallel rods which are supported so that they vibrate during operation of the cracking apparatus, to facilitate the sliding movement of the whole nuts.
Claims20
A high production nutcracking apparatus, comprising
- a hopper for storing a relatively large quantity of nuts to be cracked,
- an endless conveyor extending through the hopper for serially delivering the nuts from the hopper to a cracking assembly which cracks the serially delivered nuts at a cracking location,
- guide means for delivering at least some of the shell fragments which are produced at the cracking location of the cracking assembly and any whole nuts which are mis-fed by the conveyor or fail to be cracked by the cracking assembly, from the cracking assembly and onto an inclined grate,
- said inclined grate being configured to permit the shell fragments to pass directly therethrough while the whole nuts slide down and drop off a lower end of the grate, to thereby separate the shell fragments from the uncracked whole nuts, and
- a nut return system for receiving the whole nuts which drop from the lower end of the grate and for returning the received whole nuts back into the hopper,
- whereby the uncracked whole nuts are returned to the hopper without exposure to possible contamination.
A high production nutcracking apparatus, comprising
- a hopper for storing a relatively large quantity of nuts to be cracked,
- an endless conveyor extending through the hopper for serially delivering the nuts from the hopper to a cracking assembly which cracks the serially delivered nuts at a cracking location,
- said cracking assembly comprising a turret mounted on a machine frame for rotation about a horizontal central axis, with the turret mounting a plurality of cracking units which are uniformly spaced about the periphery of the turret,
- said cracking units being configured so that upon rotation of the turret about the central axis, the cracking units each pick up a nut from the endless conveyor at a nut pick up point and convey it to the cracking location where it is cracked,
- guide means for delivering at least some of the shell fragments which are produced at the cracking location of the cracking assembly and any whole nuts which are mis-fed by the conveyor or fail to be cracked by the cracking assembly, from the cracking assembly and onto an inclined grate,
- said inclined grate being configured to permit the shell fragments to pass directly therethrough while the whole nuts slide down and drop off a lower end of the grate, to thereby separate the shell fragments from the uncracked whole nuts, and
- a nut return system for receiving the whole nuts which drop from the lower end of the grate and for returning the received nuts back into the hopper,
- whereby the uncracked whole nuts are returned to the hopper without exposure to possible contamination.
A high production nutcracking apparatus, comprising
- a hopper for storing a relatively large quantity of nuts to be cracked,
- an endless conveyor extending through the hopper for serially delivering the nuts from the hopper to a cracking assembly which cracks the serially delivered nuts at a cracking location,
- guide means for delivering at least some of the shell fragments which are produced at the cracking location of the cracking assembly and any whole nuts which are mis-fed by the conveyor or fail to be cracked by the cracking assembly, from the cracking assembly and onto an inclined grate,
- said inclined grate comprising a plurality of parallel rods extending from an upper end of the grate to a lower end, with the rods being laterally aligned in a common plane and laterally spaced apart a predetermined distance which is correlated to the size of the nuts being cracked and so as to permit the shell fragments to pass directly therethrough while the whole nuts slide down and drop off the lower end of the grate, to thereby separate the shell fragments from the uncracked whole nuts.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.