GB119693A - Improvements in Apparatus for Grading or Separating Fibres according to their Length. - Google Patents

Abstract

119,693. Fine Cotton Spinners' & Doublers' Association, and Balls, W. L. Oct. 10, 1917. Fibres, separating and sorting.-Apparatus for grading cotton or other fibres in accordance with their length comprises a separating-device, which takes a tuft of fibres and feeds it forward gradually, and is traversed relatively to a collecting-device so that the fibres as they are fed forward are deposited in accordance with their length at different points on the collecting-device, the shortest being deposited first and the longest last, The apparatus may be designed for use in grading samples of fibres in the testing-room or for use commercially in the production of slivers or roves, the fibres of which are all of approximately equal length or of a length between certain desired limits. In a machine of the latter type, the separating-device comprises a series of feed rollers A, Fig. 5, which receive the sliver or lap Band pass it forward to delivery rollers C. The fibres are taken from the rollers C by a doffing-comb E and laid upon the collecting-mechanism, which consists of a series of card-covered flats G. The delivery rollers A are mounted on a cam-controlled frame whereby they are moved towards and away from the delivery rollers C in order that tufts of fibres may be detached by those rollers. The rotation of the rollers C and the movements of the flats G are so timed that fibres within a given range of lengths are always deposited upon a given section of the flats. A number of laps B, Fig. 1, with feed and delivery rollers and doffing-combs are mounted on a rotating frame so as to deposit the fibres in four ranges upon the four series of flats G, from which they are doffed by combs g and the slivers collected in coilers H. In an arrangement suitable for use in the testing-room, a separating-head arranged as above described may be fed with a sample or tuft of fibres placed in a tray or shoot and may rotate within a fixed collecting-device comprising an annular frame covered internally with plush or card clothing. In another simple form, a bunch of fibres is fed by hand to rollers traversing in front of a stationary or revolving plush-covered roller. The collecting-device may be traversed in place of the separating-device. If additional precision is desired, an additional traverse may be imparted alternating with the sorting traverse in which the end of the fibres is not quite pushed into the nip of the delivery rollers, so that any misplaced fibres may be seized and removed. According to the Provisional Specification, pneumatic means may be employed in connexion with the collecting- device.