GB1472177A - Plastry brake - Google Patents

Abstract

1472177 Dough brake BURGESS ENG (STOKE-ON-TRENT) Ltd 14 April 1975 [29 March 1974] 13969/74 Heading B5A A dough brake comprises two reversible conveyers 17, 18 for passing a sheet of dough back and forth through a pair of driven rollers 10, 11 with the receiving conveyer being driven faster than the feeding conveyer and with the same feed and receiving speeds being used on each pass, and means for detecting when the sheet of dough clears the rollers, connected to a control means for reducing the roller gap at the end of each pass by one of a series of predetermined steps, the speed of the conveyers being arranged to suit the speed at which the rollers 10, 11 take in the sheet and then discharge it after it has been thinned. The conveyers 17, 18 are driven by motors 25 and plates 21 bridge the gap between them and the conveyers. A light source 23 and a photo-cell 24 are mounted below and above an aperture 22 in each plate 21 to detect when the dough sheet clears the plate. Roller 11 is driven through an articulated chain drive 28 from roller 10 and is mounted in yokes 13 which are vertically movable by rotation of lead screws 29 by a motor 33 acting through bevel gears 30 at each end of its drive shaft 31. When a photo-cell indicates that the sheet is clear of the rollers, they and the conveyers are stopped, and the motor 33 is energized to lower the upper roller 11. The motor 33 also drives a control member 34 via a chain drive 37 and a second shaft 36 until one of a series of elements 38 mounted alternately on opposite sides of the member 34 contacts one of the switches 39, 40. This stops the motor 33 and starts the rollers and the conveyers in the opposite direction. After thirteen passes a switch 44 is actuated by a further control member 41 to start a timer and to override the photocell signal and allow the conveyers to continue to run and thereby discharge the sheet to another station. After a timed interval the motor 33 is reversed to return the roller 11 and the control member 34 to their original positions, which condition is detected by the operation of a switch 45 by a further control member 42. A warning may be given of the commencement of the last pass so that the feeding conveyer can be manually slowed or stopped to smooth out any wrinkles in the sheet. The control member 34 is adjustably mounted on the shaft 36 for varying the final thickness of the sheet of dough.