GB418685A - Improvements in and connected with sorting and/or grading apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

418,685. Separating solid materials. STODDART, J., 23, Alexandra Drive, Surbiton, Surrey. May 15, 1933, No. 14043. [Class 117.] Apparatus for grading fruit &c. consists of a number of endless conveyer members located side by side and all arranged in parallel vertical planes, alternate members being diverged in a vertical direction from the others. The apparatus may be adapted for preliminary hand-picking by maintaining all the members in the same horizontal plane for part of their upper run, and providing some of the belts to act as a conveyer for the rejected product. In the form shown in Figs. 2 and 3, two side belts 2, 3 are formed of blocks 7 of indiarubber, wood, &c. mounted in metal carriers linked together and running over guide rails. The inner edges of the blocks are formed with wide V-shaped recesses 8 and the upper corners are bevelled or rounded as at 10. The central belt consists of blocks 4 of pyramidal shape mounted on metal carriers 16 linked together and running over a guide 24. Alternatively, the blocks may be carried by an endless flexible belt. The belts run over guide pulleys and sprocket wheels which are so adjusted that the side belts lie in the same horizontal plane during the whole of their upper run, and the centre belt for the first part of the run lies in the same plane, but thereafter diverges from this plane in a downward direction to form the size grading apertures in the conveyer as indicated by dotted lines in Fig. 3. In alternative constructions, the conveying members are in the form of belts of triangular section which run over guides 31, as shown in Fig. 9, or of quadrilateral section. Receptacles for the handpicked and sized products are provided at the end of and under the conveyers.