JPH0538233A - Raising seedling mat charging and packing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the title system designed to pack mats in respective raising seedling boxes in a good posture and deliver them into a specified raising seedling circumstance by charging the front corners of the respective raising seedling boxes with fibrous mats such as of rock wool sliding down on a sliding table and pressing the mats with a brush roll in the rear of said boxes and then carrying the mats by a feed gear. CONSTITUTION:Of plural mats 21, 22, 23... successively sent downward by feed gears 81, 82 in a mat-housed box 30, the mat 24 at the lowermost tier slides down on a sliding table 90 toward the front corner of a raising seedling box. Through sliding inertia, the front edge of the mat 24 and one side edge adjacent thereto are respectively brought into contact with the front inner wall of the raising seedling box 44 and one side inner wall thereof. Therefore, the mat 24 will be positioned by the two sides and packed in the box 44 in a favorable posture. A mat 25 raised in the rear of a raising seedling box 46 is pressed with a brush roll 61 and leveled by an elastic roll 73. The feed gears 81, 82 are driven in response to the detection by a sensor 84 of the respective positions of raising seedling boxes 43, 44, 45... carried by a conveyor 50.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device for feeding and filling a mat of rock wool or the like used as a bed soil for seedlings for rice transplanters into a nursery box.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the spread of rice transplanters, seedlings using a nursery box have been adopted. In order to grow seedlings in a nursery box, the soil filled in the nursery box is leveled, then watered, sowed and covered with soil to keep the seedlings in a growing environment.

The process from filling the soil to covering the soil is automated.
In order to save labor, various devices have been proposed so far. For example, in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 60-38333, as shown in FIG. 1, a soil filling device 2, a leveling device 3, an irrigation device 4, along a conveyor line of conveyors 1a to 1c for feeding a nursery box from one to the other. In the seeding plant in which the seeding device 5 and the soil covering device 6 are arranged, the seedling raising box mounting frame 7 provided so as to be freely inserted and removed along the guide rail 7a is introduced. As the leveling device 3, a leveling roll brush rotatably supported by the same frame as the soil filling device 2 is adopted, and is driven by a motor 3a provided on the lower side.

A plurality of seedling raising boxes are placed on the seedling raising box placing frame 7 drawn out from the guide rails 7a, and fed one by one onto the conveyor 1a. While being conveyed by the conveyors 1a to 1c, the respective nursery boxes are filled with soil, and leveling, watering, sowing, and covering with soil are performed. The seedling raising box for which the sowing operation has been completed is sent out of the device by the roller conveyer 1d and conveyed to a predetermined raising environment.

A seeding plant in which the transportation of a nursery box is automated is introduced in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 1-98550.
This seeding plant is detachably equipped with an automatic feeder for feeding the seedling raising boxes to the transfer line one by one and a stacking device for stacking the seedling raising seedlings which have been seeded.

[0006]

The conventional seeding plant has been developed on the assumption that natural soil is filled as bed soil. By the way, it is partially considered that a mat in which fibers such as rock wool are entangled with each other is used for the floor soil instead of the natural soil. Rock wool is a constant quality material made from raw materials such as blast furnace slag and does not pollute the working environment. Moreover, the soil filling process and the leveling process are omitted, and the seeding plant itself can be simplified.

However, unlike natural soil in which the particles are scattered, it is difficult to automatically and evenly fill the seedling raising box with rockwool in which fibers are entangled. For example, if rock wool is not correctly fed into the inner space of the nursery box, a gap will be created on one side and rock wool will rise on the other side.
Therefore, manual work for correcting the posture of the rock wool in the seedling raising box is required, and the work efficiency of the whole sowing work is reduced.

The present invention has been devised in order to solve such a problem. By utilizing the downhill energy, the corner portion of the mat is brought into contact with the corner portion of the seedling raising box so that the inner space of the seedling raising box is By aligning the mats at the sides, the purpose is to automatically feed and fill mats such as rock wool into the nursery box with good posture.

[0009]

In order to achieve the object, a seedling-growing mat feeding and filling apparatus of the present invention has a conveying means for continuously or intermittently conveying a plurality of seedling-growing boxes and a side portion of the conveying means. A mat storage box that is arranged above and stores a plurality of fibrous mats stacked in the vertical direction, a detection unit that detects when a predetermined seedling raising box has passed the set position, and the seedling raising box passes the set position. A transfer means for sequentially feeding the fibrous mat in the mat housing box downward in accordance with
The seedling raising box is provided at a lower portion of the mat housing box, and includes a sliding table that is inclined obliquely downward toward a front corner of the seedling raising box, and the lowermost fiber mat released from the transfer means is the seedling raising box. It is characterized in that it is sent out toward the front corner of.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. As a mat to be filled in a nursery box, a packing density of 65 kg / made from blast furnace slag /
m ^2, average fiber length 80 mm, average fiber diameter 0.04mm rock wool longitudinal 580 mm, horizontal 280 mm, thickness 18
What was cut into mm was used.

Mats 21, 22, 23 made of rock wool
.. are stacked in the vertical direction and housed in the mat housing box 30 as shown in FIG. The mat storage box 30
The plurality of seedling raising boxes 43, 44, 45, ... Are arranged above a side portion of a conveyor such as a belt conveyor 50 that continuously or intermittently conveys them. Further, on the downstream side of the belt conveyor 50, a mat pressing device 60 and a leveling device 70 are sequentially arranged.

Side walls 31 of the mat housing box 30 which face each other,
32 is provided with a transfer means 80 for sequentially feeding the mats 21, 22, 23, ... As the transfer means 80, for example, feed gears 81 and 82 whose rotary shafts are supported by the side walls 31 and 32 are used. Feed gears 81, 82
Has a sharp tooth tip that bites into the mats 23 and 24, and holds the mats 23 and 24 against the gravity of the stacked mats 21 to 2n.

The feed gears 81 and 82 are the belt conveyor 5
Driven electrically or mechanically in conjunction with the progress of the seedling raising boxes 43, 44, 45 ... For example,
When the predetermined nursery box 44 has passed the set position, the nursery box 4
The front wall portion 44a of No. 4 is detected by the sensor 83. The detection signal of the sensor 83 is used as a control signal by the step motor 8
4, and the feed gears 81 and 82 are rotated by the set angle. As a result, the mats 23 and 24 sandwiched between the feed gears 81 and 82 descend by an amount corresponding to the rotation angle of the feed gears 81 and 82. Then, the lowermost mat 24 is released from the sandwiched state by the feed gears 81 and 82, and freely falls on the sliding table 90 below. On the other hand, the mat 22 on the upper stage side is newly engaged with the feed gears 81 and 82 and is sandwiched between the feed gears 81 and 82.

Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 3, it is possible to mechanically transmit power from the seedling raising box 44 to rotate the feed gears 81 and 82. In this case, the intermediate portion of the swing lever 86 is pivotally supported by the pivot metal fitting 85 fixed to the rear side wall 31 of the mat storage box 30. At the lower end of the swing lever 86, a roller 86a that rolls along the inner surface of the rear side wall 44b of the seedling raising box 44.
Is provided. Further, at the upper end of the swing lever 86,
Roller 86 that contacts the bent portion 87a of the swing arm 87
b is provided.

The other end of the swing arm 87 has a feed gear 8
1 is a shaft support portion 87b that is attached coaxially. In addition, in the middle of the swing arm 87, the feed gear 8
A ratchet pawl 87c that meshes with the first tooth portion 81a is provided. This swing arm 87 has a spring 88.
3 is urged counterclockwise in FIG. The feed gear 8 provided on the front side wall 32
2 is connected to the feed gear 81 via an interlocking mechanism (not shown) so as to rotate in synchronization with the feed gear 81.

When the seedling raising box 44 is conveyed by the belt conveyor 50, the rear side wall 44b of the seedling raising box 44 has a roller 86.
Contact a. When the nursery box 44 further advances, the swing lever 86 rotates counterclockwise around the pivot point 86c. Along with this rotation, the bending portion 87a of the swing arm 87 is pushed up by the roller 87a, and the swing arm 87 rotates clockwise around the shaft support portion 87b. At this time, the ratchet pawl 87 of the swing arm 87
Since the tooth portion 81a meshes with c, the feed gear 81
Rotate with the swing arm 87. Therefore, the mats 23 and 24 sandwiched by the feed gears 81 and 82 are fed downward.

The roller 86a is the rear side wall 44b of the nursery box 44.
Also, when the vehicle surmounts the front side wall 43a of the subsequent seedling raising box 43, the force for rotating the swing lever 86 in the counterclockwise direction disappears. Then, the swing arm 87 includes the spring 8
With the resilience of 8, the shaft pivots counterclockwise around the shaft support 87b. At this time, the feed gear 81 has its tooth portion 81a.
Is released from the meshed state with the ratchet pawl 87c, the mats 23 and 22 are held at the predetermined height which is lowered by one step without rotating after the bottommost mat 24 is released. Further, as the swing arm 87 turns, the swing lever 86 returns to the initial position in which the roller 86a is hung downward.

The stroke of the swing lever 86 and the rotation angle of the feed gear 81 are set so that the mats 23 and 24 are lowered by the thickness of one sheet. As a result, the roller 86a
Each time the vehicle crosses over the rear side wall 44b and the front side wall 43a, the lowermost mat 24 is released from the feed gears 81 and 82 and dropped onto the slide 90, and the second mat 23 descends by the thickness, The third-stage mat 22 is bitten between the feed gears 81 and 82.

As shown in FIG. 4, the sliding table 90 is located laterally with respect to the traveling direction D of the belt conveyor 50, and the mat storage box 3 is provided.
It is attached to 0. The lower end 91 of the slide 90 is
It is separated from the lower end of the mat housing box 30. Further, as shown in FIG. 5, the downhill surface 92 provided up to the lower end portion 91 moves in the running direction D as the mat 24 slides down toward the front corner 44c of the predetermined nursery box 44 as shown in FIG. It is inclined. The downhill surface 92 has mats 21 and 2.
Are slightly longer than the lengths of 2, 23 ... In the traveling direction D, and guide walls 93, 94 are provided at both ends thereof.

The descending angle and the sliding distance of the sliding surface 92 are set so that the tip end corner 24c of the mat 24 that has slid will collide with the tip end corner 44c of the seedling raising box 44 due to inertia. In order to improve the sliding of the mat 24, the sliding surface 9
2 may be coated with a highly lubricious coating such as a fluororesin.

The mat 24 that has slid down the glide surface 92 is fed into the seedling raising box 44 toward the front corner 44c of the seedling raising box 44, so that the front edge 24a and the one side edge 24 of the mat 24 are fed.
d contacts the front side wall portion 44a of the seedling raising box 44 and the side wall 44d adjacent thereto. That is, since the mat 24 is aligned with the nursery box 44 on two sides, the positional accuracy of the mat 24 fed into the nursery box 44 is significantly improved.

The front guide wall 93 with respect to the traveling direction D is
It can be omitted. Further, the guide wall 93 is omitted and the rear side wall 44b of the seedling raising box 44 is pressed against the rear side edge of the mat 24 while the mat 2 is moved from the sliding surface 92 to the seedling raising box 44.
It is also possible to transfer 4. In this case, the slide 9
The lower end portion 91 of 0 is located above the nursery box 44. At the time of this transfer, one side edge 24d and the rear edge 24b of the mat 24 are aligned with the side wall 44d and the rear side wall 44b of the seedling raising box 44, respectively.

However, the rear side of the mat 25 has a nursery box 63.
It is rare that it gets caught on the side wall of the and rises up. Therefore, in order to hold down the raised mat 25,
The mat pressing device 60 is arranged on the downstream side of the sliding table 90.

The mat pressing device 60 rotatably supports a brush roll 61 having a large number of bristles planted on its peripheral surface by means of a frame 62. Further, the drive roll pulley 63 is coaxially connected to the transport roll 51 of the conveyor 50.
Further, a power transmission tool such as a belt 65 is looped around the driven side pulley 64 and the driving side pulley 63 of the brush roll 61.

As a result, the brush roll 61 receives power from the transport roll 51 of the belt conveyor 50 and rotates in the same direction as the traveling direction D of the belt conveyor 50. The raised portion of the mat 25 is pushed down by the brush bristles of the brush roll 61 and the seedling raising box 45 is filled with a good posture. At this time, the relationship between the traveling speed of the nursery box 45 and the rotation speed of the brush roll 61 can be adjusted by changing the radius ratio between the pulleys 63 and 64.

In the example of FIG. 2, the rotational force of the brush roll 61 is obtained from the transport roll 51. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and it is also possible to rotate the brush roll 61 by a dedicated drive motor. In this case, the rotation speed of the drive motor is controlled using the traveling speed of the belt conveyor 50 as a control signal.

A leveling device 70 is provided downstream of the mat pressing device 60. The leveling device 70 includes an elastic roll 73 such as a rubber roll suspended from a fulcrum 71 by a spring 72. The elastic roll 73 has a certain weight and contacts the surface of the mat 26 filled in the seedling raising box 46. The part where the mat 26 is raised receives a large pressing force from the elastic roll 73, and is leveled in the same state as the other parts.

In this way, the mat 27 is filled in the seedling raising box 47 sent out from the belt conveyor 50 while maintaining the desired positional relationship. Therefore, the seedling raising box 47 filled with the mat 27 can be sent to the lower processes such as irrigation, sowing, and soil covering as in the case of FIG. That is, even when a fibrous mat such as rock wool is used as the floor soil, it is possible to automate the entire process and save labor.

In the above example, the feed gear 8
The case where the mats 21, 22, 23 ... However, the present invention is not restricted to this, and the feed gears 81, 82 are used exclusively for the progressive feed of the mats 21, 22, 23 ,.
It is also possible to hold the mats 21, 22, 23 ... At a predetermined height position in the mat housing box 30 by a separately provided stopper. Also in this case, the stoppers are arranged so that they can be put into and taken out of the mat housing box 30 in accordance with the positions of the seedling raising boxes 43, 44, 45, ...

[0030]

As described above, in the present invention, the mat that slides down the slide is directed toward the front corner of the nursery box, and the front edge or the rear edge and one side edge of the mat are inside the front section of the nursery box. It is in contact with the wall surface or the rear inner wall surface and one side inner wall surface. That is, since the mat sent to the seedling raising box is aligned with the inner space of the seedling raising box at the front edge or the rear edge and the adjacent one side edge, the mat is filled into the seedling raising box with high positional accuracy. It is possible to automatically fill the seedling raising mat.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a conventional seeding plant using natural soil.

FIG. 2 shows a main part of an apparatus for filling a seedling raising box with a fibrous mat in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 also shows an example of the transfer means.

FIG. 4 also shows a slide.

FIG. 5 is a plan view showing the positional relationship between the slide and the seedling raising mat.

[Explanation of symbols]

21, 22, 23 ... Fiber mat 30 Mat storage box 43, 44, 45 ... Seedling raising box 44c Front corner of seedling raising box 44 Belt conveyor (conveying means) 80 Transfer means 83 Sensor (detecting means) 90 Sliding Stand

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A carrying means for carrying a plurality of seedling raising boxes continuously or intermittently, and arranged above the side part of the carrying means.
A mat storage box for stacking and storing a plurality of fiber mats in the vertical direction, a detection means for detecting that a predetermined nursery box has passed a set position, and depending on the seedling box passing the set position. A transfer means for sequentially feeding the fibrous mat in the mat storage box downward, and provided at the lower part of the mat storage box, and provided with a sliding table inclined obliquely downward toward a front corner of the seedling raising box, The seedling-growing mat feeding and filling device, wherein the lowermost fibrous mat released from the transferring means is fed toward a front corner of the seedling-growing box.