JPH06335366A - Automatic packing machine for ham - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an automatic packing machine for ham products, capable of continuously and automatically performing a series of operations from a shaping work for beating and loosening a bulky meat as the raw material to a sealing work for packing and tightly sealing it in a casing. CONSTITUTION:A raw material supplying unit of this automatic packing machine is equipped with a holding mechanism 9 and a shaping unit 8 so that both the units may be adjacent to each other. The shaping unit 8 involves a hopper 31 for receiving a bulky meat (B) as the raw material and plural hammers 33 for beating the bulky meat and the hammers 33 are set to a hammer base 32. The hopper 31 is operated and turned by an operation mechanism 35 so as to enable transfer of the beaten raw material bulky meat (B) to a receiving plate 12 of the holding mechanism 9. A bulky meat pressed into a cylindrical shape and held by the holding mechanism 9 is sent out through a discharge mechanism and filled into a casing. Both the ends of the bulky meat are sealed and fixed by a clip.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to packing a ham into a casing and hermetically packing the ham product by loosening the meat fibers of the raw meat block to remove the shape-restoring force. The present invention relates to an automatic packaging device for ham products, which is equipped with a raw material shaping device suitable for shaping.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Ham products differ from other secondary meat products in that a series of meat processing is performed while raw meat is kept in the state of meat, and the distribution of meat quality and fiber arrangement are almost the same as those of raw meat. I am maintaining. Therefore, the cross-sectional shape of the ham product may return to the cross-sectional shape of the raw meat chunk when the meat chunk is hermetically packed in a casing. This is especially true for ham products packed in long casings, especially for the production of sliced ham.

In order to avoid such problems, the raw material meat is pretreated before packaging, and a pretreatment device of this type is known, for example, from Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-193194. However,
This device performs pretreatment for automatic packaging of relatively short ham products. There, a saucer having a groove having a semicircular cross section and a pressing lid sandwich the raw material meat block vertically to compress it into a columnar shape, which is extruded by an operating cylinder and cut into predetermined lengths. . That is, a raw material chunk having a non-circular cross section, such as a cocoon shape, is compressed and deformed into a column shape to facilitate filling into the casing. An automatic packaging device for ham products is known from Japanese Patent Publication No. 2-6684.

For the production of long-sized ham products for sliced ham, a different processing procedure from the above pretreatment is followed. The raw material chunks are filled in the casing with a filling device or an automatic packaging device. Next, the semi-wrapped product taken out from the filling device is transferred to a shaping device, and the meat lumps are beaten from the outer surface of the casing to loosen the meat fibers to remove the shape restoring force (unknown document). In the shaping device, the raw meat chunk is held in a vertically long cross-section posture, and the meat chunk is hit from the upper surface side with a hammer to loosen the meat fibers along the longitudinal direction of the meat chunk.

[0005]

In the above-mentioned pretreatment mode, after filling the casing with the meat lump, the casing is manually transferred to a shaping device to remove the shape restoring force, and further, a sealing device is used to remove both ends of the casing. Since it is necessary to seal and fix the converging part with a clip, a lot of manpower is required for a series of ham packaging work, and it is unsatisfactory that the packaging work cannot be performed efficiently.

The object of the present invention is that the shaping process for removing the shape restoring force can be carried out before the casing is filled, and the series of operations from shaping the raw meat block to hermetically sealing with the casing can be carried out efficiently. The purpose is to obtain an automatic packaging machine for ham products that can be done.

[0007]

An automatic packaging apparatus according to the present invention is provided with a holding mechanism 9 for holding a raw meat block B in a circular cross section over its entire length, and a holding mechanism 9 arranged at one end of the holding mechanism 9.
The holding mechanism 9 includes an extruding mechanism 10 that feeds the raw meat chunk B into the casing C through the nozzle 4, and a sealing portion 3 that converges the casing C at both ends of the raw meat chunk B and seals and fixes them with clips. A shaping device 8 for beating the raw material meat block B to remove the shape restoring force thereof, and the shaping device 8 is provided with a hopper 31 that opens upward.
A hammer table 32 arranged above the hopper 31 and operated to move up and down toward the hopper 31, and a plurality of hammer blocks 32 mounted on the hammer table 32 and tapping the raw meat chunk B put into the hopper 31 from above. Operation of displacing the hopper 31 between the hammering position including the hammer 33 and the tapping position for receiving the raw meat chunk B and the discharging position for discharging the shaped raw meat chunk B toward the tray 12 of the holding mechanism 9. A feature is that a mechanism 35 is provided. Specifically, hopper 3
1 is swingably supported between a tapping position and a discharging position about an axis 36 parallel to the longitudinal center line of the tray 12. Abut on the raw meat block B put into the hopper 31,
A detection plate 34 for detecting the operation start position of the hammer 33 is provided on the hammer base 32. A plurality of reciprocating hammering cylinders 38 are provided on the hammer base 32, and the hammer 33 is attached to the tip of the piston rod 39 of the hammer cylinder 32.

[0008]

In the shaping device 8, the raw meat lump B put into the hopper 31 is hammered by the hammer 33 to loosen the meat fibers and remove the shape restoring force. The shaped raw material chunk B is automatically moved to the tray 12 of the holding mechanism 9 by displacing the hopper 31 with the operating mechanism 35, and thereafter, the filling and sealing of the casing C is automatically performed. Is done in a regular manner. As described above, according to the mode in which the raw meat chunk B is shaped in the hopper 31 and then transferred to the tray 12 and automatically packaged, a series of operations can be performed without waste in conformity with the procedure to be processed. The manual work is not required except when the raw meat chunk B is put into the hopper and when the packed ham product is taken out.

When the hammer table 32 is moved downward toward the raw meat chunk B, the detection plate 34 precedes the other raw meat chunk B.
To detect its size. By determining the amount of beating by the hammer 33 with reference to this meat chunk detection position, the degree of beating can be made substantially constant regardless of the size of the meat chunk. In the hammer driving structure in which the hammer 33 is attached to the tip of the piston rod 39 of the tapping cylinder 38, the amount of protrusion is gradually increased while reciprocating the piston rod 39, and the hammering operation is performed when the amount of protrusion reaches a predetermined amount. To stop. Also, each tapping cylinder 38 controls its operation individually. In such a beating mode, the number of times of beating is large at a place where the meat quality is hard, and the number of times of beating is reduced at a place where the meat quality is soft. Therefore, the meat fibers can be loosened almost uniformly according to the difference in meat quality.

[0010]

According to the present invention, the shaping device 8 is provided next to the holding mechanism 9, and the raw meat chunk B charged into the hopper 31 is hit with the hammer 33 to perform the shaping process, and then the hopper 31 is operated by the operating mechanism. The raw material chunk B that has been shaped is moved to the tray 12 of the holding mechanism 9 by the displacement operation at 35, and the casing C
The filling and the sealing can be continuously performed. In other words, a series of operations from the shaping process of the raw meat block B to the hermetic packaging by the casing C can be automatically performed according to the procedure to be processed. Therefore, a series of operations can be efficiently performed without wasting manpower and time, compared to the conventional work mode in which the raw meat mass is filled into the casing and then the shaping process is performed. Product productivity can be improved.

According to the embodiment in which the hammer plate 32 is provided with the detection plate 34 and the detection plate 34 is in contact with the raw meat chunk B to detect the operation start position of the hammer 33, the size of the raw meat chunk B is determined. Since the hammering start position of the hammer 33 changes according to the difference in the amount, the amount of beating and disentangling can be made almost constant regardless of the size of the meat chunk, and the amount of tapping will be excessive or insufficient depending on the size of the meat chunk. Can be prevented. According to the embodiment in which the raw meat chunk B is beaten by the hammer 33 attached to the piston rod 39 of the beating cylinder 38, the beating frequency can be changed according to the degree of hardness and softness of the meat, and the meat fibers can be loosened substantially evenly. It is possible to avoid a situation in which the meat fibers are beaten excessively to make it difficult to determine the meat quality, and the degree of tapping is insufficient to remove the shape restoring force.

[0012]

1 to 5 show an embodiment of an automatic packaging apparatus according to the present invention. In FIG. 2, the packaging apparatus includes a raw material loading unit 1 for loading a cylindrical raw material-shaped intermediate raw material and a pair of end plates P, and a casing C on the outer side of the left and right end plates P. And a sealing portion 3 that converges and seals and fixes with a clip. A setter 5 for attaching the cut end of the casing C to the nozzle 4 and a tensioning mechanism 6 for tightening the casing C are provided at one end of the sealing unit 3 as in the conventional packaging device. Reference numeral 7 is a roll of casing C.

The raw material loading section 1 has the nozzle 4 fixedly holding one end of the casing C, a holding mechanism 9 for holding the intermediate raw material in the shape of the whole length thereof, and the casing C for holding the intermediate raw material through the nozzle 4. Extrusion mechanism 10 for feeding the inside
And a pair of plate setters 11 arranged on the rear side of both ends of the holding mechanism 9 to feed the end plate P to a predetermined position.
And a shaping device 8.

The holding mechanism 9 is a saucer 1 having a U-shaped cross section.
2 and a frame 13 rising from both ends of the saucer 12,
The operation cylinder 14 is composed of a presser lid 15 which is moved up and down toward the tray 12. The push-out mechanism 10 includes an operation cylinder 16 installed horizontally and an insertion block 17 fixed to the tip of a piston rod of the operation cylinder 16.

In FIG. 3, the platesetter 11 comprises a charging mechanism 19, a hopper 20, and a supply mechanism for supplying the end plate P in the hopper 20 to the charging mechanism 19. In FIG. 4, the loading mechanism 19 has a guide frame 22 that is long in the front-rear direction, a rodless operation cylinder 23 fixed to one side of the guide frame 22, and is operated by the operation cylinder 23 to reciprocate in the guide frame 22. And the input body 24. The insertion body 24 is reciprocated between a standby position where the end plate P is received from the supply mechanism 21 and a insertion position where the end plate P is located on the delivery center axis, and the end plate P is sent to the left and right ends of the tray 12. . Reference numeral 26 is a chute for feeding and guiding the end plate P in the hopper 20 to the guide frame 22.

As shown in FIG. 1, the shaping device 8 is arranged next to the holding mechanism 9 by utilizing the frame 13, and the tray 1
2, a gutter-shaped hopper 31 arranged in parallel with 2, and a hopper 3
1, a hammer base 32 that is arranged above 1 and is operated to move up and down toward the hopper 31, and a 6 that is supported by the hammer base 32.
The hammer 33, the detection plates 34 arranged on both sides of the lower surface of the hammer base 32, and the operation mechanism 35 (see FIG. 5) for inverting the happo 31 are configured.

In many cases, the raw meat lump B has a cocoon-shaped cross section, and the meat lump is beaten in the longitudinal direction of the cocoon cross section to loosen the meat fibers. Therefore, the hopper 31 is formed in a deep groove shape having an open upper surface so that the raw material meat block B can be held in a state where the longitudinal line of the cross section is along the vertical line. Furthermore, when tapping, the hard meat portion of the raw meat chunk B is hopper 3
The groove bottom of the hopper 31 is flattened in order to prevent the posture of the raw material meat chunk B from changing along the bottom wall of the hopper 31. The hopper 31 can swing up and down around a pair of shafts 36 provided at the opening edge on the tray 12 side, and the raw meat chunk B
A beating position for receiving and beating (a solid line state in FIG. 1) and a discharging position at which the raw material chunk B, which has been shaped and processed by reversing around the shaft 36, is discharged toward the tray 12 (FIG. 1).
(Imaginary line state) is operated back and forth. A pair of shafts 36
Is parallel to the longitudinal centerline of the tray 12.

The hammer 33 is composed of a metal block having a rounded lower edge and is operated by a tapping cylinder 38 fixed to the upper surface of the hammer base 32. The tapping cylinder 38 is composed of a reciprocating air cylinder, and the hammer 33 is fixed to the lower end of its piston rod 39. The tapping cylinder 38 advances and retreats the piston rod 39 at a constant cycle to hammer the raw meat chunk B into the hammer 3
Hit at 3. Then, when the amount of advance of the piston rod 39 reaches a predetermined amount, the advance / retreat of the piston rod 39 is stopped, and the tapping operation is ended. This corresponds to the fact that there is a difference in hardness between the meat quality depending on the part of the raw meat block B. The number of times of beating is increased at a place where the meat quality is hard, and the number of times of beating is reduced at a place where the meat quality is soft so that the meat fiber This is to make the degree of loosening almost uniform.

In order to realize such a striking operation, an electromagnetically operated control valve is provided corresponding to each striking cylinder 38, and a sensor (not shown) for detecting the amount of protrusion of each piston rod 39 is provided on the hammer base. It is provided in 32 and comprises the control device including these. The sensor is arranged on the peripheral surface of each tapping cylinder 38, and senses the magnetic force of the magnet embedded in the piston to detect the amount of protrusion of the piston rod 39.

The hammer base 32 is supported by lifting cylinders 41 fixed to both ends of the upper wall of the frame 13. Lifting cylinder 4
Reference numeral 1 is an air cylinder in which a brake device is incorporated, which raises and lowers a hammer base 32. This lifting cylinder 4
The operation of 1 is also controlled by the control device.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 5, the detection plate 34
Are supported by a hammer base 32 and U-shaped frames 43 fixed to the lower surfaces of both sides thereof through a pair of adjustment shafts 44, and are arranged so that the plate surface faces the hopper 31. When the hammer table 32 is operated to be lowered, the detection plate 34 comes into contact with the raw material chunk B ahead of others and identifies the operation start position of the hammer 33. As a result, even if the sizes of the raw meat pieces B are different, the degree of tapping by the hammer 33 can be made substantially constant. When the detection plate 34 contacts the raw meat chunk B,
The elevating cylinder 41 stops descending and maintains that state. In this state, the beating cylinder 38 starts to operate, and while the hammer 33 is moved up and down, its descending amount is gradually increased,
Beat the chunks of meat. The position of the detection plate 34 can be adjusted up and down by operating the nut at the upper end fixing the adjustment shaft 44.

When the tapping is completed, the hammer table 32 is pulled up by the elevating cylinder 41 and stands by for a stop. In this state, the entire hopper 31 is inverted by the operation mechanism 35 to transfer the shaped raw material meat mass B to the saucer 12. Operating mechanism 35
Is the forward / reverse rotation motor 45 with a reducer, and the motor power is the shaft 3
It is composed of a chain mechanism 46 and the like which is transmitted to No. 6. In FIG. 5, reference numeral 47 is a loading table for the hopper 31.

The raw material chunk B put into the saucer 12 is shown in FIG.
As shown in (4), it is pressed by the pressing lid 15 that moves downward and is deformed into a cylindrical shape. The cylindrical intermediate raw material and the pair of end plates P loaded at both ends of the tray 12 by the platesetter 11 are simultaneously pushed into the casing C by the insertion block 17 through the nozzle 4. Next, the sealing mechanism of the sealing portion 3 is operated to narrow down the casing C at a position outside the end plate P, and then the casing C is sealed and fixed with a clip. The packed ham product is taken out from the sealing portion 3. At the same time as the sealing work is performed, the shaping device 8 causes the next raw material chunk B to be formed.
Then, the ham is packaged by repeating the above operation.

In the above embodiment, the hammer 3 is used as the air cylinder.
I did a reciprocating operation of 3, but it is not necessary. The hammer 33 can be reciprocally operated by converting rotational power into reciprocating motion by a crankshaft or a cam. You may hit a lump of meat with the hammer 33 pivotally supported by the rotating disk. The operation mechanism 35 can be composed of a reciprocating air cylinder. On the contrary, as the lifting cylinder 41, a lifting mechanism including a ball screw shaft, a nut screwed with the ball screw shaft, and a motor for rotationally driving the ball screw shaft can be used. Instead of the detection plate 34, various distance sensors or position sensors that detect the size of the raw meat chunk B can be used. The hopper 31 does not need to be turned over at the discharge position, and the raw meat chunk B can be moved by an air cylinder or mechanical force.
It is possible to adopt a mode in which the food is forcibly sent to the tray 12.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing an operating state of a shaping device.

FIG. 2 is an overall front view of the automatic packaging device.

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a raw material loading unit of the automatic packaging device.

4 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line AA in FIG.

FIG. 5 is a sectional view equivalent to FIG. 1 in a state in which the raw meat chunk is transferred to a saucer.

[Explanation of Codes] 3 Sealing Part 4 Nozzle 8 Shaping Device 9 Holding Mechanism 10 Extrusion Mechanism 12 Saucepan 31 Hopper 32 Hammer Stand 33 Hammer 34 Detection Plate 35 Operating Mechanism 38 Tapping Cylinder 41 Lifting Citander B Raw Meat C C Casing P End Plate

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A holding mechanism 9 for holding the raw meat chunk B in a circular shape over its entire length, and a casing C arranged at one end of the holding mechanism 9 for holding the raw meat chunk B via a nozzle 4.
An automatic packaging device for ham products, comprising: an extrusion mechanism (10) for feeding the inside of the raw meat mass (B); A shaping device 8 for tapping the raw meat chunk B to remove its shape restoring force is provided, and the shaping device 8 is disposed above the hopper 31 and is disposed above the hopper 31. The hopper 31 includes a hammer table 32 that is operated to move up and down, and a plurality of hammers 33 that are mounted on the hammer table 32 and tap the raw meat chunk B that has been put into the hopper 31 from above. A tapping position to receive the lump B,
An automatic packaging device for ham products provided with an operating mechanism 35 for performing a displacement operation between the shaping meat material B and the discharging position where the raw material chunk B is discharged toward the tray 12 of the holding mechanism 9. 2. The raw material charged into the hopper 31 is supported so that the hopper 31 can swing about a shaft 36 parallel to the longitudinal centerline of the tray 12 between a tapping position and a discharging position. 2. The automatic ham product packaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a detection plate 34, which is in contact with the meat block B and detects the operation start position of the hammer 33, is provided on the hammer table 32. 3. The ham product automatic packaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hammer table 32 is provided with a plurality of reciprocating hammering cylinders 38, and a hammer 33 is attached to a tip of a piston rod 39 thereof. .