WO2019178660A1

WO2019178660A1 - Compact system for producing snacks with filling

Info

Publication number: WO2019178660A1
Application number: PCT/BR2019/050087
Authority: WO
Inventors: Fabio Henrique CRISOSTOMO REZENDE; Filipe Otavio FIGUEIREDO DE MENEZES; Sidney ROSSI; Umberto Marcilio DA SILVA; Roberto Mario ARAGUTH
Original assignee: Bralyx Máquinas Indústria E Comércio Ltda
Priority date: 2018-03-20
Filing date: 2019-03-18
Publication date: 2019-09-26
Also published as: BR102018005506A2; BR102018005506B1

Abstract

The present application describes equipment (1), and a method of operating the same, for processing fermented dough, dead dough, cooked dough, puff pastry, or any other kind of dough, directly extruded or laminated. The equipment (1) comprises a frame (2), within which the electric-electronic control devices are housed, and, along the entire length of said frame, a conveyor belt (3) is envisioned, which moves the snack through consecutive processing stations: a dough feeding station (30), a filling station (20) and a cutting and closing station (10). Said equipment comprises: a first sensor (S1) capable of detecting a reference point on the conveyor belt (3); a second sensor (S2), which indicates the presence of a sheet of dough exiting the laminator; a memory (38) for storing programs and production data according to the product; and a PLC for commanding the actuation of gear motors (7, 23, 35) depending on the production program selected and information from said sensors (S1, S2, 8). The filling station is mobile in relation to the frame and said conveyor belt, in the form of a closed ring, is internally provided with teeth, which engage with the respective grooves of the front cylinder (6), said cylinder (6) being actuated by a gear motor (7), with the position monitored by means of an encoder (8).

Description

COMPACT SYSTEM FOR PRODUCTION OF STUFFED SALTY

[001] The present invention relates to a compact and automated system for the production of stuffed savory foods such as sprinkles, pastries, patties and similar food products such as stuffed pasta. More particularly, the present invention relates to equipment of compact dimensions, coupled with a particular method of operation thereof, and which, from minimum adjustments, is capable of automated production of one of a range of stuffed savory.

[002] Industrial equipment for making stuffed food products is already known in the art. For example, the Italian company Italgi (see www.italai.itJ) manufactures a wide variety of industrial machines and equipment for pasta production, among which are the RAV and PRP lines for the production of stuffed pasta, traditionally called double dough lamina or single dough lamina. Basically, such equipment comprises a dough feeding station, a filling feeding station, possibly a dough blade bending and cutting station from a mold. The dough, or possibly salty, thus formed is moved on a conveyor belt. In addition, these are equipment of different sizes and production volumes and that work primarily with fresh dough, not adapting to fermented or other types, and do not allow extruded pasta to be used. In addition, they have product size restrictions Thus, such solutions are functionally limited since the equipment is not allowed to work with all types of pasta (fresh, pizza, empanadas, Brazilian pastries, risolis, etc.). fermented, dead pasta, cooked pasta, puff pastry, either directly extruded or rolled.

[003] Similarly, Panitec also produces equipment for the production of stuffed savory products (see httD: //www.Danitec.com.br/Drodutos.DhD? D = 16J and similar products from medium-sized equipment). and large, such as those defined as Lynea 300, 400, or 600. They are at least 4,800 mm in length. described in relation to Italgi machines. Although operating with some of the dough types described above, this equipment works with a single sheet of previously laminated dough that folds into the filling using a continuous folding system, which restricts it to operate with certain dough types only. . Thus, its main limitations are: it only works with pre-rolling pasta, such as fresh, pastel pasta; and does not work with cooked pasta as well as no system for working with extruded pasta directly.

It happens that such equipment mentioned are destined to companies of medium or large size, that have space for larger equipments, but they do not adapt to the "home" type industries, in which a micro or small entrepreneur makes the production of salted and salted. / or stuffed pasta at home or in small work areas such as bakeries and supermarkets (whose cost of m ² is very high for production areas). Such limitations to this type of entrepreneur range from the cost of purchasing such equipment to space limitations for installing such equipment.

In order to reach and satisfy this general public, the present inventors initially sought simply to reduce the size of traditional and known machines. However, such a solution has proved to be totally unfeasible in practice mainly due to several problems related to the timing between the feeding, filling and cutting stations. In fact, the reduced belt size and relative proximity between these stations led to product losses in unacceptable quantities.

Objectives of the Invention

It is a first object of the present invention to provide a compact system for the production of stuffed savory foods, comprising small size, filling and slicing feed stations, with no timing problems.

[007] A second object of the invention is a compact system for the production of stuffed savory that can overcome the drawbacks of the art, and that fits in the small spaces of the producers.

A further object of the invention is a versatile system which allows various types of cooked and fermented pasta feeders are coupled without prior lamination.

Summary of the Invention

These and other objectives are achieved from a compact system for the production of stuffed savory, in particular for the processing of fermented pasta, dead pasta, cooked pasta, puff pastry, whether directly extruded or laminated pasta, in equipment of the type comprising a base within which the electro-electronic control devices are housed, and over the entire length of said base, a conveyor belt is provided which promotes salty displacement by consecutive processing stations, which are: dough feeding station, a filling station and a cutting and closing station. Furthermore, said cutting and closing station comprises a support structure fixed to said base which supports an actuating cylinder at whose lower end of the rod a cutting mold is fixed; said filling station comprises a structure in which a filling receiving hopper, a feeding thread driven by a gearmotor and a piston for releasing a metered amount of the filling through an ejector nozzle are arranged; and said pasta feed station comprises a two-stage structure comprising a first rolling mill and a second rolling mill, each comprising a pair of gage rollers wherein the gage rollers are rotated by a gearmotor, and wherein the lower rolling mill places a lower dough blade on the belt in a position upstream of the filling station while the upper rolling mill deposits the upper dough blade on an intermediate belt which ends downstream of said filling station and is driven by said gearmotor. In particular it comprises: a first sensor disposed at the base and capable of detecting a reference point in the belt; a second sensor, arranged downstream of the laminator outlet and indicative of the presence of a dough blade at said laminator outlet; one routine storage memory and production data per product; and a PLC, equipped with data inputs and command outputs, capable of controlling the drive of the geared motors according to the selected production routine and the information of said motors. sensors. In addition, said filling station is movable relative to the base with respect to the longitudinal direction of the equipment, and in the structure of the filling station there is provided a tip that remains above a base ruler of relative positioning adjustment; and said closed ring conveyor belt is internally provided with teeth which cooperate with the respective grooves of the anterior cylinder, and said anterior cylinder being driven by a geared motor, with positioning monitoring being performed by an encoder .

Even more particularly, in the system of the invention said first sensor defines a reference frame between the treadmill and the PLC, as well as enabling the PLC to zero the encoder count with each complete revolution of said treadmill. The second sensor, on the other hand, sends a signal indicative of the presence of a ground blade to the PLC, and said PLC controls the activation of the filling station in function of the detection of said presence signal of the second sensor.

Furthermore, each rolling mill further comprises a respective mechanical coupling for coupling a respective tray or a continuous feeder. The continuous feeder is preferably a double screw type pasta feeder.

Finally, the system further comprises a control panel, electrically interconnected with the PLC and indirectly with the memory, said control panel being able to select a pre-programmed salty production routine and / or insert and store. production data of a salty not previously established.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The present invention will be better understood from the following detailed description, preferably of non-limiting embodiment, which is supported by the accompanying figures, also non-limiting of the inventive scope and scope, in which:

Figure 1 is a side view of an apparatus according to the present invention;

Figure 2 is a perspective view illustrating the dough and filling blade feeding stations;

Figure 3 is a top elevational view of the downstream end of the conveyor belt; and Figure 4 is a schematic side view of an apparatus according to the invention coupled to a pair of continuous feeders.

Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment

According to the attached figures, (1) together indicates compact equipment for the production of stuffed savory and similar stuffed foods, particularly those in which the filling is enclosed between two blades of dough . Said equipment (1) basically comprises a base

(2) prismatic inside which (see figure 1) are housed the electronic control devices of the equipment (1). On said base (2) a treadmill is provided

(3) carrier which promotes salty displacement (not shown) during the various forming and processing stations thereof. Processing stations are, in order, defined as dough feed station, filling station and sealing cut and close station.

More particularly, said cutting and closing station (10) comprises a support structure (11), which is fixed to said base (2) and which holds an actuator cylinder (12) at whose lower end of the A cutting mold (13) is fixed to the rod. Said cutting mold (13) acts both to define the edges of the salty in production and to detach the salty itself from the set fed at this station (blade, stuffing, blade).

Upstream of this is provided the filling station (20), in which a metered quantity of filling is deposited on a dough blade. Conventionally, said filling station comprises a structure (21) in which a hopper (22) is arranged which receives the filling to be deposited, said filling being forced downwards, that is, from a thread (not shown) which is driven by a geared motor (23). Upon leaving the hopper, the stuffing is directed into a chamber (not shown) and then directed to the ejector nozzle (24) in a quantified manner via a non-visible piston which is enclosed in the housing (25). In this way, a metered amount of stuffing can be extracted and fed onto the lower mass blade. Alternatively, other types of devices may be adopted for the quantified filler deposit. Innovatively, the entire filling station (20) is movable relative to the base (2) in the longitudinal direction thereof. More particularly, in the filling station structure (21) there is provided a nozzle (26) which remains above a ruler (4) fixed to or formed at the top of the base (2). In this way, and as will be seen later, said filling station can be moved longitudinally with respect to the base (2), and in a controlled manner from the position of the tip (26) on the ruler (4) in order to promote a fine adjustment to the filling position of the stuffing over the lower dough blade. Mechanically, the displacement of the filling station may be effected by an endless thread coupled to a lever, or by any equivalent structure allowing controlled displacement of the filling station with respect to the base (2).

Finally, the pasta feeding station 30, as particularly illustrated in Figures 1 and 2, comprises a two-stage structure 31, each of which is intended to feed an upper blade and a blade. lower mass.

More particularly, and with particular reference to Figure 2, said mass station (30) comprises a first rolling mill (32) and a second rolling mill (320). Each of the rolling mills, equal to one another, comprises a pair of rollers. adjustable spacers (33, 34) to allow delivery of a thickness controlled mass blade The rotation of the calibrator cylinders (33, 34) is by means of a gearmotor (35) which incorporates a control system over its rotation speed, which is commanded to act by the PLC.

Furthermore, each rolling mill (32, 32 ') further comprises, upstream, a respective mechanical locking tray (36) on which a preformed but not appropriately thickness calibrated dough blade may be deposited. . Alternatively, and as can be seen from figure 4, tray 36 may be replaced with a continuous feeder 37 known in the art and intended to form a dough blade at its outlet. This feature makes the equipment of the invention quite versatile, as it allows both simple couplings (36) to be coupled to feed preformed dough blades as well as continuous feeders (37), preferably of the double screw type, the which receive a misshapen mass and mold it like a blade at the exit. As a result, it is possible thus said equipment operate with cooked or fermented pasta, even without prior lamination.

Finally, and as illustrated in Figure 1, the lower rolling mill (320) is arranged to deposit a lower mass blade on the belt (3) in a position upstream of the filling station (20). The upper rolling mill (32) deposits the upper dough blade on an intermediate belt (5), which ends downstream of the filling station (20), that is, in order to cover the lower dough blade after depositing on it. In particular, said intermediate belt (5) is also driven by the gearmotor (35) via a (not visible) drive current. This makes it possible to automatically synchronize the travel speed. of the intermediate belt (5) with the angular velocity of the gauge rollers (33, 34) of the respective rolling mills (32, 320). Thus, once the gearmotor speed (35) has been established, via PLC, the entire mass station (30) now acts automatically and without always according to the product being produced (previously selected).

As previously stated, the initial scope of the present invention, which is to provide a compact equipment for making stuffed savory for semi-industrial use, has been shown to be unfeasible from a simple reduction in equipment dimensions. similar in nature. In this case, the main problem faced was due to the large loss in production due to the lack of synchronism between the stations, whose origin is in their extreme proximity.

Thus, and in order to meet contradictory requirements, the equipment of the present invention initially has a conveyor belt (3) and on which said salty, closed-ring and internally toothed (not visible) arranged on the side edges of it. Said teeth cooperate with respective slots provided in the cylinder (6) above (see figure 3), which cylinder is driven by a gearmotor (7) and whose positioning is monitored by an encoder (8). Thus, it is possible for the logic devices that make up the present equipment to know precisely the positioning of the conveyor belt (3) and, therefore, the position of each salty in formation disposed on the said treadmill (3).

Furthermore, as already partially described, the filling station (20) is able to be moved in the longitudinal direction of the equipment (1), which allows a very precise adjustment of the filling position of the filling on the blade. lower mass.

For such purpose, this equipment has a PLC, known in the art, equipped with data inputs and command outputs, respectively to receive said information from sensors SI and S2, and to actuate the gearmotors (7, 23 , 35). More particularly, in said equipment (1) two automation sensors are provided, the first one, ie, the SI sensor serves to reference a known point (not shown) from the belt to the PLC. To this end, said sensor SI is fixedly fixed to the base (2) (see figure 1) in a position suitable for proximity to said belt (3). Moreover, said SI sensor has the function of zeroing the encoder count (8), since the encoder operates by pulses and is coupled to the cylinder shaft (6) of the gear motor (7) of the belt (3). Thus, every time a treadmill completes one lap, a small error occurs in counting these pulses, and as the treadmill completes more turns the error accumulates. In order to eliminate this error propagation, said SI sensor serves to reset this pulse count with each complete revolution of the belt.

The sensor S2 is a mass presence sensor, in particular for the lower mass blade. Thus, when the lower blade passes the sensor S2, which is arranged downstream of the lower mass blade output (from the lower rolling mill (320)), the PLC receives a ground presence signal and enables the station piston On the contrary, and when the end of the mass is detected, said sensor S2 sends another signal to the PLC, indicative of this condition, and thus the PLC commands said piston to stop dosing.

Furthermore, and as one of the main features of the present invention, said PLC is connected to a memory device (38) in which information about all kinds of savory foods that may be produced by the equipment is previously stored. More specifically, when the user wishes to produce a given type of stuffed salty, such as a sprinkler, for example, initially he must select the product on the control panel (9), which panel is electrically interconnected with the PLC and with the various electro-electronic devices inside the box (2). In this way, the PLC is informed about the type of salty to be produced and thus retrieves a respective production routine existing in the database of said memory (38), and in which information regarding the operating speeds of the products is pre-entered. several gearmotors (7, 36, 23), as well as the adjustment position of said filling station according to the ruler (4).

From this point the dough can be fed into the respective trays (36) of the rolling mills (32, 32 ^r ) and the filling deposited inside the hopper (22) of the filling station (20). Due to the preliminary synchronization of the equipment, it begins the manufacture of salty foods within specific parameters and, especially, with very low losses. As discovered by the inventors, the aforementioned operating strategy is fundamental to achieve the objectives related to the reduction in production losses, inherent to eventual synchronization mismatches, which are increased in small equipment. Thus, the presence of the sensors SI and S2, as well as the previous selection of the type of salty to be produced, ensure that the filling (20) and cutting and closing stations (10) act at the precise moments, drastically reducing losses. of production. These results were validated from intense tests in the laboratory of the holder.

In addition, the apparatus according to the invention is quite versatile as it allows, in addition to what is described, the user to create and store in memory (38) data relating to a new type of salty that he may come across. develop. To this end, the system of the invention includes a specific routine for storing production data of a new type of salty to be produced. Such data entry is performed from the control panel (9), which stores this data in said memory (38).

Claims

1. Compact system for the production of stuffed savory products, in particular for the processing of fermented pasta, dead pasta, cooked pasta, puff pastry, whether directly extruded or rolled, in equipment (1) of a type comprising a base ( 2) within which the electro-electronic control devices are housed and over the entire length of said base (2) a conveyor belt (3) is provided which promotes salty displacement by consecutive processing stations, which are: pasta feeding station (30), a filling station (20) and a cutting and closing station (10), and where:

- said cutting and closing station (10) comprises a support structure (11) fixed to said base (2) which supports an actuator cylinder (12) at whose lower end of the rod a cutting mold (13) is fixed. ;

- said filling station (20) comprises a structure (21) in which a filling receiving hopper (22), a feed screw driven by a gearmotor (23) and a piston for releasing a housing are arranged. metered amount of filling through an ejector nozzle (24); and

- said pasta feeding station (30) comprises a two-stage structure (31) comprising a first rolling mill (32) and a second rolling mill (320, each comprising a pair of gauge rollers (33, 34) being that the caliper cylinders (33, 34) are rotated by a gearmotor (35), and the lower rolling mill (320) places a lower mass blade on the belt (3) in a position upstream of the station. while the upper rolling mill (32) deposits the upper dough blade onto an intermediate belt (5), which ends downstream of said filling station (20) and is driven by said gearmotor ( 35),

characterized by comprising:

- a first sensor (Sl) disposed on the base (2) and capable of detecting a reference point on the belt (3);

- a second sensor (S2) arranged downstream of the laminator outlet (320 and indicative of the presence of a dough blade at the outlet of said rolling mill;

- one routine storage memory (38) and production data per product; and

- a PLC, equipped with data inputs and command outputs, capable of controlling the drive of the gearmotors (7, 23, 35) according to the selected production routine and information from said sensors (Sl, S2, 8)

and even though:

- said filling station (20) is movable with respect to the base (2), with respect to the longitudinal direction of the equipment (1), and in the structure (21) of the filling station there is provided a pointer (26) which remains above a ruler (4) of the base (2) for relative positioning adjustment;

- said closed ring conveyor belt (3) is internally provided with teeth which cooperate with the respective grooves of the anterior cylinder (6), and said anterior cylinder (6) being driven by a geared motor (7). ), with positioning monitoring being performed by an encoder (8).

System according to claim 1, characterized in that said first sensor (Sl) defines a reference frame between belt (3) and PLC, as well as enabling the PLC to zero encoder count (8) for each complete revolution of the said treadmill (3).

System according to Claim 1, characterized in that said second sensor (S2) sends a signal indicating the presence of a ground blade to the PLC, and said PLC controls the activation of the filling station (20). ) as a function of detecting said presence signal from the second sensor (S2).

A system according to claim 1, characterized in that each rolling mill (32, 32 ^r ) further comprises, upstream, a respective mechanical coupling for coupling a respective tray (36) or a continuous feeder (37) .

System according to claim 4, characterized in that said continuous feeder (37) is a double screw type pasta feeder.

System according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises a control panel (9), electrically interconnected with the PLC and indirectly with the memory (38), said control panel being able to select a production routine. pre-programmed salty and / or enter and store the production data of a previously not established salty.