AN IMPROVED MACHINE FOR TOPPING GENERALLY CONICALLY-SHAPED ROOT VEGETABLES

摘要

1,254,701. Endless conveyers. CLIFFORD PYE Ltd. 4 March, 1969 [4 March, 1968], No. 10410/68. Heading B8A. [Also in Division A4] A conveyer 10, Figs. 1 and 2, carrying generally conically shaped root vegetables from a loading station to a topping station comprises an endless chain formed from beams 12 pivoted to each other at 13, the chain running on wheels 14 engaging notches in a drive wheel 11. Each beam 12 comprises an inner plate 17 joined by posts 18 to an outer plate 17, groups of five slats 19 sliding on each pair of posts. The plates and slats form vegetable holders, each comprising coaxial apertures in each slat of a group of five slats 19A to 19E and apertures in plates 16 and 17, the aperture size increasing from plate 17 to plate 16 and their peripheries lying on a cone along an upper run of the conveyer, the slats sliding down posts 18 to grip the vegetables as the conveyer moves from the upper run to the lower run adjacent the topping station. The conveyer 10 may have one hundred and twenty beams 12, each having thirty holders. In an alternative embodiment, Fig. 14, the holders on the beams each comprise a frustoconical tube 32SP1/SP axially movable against a spring 36 in a tube 311, the frusto-conical tube containing a vegetable which is engaged by a freely rotating wheel 38 to push the frustoconical tube downwardly so that a predetermined length of the vegetable root protrudes from the holder at the topping station.