Читать книгу The Manufacture of Tomato Products - W. G. Hier - Страница 24

Fig. 1.—Tomato turning device on sorting belt.

There is another feature which helps greatly in sorting, and that is a tomato turning device, which is illustrated in Figure 1. This device turns a very large percentage of the tomatoes if they are fed to the belt properly, that is, if they are spread out evenly and are not too thick on the belt. The turning device allows them to be inspected from all angles, and is described in Bulletin 569 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture as follows:

“For an apron (sorting belt) 18 inches wide, 14 pieces of ¾ inch iron pipe (1 inch outside) were cut, each piece about 7 inches long. About one-half inch from one end of each piece a hole was drilled through the pipe large enough to permit of the pipes being strung on a ¼ inch steel rod. In order to insure freedom of movement, a thin washer was placed between each pipe and the one next to it. The whole set was then suspended by means of the steel rod across the sorting apron with the lower ends one-half inch above the apron. A back-stop rod is put in behind the set to prevent the pipes from swinging back past the center. This was found necessary to prevent them from swinging so far back as to strike and gouge the oncoming tomatoes.*** In operation the weight of the pipes is sufficient to roll the tomatoes over as they pass under.”

“In order to obtain satisfactory operation it is most important that the tomatoes do not cover more than 50 per cent of the apron area, otherwise they do not have room to turn properly. A test at one plant showed that 70 to 80 per cent of the tomatoes were turned each time they passed under a set of the pipes. It was found also that this turning device worked better on the open metal apron than on the canvas or rubber type, owing to the fact that the tomatoes slipped badly on aprons made of canvas or rubber.”