Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor system having auxiliary section for storing items... – Auxiliary section has the same entrance and exit
Patent
1991-11-08
1993-04-13
Olszewski, Robert P.
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor system having auxiliary section for storing items...
Auxiliary section has the same entrance and exit
1986266, 111104, 171 61, B65G 100
Patent
active
052019101
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to apparatus capable of handling awkwardly shaped delicate or non-rigid objects, in particular for handling tree seedlings both bare root seedlings and packaged root seedlings. The apparatus is particularly suitable for use as part of a machine for the automatic planting of seedlings.
Systems for planting seedlings, having various degrees of automation are known. These reduce the necessary manpower and can increase the rate of planting of the seedlings and also the quality of planting. In order to facilitate various stages in the handling of seedling trees before out planting and in order also to increase their chances of survival after they have been transplanted, various ways of packing the tree roots have been developed. These are of two general types. The first type are transplants which are derived from bare root seedlings by packaging and the second type are grown as such.
A commonly used packaged type derived from bare root stock is the "mud-pack". Mud packs have the general appearance of packaged trees which are grown as such.
There are other ways of packaging bare-root trees. An example is the experimental method known as the BRIKA process in which the roots are enclosed in pressed peat sheets by sandwiching the roots of a seedling between a pair of such sheets, either using a paste to secure the sheets together or by enclosing the whole in a layer of perforated plastic foil.
Packaged root seedlings can be easier to handle since they are more regularly shaped than bare-root trees, but there is still a difficulty in mechanising the planting of packaged root seedlings arising from the variety of packaged root sizes and types. Machinery designed to handle one type of packaged root seedling is often incapable of handling any other type.
Automatic handling devices for packaged root trees have been developed, for instance for feeding seedlings separately from a store carried on a vehicle and planting them in desired locations. Most of the feed mechanisms involve gravity feed from a hopper or pneumatic transporting means. Sometimes the feed mechanism is loaded by hand. Usually the apparatus can handle package root seedlings of one type only. The tree seedlings are usually dropped or blown into the excavation which gives an unsatisfactorily low percentage of property placed seedlings.
In the United States of America the vast majority of seedling trees planted in forests are bare-root trees (in the region of 66%). This number forms a large proportion of the seedlings planted in North America. Until now the outplanting of such seedlings has been automated only to a limited extent. In one partially automated device, a plough forms a furrow and then trees are individually placed into the furrow, the furrow afterwards being closed by a pair of blades. The tree is fed into the furrow by a pair of discs, each being angled slightly to the vertical so that they are close to each other at their lower regions and spaced apart at their upper regions. The discs are in contact with the ground and roll unpowered as the tractor which carries them moves along. Each tree is placed individually by hand between the discs which rotate the tree down into the furrow and release it near to the bottom as the discs cease to make contact.
In another system for handling bare-root trees, a rotating disc carries a resilient prong which can be pressed against the disc. A plate provided close to the vertical disc over a part of its surface presses the prong towards the plate as the plate rotates. Seedlings are individually hand fed to be gripped by the prong as it is pressed against the disc by the plate. As the disc rotates the seedling is moved down into a furrow and as the seedling reaches the furrow, the prong is released from the plate and the closing of the furrow around the roots of the tree pulls it clear of the opened prong.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,719,158 there is described a transplanting machine which is apparently capable of handling bare root seedlings and of planting them into a furrow. In the app
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Gastineau Cheryl L.
Olszewski Robert P.
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