Butchering – Support – Carcass or portion suspended
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-24
2001-08-21
Little, Willis (Department: 3643)
Butchering
Support
Carcass or portion suspended
C452S182000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06277021
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
The invention relates to a carrying hook for suspending poultry by the legs and conveying it, having two channels, each capable of receiving one leg.
Carrying hooks of the above-mentioned kind are used on a large scale in plants for the automated slaughter and further processing of poultry. In such plants the carrying hooks are part of the so-called overhead conveyors that convey the poultry suspended upside down.
A known carrying hook is provided with two U-shaped bar portions extending substantially in a horizontal plane and forming the said channels between the legs of the U-shape. The legs of the poultry are pushed into the channels, with the waling toes projecting above the U-shaped bar portions. Usually, the legs are pushed into the channel far enough to abut against the bottom of the channel joining the two legs of the U. To remove the legs from such a carrying hook, the legs are moved in the opposite direction.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is the object of the invention, to provide a carrying hook of the above-mentioned kind that, in comparison with the conventional carrying hook, has a much wider range of application. Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the following description, or may be obvious from the description, or may be learned through practice of the invention.
To this end the carrying hook according to the invention is characterized by having channels that are open at both ends.
The fact that the channels are open at both ends has an important effect in that the insertion of the legs into the channels and removal therefrom can take place at different ends of the carrying hook. The importance of this effect can be seen, among other things, from the example below:
When live poultry is manually suspended in carrying hooks in the manner applied at present on a large-scale, each fowl has the same orientation in relation to the respective carrying hook. This automatically means that the subsequent removal of the legs of the respective fowl from the carrying hook always has to occur in a uniform manner, thus also in the same direction. However, there are developments under way at present for automating the suspension of live poultry on carrying hooks. One of the problems arising with this is that once suspended in the carrying hook, different fowl may have different orientations. Basically, two orientations are possible in which the fowl in relation to each other are rotated 180° about a vertical axis. In order to be able to supply the fowl in a uniform manner to subsequent processing appliances, measures will have to be taken order to rotate the fowl 180° if they are not in the desired position. Such a rotation may take place, for example, by rotating the carrying hook or a portion thereof. However, since the removal of the fowl from the carrying hooks always takes place in an established direction, the movement in respect of the carrying hook will depend on whether they are rotated or non-rotated carrying hooks. This is, however, only possible if the channels, as proposed in the present invention, are opened at both ends.
The importance of the carrying hooks according to the invention with the channels open at both ends is also evident when using so-called rehangers. With such rehangers, the fowl are transferred from one processing line to another processing line. The processing lines cooperate with various appliances which, depending on the manufacturer, may depart from different positions of the fowl in the carrying hooks. In order to accommodate this variation, a number of maneuvers take place in the rehanger. This is especially the case with the conventional carrying hooks. However when carrying hooks according to the invention are used having channels that are open at both ends, the number of rehanging steps may be reduced since, as already mentioned above, the possibility exists of rotating the carrying hooks while it is still possible to remove the fowl from the carrying hooks in the desired direction.
The carrying hooks according to the invention also provide considerable advantages in portioning lines. The various portioning machines in a portioning line each require the fowl to be in a different optimal position in relation to the machine. For this purpose, rotatable carrying hooks are used. With the conventional carrying hooks having channels with only one open end, the carrying hooks always have to be rotated back to their original position, which involves an extra operation. If, however, carrying hooks are used having channels that are open at both ends, this extra operation may (in many cases) be omitted.
In a preferred embodiment of the carrying hook according to the invention, the channels are widened in the middle.
With the conventional carrying hook, whose channels are formed by U-shaped bars, positioning of the legs occurs by their engaging the bottom of the U-shaped bar portion. However, the carrying hook according to the invention does not have such a bottom, and widenings are provided in the middle, to allow centering of the legs. This prevents the legs from unintentionally sliding out of the channels.
It is further preferred, that the channels be provided with channel walls that can be separated by moving them against a spring force, generated by a spring member. The spring force tries to move the channel walls toward each other such that a clamping force is exerted on the legs in the channel. The strength of the clamping force depends on the force of the spring. This clamping force, optionally in combination with the central widening mentioned earlier, provides in all circumstances good positioning and engagement of the legs in the channels.
In this framework, it is constructively feasible that of each channel, one channel wall is stationary and the other channel wall is movable against the spring force, away from the one channel wall.
It suffices therefore, that only one channel will always be movable, while the opposite channel wall is stationary. In this way the construction of the carrying hook is rather uncomplicated, the manufacturing costs are kept within a limit, and the carrying hook requires little maintenance.
In this framework a simply realizable embodiment of the carrying hook according to the invention is proposed. In it the movable channel wall is formed by an edge of a flat plate that is slidable in the plane of the plate, whose side opposing the edge rests against a spring member and cooperates with guide means. By means of the spring member, the edge of the flat plate is pushed toward the stationary channel wall. The presence in the channel of a leg causes the flat plate, in cooperation with the guide means, to slide into a position in which the spring member comes under greater tension. The spring member may, for example, be a leaf spring.
The movement and extreme positions of the flat plate can be fixed in a simple manner, by providing the plate with guide notches for engaging guide pins.
It is further preferred, that the channels mutually diverge toward their ends.
This special embodiment variant of the carrying hook is particularly advantageous when insertion and removal of the legs in and out of the carrying hooks takes place at so-called return wheels, which at their circumference cooperate with the carrying hooks. The mutually divergent shape of the channels is then chosen such that the respective divergent ends extend radially in relation to the return wheels. This allows the legs to be conveniently inserted into and removed from the channels. The measure in which the channels diverge depends in such a case, among other things, on the diameter of the return wheels.
As already briefly explained above, it may be necessary when automatically suspending poultry from carrying hooks, to rotate some of the poultry about a vertical axis. For such a case a special variant of the carrying hook according to the invention is mentioned, having an upper part and a lower part wherein the lower part is provided with the channels and, in relation to the upper part, is rotatab
Dority & Manning
Little Willis
Meyn Food Processing Technology B.V.
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