Fruit orienting device

Details Fruit orienting device Fruit orienting device

1996-10-23

1999-01-05

Bucci, David A.

Conveyors: power-driven

Conveyor for changing attitude of item relative to conveyed...

By conveying randomly faced items and turning items to...

198387, 198779, 209912, B65G 1732

Patent

active

058552707

ABSTRACT:
A fruit or other produce orienting device, particularly suited for orienting apples, orients a piece of fruit with its stem axis horizontal so that it can undergo quality inspections. The device employs a cylindrical drive roller which engages the fruit on one side, and causes it to rotate, and a pair of freely rotating orienting rollers which engage the fruit across from the drive roller, and cause the fruit to achieve the desired orientation as it rotates. The first orienting roller is cone shaped with a tapered flat or concave surface so that it will steer the fruit toward the second, opposing roller, which has a thin disk shaped portion with a front surface that engages the fruit. The front surface of the disk shaped portion tends to align itself with the flat edge of the fruit at its stem or calyx end, and this causes the rotating fruit to be oriented quickly with its stem axis parallel to the roller axes, and then maintains the fruit in the correct orientation once it is achieved.

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Rehkugler, G. E. et al., "Apple Sorting With Machine Vision", Transactions of the ASAE Amer. Socity of Agricultural Eng., vol. 29(5), Sep.-Oct. 1986, pp. 1388-1397.
Rehkugler, G. E. et al., "Optical-Mechanical Bruised Apple Sorter", ASAE Publication 1-76, Quality Detection in Foods, American Socity of Agricultural Eng., Dec. 1974, 5 pages.

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