Fluent material handling – with receiver or receiver coacting mea – With conveying means to supply successive receivers – Sampler type
Patent
1997-04-25
2000-03-14
Douglas, Steven O.
Fluent material handling, with receiver or receiver coacting mea
With conveying means to supply successive receivers
Sampler type
141 18, B65B 104
Patent
active
060359048
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention concerns an automatic metering and filling machine, in particular for volumes of animal semen packaged in any kind of packaging member (by way of non-limiting example: cannulas, straws, catheters, tubes, flasks, etc) regardless of their diameter and of the material from which they are made. This device is more particularly, although not exclusively, suitable for insemination of poultry, such as turkeys, for example.
The equipment traditionally employed for artificial insemination of poultry, for example, conforms to various criteria allowing for the anatomical, physiological and economic peculiarities of these species. Four of these criteria are crucial in the case of industrial applications. These absolutely essential criteria are as follows: or diluted sperm, for example; inseminations per hour, by way of non-limiting example, between 500 and 800 inseminations per hour, in turkeys, depending on the number of inseminators); female) transmission of contaminating agents (for example Mycoplasms or Salmonella);
The construction of automatic metering and filling machines commercially available at this time does not satisfy all these requirements simultaneously. Although this equipment in all cases satisfies the last two of the specifications mentioned above, this is not so in respect of the first two. The equipment is designed on the principle of distribution using a syringe or an air suction system. The use of a syringe generally limits the speed with which doses can be dispensed and the use of an air suction system does not allow accurate metering of the liquid substance to be introduced into the interior of a cannula, for example. Consequently, and regardless of their qualities, this equipment is either very accurate and rather slow or fairly fast and somewhat inaccurate. What is more, most of this equipment is generally relatively costly and must in some cases be associated with a compressor, which does not facilitate the work of inseminators moving amongst animals or in poultry batteries, for example.
A machine for filling artificial insemination straws for poultry, for example, is described by the applicants of the present patent in Pat. Nos. 2,500,296 and 2,513,110. The invention has many advantages over the above machine, which is commercially available and in use at this time.
The existing machine utilizes a piston pump, unlike the invention, which uses a peristaltic cassette (as described, for example, in European patent application No. 81104214.2 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,702,679) filed by MALBEC) under the control of a digital controller. Accordingly, the invention removes all of the drawbacks mentioned in connection with the existing equipment.
The existing machine uses a device for clamping a tube by means of three separate members in metering and filling cannulas or any other packaging members with a liquid of any kind. The advantages of the invention include a compact system based on a peristaltic cassette containing a preferably flexible tube and rollers. (See U.S. Pat. No. 4,702,679 mentioned above. The pressure applied to the tube by said rollers delivers a dose. This principle is therefore substituted for the radial clamping members of the machine currently used.
Moreover, the central member of the existing machine having a fixed dimension, the dose is adjusted by limiting the travel of the central member, which sometimes leads to some inaccuracy in respect of the volume of the dose delivered. The adjustment is effected by limiting the travel of the central member by means of a screw and a key, which wastes a certain amount of the operator's time. In the new machine, on the other hand, the subject matter of the present patent, the adjustment is carried out by pressing on two buttons, preferably pushbuttons, either in a pulsed mode (fraction of a dose, for example) or in a continuous mode (passing a dose of 40 microliters to 50 microliters, for example). The dose is defined by a number of turns or of fractions of turns of the peristaltic cassette. Sa
REFERENCES:
patent: 3880210 (1975-04-01), Randolf et al.
patent: 4478261 (1984-10-01), Cassou et al.
patent: 4702679 (1987-10-01), Malbec
Beau Christian
Brillard Jean-Pierre
Douglas Steven O.
Instruments de Medecine Veterinaire
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