GB2057307A - Coating articles with particles - Google Patents

Abstract

Articles, e.g. fish fingers, to be coated with particles, e.g. bread crumbs, are supported on a conveyor 42 which is covered with a layer of particles, the underside of the articles thereby being coated, and the top and sides of the articles are coated with particles falling from the inclined end 40 of a plate 38. A conveyor 34 moves particles from the bottom of a container 14 up inclined wall 22 and along the plate 38. Conveyer 42 is associated with a similar container, the bottom 46 of which is apertured to permit some of the unused particles to fall into container 14 for re-circulation. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Improvements in and relating to coating apparatus The present invention concerns improvements in and relating to coating apparatus, particularly but not exclusively apparatus for coating foods products, for example fish fingers with bread crumbs.

There are a number of food products which are coated during the manufacturing stage for example fish fingers are rectangular prisms of frozen fish which are covered on all faces by bread crumbs after they have been covered in a paste-like mixture of egg white, thin batter or the like. It is desirable to coat all faces of the fish finger in one machine and prior machines for carrying out this operation have comprised an open mesh endless conveyortravelling over a plate on which is carried a bed of bread crumbs which is carried over the plate by the conveyor and which is sufficiently thick to cover the upper level of the mesh such that fish fingers on the conveyor have their under-face coated, the upper and side faces being coated as the conveyor passes under a distributor sprinkling bread crumbs on to the conveyor.

Clearly only a fraction of the bread crumbs on the base and from the distributor adhere to the fish fingers and it is desirable to recycle unused bread cru mbs for fu rther use.

In the past this has been achieved by the use of a device including an auger, but such a device has the disadvantage of reducing the bread crumbs in size ultimately to such an extent that they are unuseable, the crushed bread crumbs forming a fine dust which contaminates the working area.

In another prior machine deflector plates or ploughs have been arranged above the mesh of the conveyorto concentrate the bread crumbs over a relatively small band of the conveyor's width such that the level of bread crumbs in this band is deeper than the height of a fish finger on the conveyor whereby all faces of the product are coated. Naturally this arrangement is disadvantageous in that it results in large areas of the conveyor being un-used and is often suitable for a single file of products only.

It it an object of the present invention to obviate or mitigate these disadvantages.

According to the present invention there is provided a coating apparatus including first and second conveyor arrangements each having an open mesh endless conveyor arranged in a container, each conveyor arrangement have a top flight passing over a plate, a bottom flight passing over the base of the container and an inclined flight passing over a correspondingly inclined surface of the container in which it is located whereby coating material is circulated over said plates, bases and surfaces by said arrangements on movement of the conveyors said first conveyor arrangement being located between top and bottom flights of said second conveyor arrangement, the leading end of the plate of said second arrangement terminating above the top flight of the first conveyor and the base of the first container being apertured to permit transference of coating material from one conveyor arrangement to the other, and means for supplying products to be coated to a flight of said first conveyor arrangement.

Preferably the direction of movement of the top flight of the first conveyor arrangement is substantially perpendicular to the direction of movement of the top flight of the second conveyor arrangement.

The leading end of the plate of the second arrangement preferably extends obliquely across said conveyor.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure shows diagrammatically a sectional and elevation on the line I-I of Figure 2; Figure 2 shows diagrammatically a partial plan of the apparatus shown in Figure land Figure 3 shows in greater detail a view similar to Figure 1 of a modified apparatus.

A coating apparatus comprises first and second conveyor arrangements generally designated by the reference numerals 10 and 12 respectively. The conveyor arrangements 10 and 12 are both substantially of the same construction and for simplicity only the second arrangement 12 will be described in detail.

The second conveyor arrangement includes a container 14 having a substantially open end 16, a pair of opposed side walls 18, a substantially horizontal base 20 and an inclined surface 22 at the end thereof remote from the open end 16. Mounted about driven rollers, followers and guides 24-32 arranged within the container is an open-mesh endless conveyor 34 including a plurality of wires 36 of stainless steel extending across the direction of movement M of the conveyor and interconnected by articulated wire links (not shown). The location of the conveyor is such that its bottom flight and its inclined flight between the bottom and top flights move over the base 20 and inclined surface 22 of the container in close proximity thereto.Similarly, at least part of the top flight of the conveyor moves over a horizontal plate 38 in close proximity thereto, leading end 40 of said plate 38 being arranged obliquely to the direction of movement M such that, as can be seen from Figure 2, the leading edge 40 extends over the entire width of the conveyor 42 of the first conveyor arrangement 10. The trailing end 44 of said plate 38 is arranged adjacent to the guide rollers 24 at the junction of the inclined and top flight of the conveyor 34.

In operation of the second conveyor arrangement with the conveyor 34 driven in the direction of arrows M (Figure 1), granular coating material, for example bread crumbs, lying on the base 20 of the container are conveyed up the inclined surface 22 by the inclined flight of the conveyor and well up in the region of rollers 24. When a sufficient accumulation has welled up excess bread crumbs spill on to the plate 38 at its end 44 and are thereafter conveyed over the plate 38 by the wires 36 of the top flight of the conveyor. When the bread crumbs reach the oblique leading edge 40 of the plate 38 they fall on to the top flight of the conveyor 42 of the first conveyor arrangement 10 and it will be realised that in view of the arrangement of said leading edge the entire width ofconveyor 42 will be subjected to falling bread crumbs.Thus articles to be coated supported on said conveyor 42 are sprinkled from above with bread crumbs and have their top, side and end faces coated.

As indicated above, the construction of the first conveyor arrangement is similar to that of the second arrangement but apertures (not shown) are provided in the base 46 of the container 48 of the second arrangement. It will be realised that bread crumbs falling from the top flight of the second conveyor not adhering to articles to be coated fall through thefirstflight of the top conveyor onto the top plate thereof, being thereafter conveyed over the top plate until they reach the leading end (which leading end need not be obliquely arranged3 and fall to the base 46 of the container 48.Certain of these bread crumbs fall through the apertures in to the base of the container of the first arrangement 10 but others remain on said base and, in a manner similar to that described for the second container, are drawn up the inclined surface to well up at the junction of the inclined and top flights, spilling over on to the top of the plate of the first conveyor arrangement.

The layer of bread crumbs on said top plate is of sufficient depth to cover the upper surface of the top flight of the conveyor and consequently any articles placed on said top flight have their bottom faces coated with bread crumbs.

It should be realised therefore that any products to be coated supplied to the trailing end of the top flight of the first conveyor are fully covered with coating material when they reach the end of said top flight and can thus be removed therefrom for subsequent processing.

The modified apparatus shown in Figure 3 has been devised when the coating material is more fragile than bread crumbs, for example it is "Japanese" crumbs.

The first conveyor arrangement and certain com ponents of the second conveyor arrangement are similar to those illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 and will not be described again. in Figure 3 these similar components have been given the same reference numerals as their counterparts in Figure 1.

To protect the crumbs it is arranged that two conveyors are provided in the second conveyor arrangement, one conveyor 34 being arranged in a manner similar to the single conveyorinthesecond conveyor arrangement illustrated in Figure 1 and 2 but being spaced from the container base 20 and inclined surface and having no clearance at the end oftop plate 38 whose trailing end is defined by an arcuate end guide 24'forthe conveyor34.Thusthe crumbs do not pass through the conveyor 34 at the end of the top plate 38 and are thus less susceptible to damage.

The crumbs are conveyed over the base 20 of the container and up the inclined surface 22 to well up at the top end thereof and spill onto plate 34 by another conveyor 50 of the second conveyor arrangement of a similar construction to the other conveyors and driven and guided by rollers 52-58 at the same speed as said one conveyor 34.

Acrumb hopper 60 having an inclined bottom 62 leading to a discharge opening 64 the size of which can be varied to suit the type of crumb in the hopper is provided at one end of the container associated with the second conveyor arrangement and has a vibrator 66 associated with its bottom 62, actuation of the vibrator leading to discharge of crumbs from the hopper onto the base 20 of the container.

So that the vibrator is only actuated when the amount of crumbs in the apparatus is reduced below a predetermined level a crumb level sensor 70 is provided above the top plate 34. The sensor comprises a pivotal arm 72 resting on the bed of crumbs on plate 34 and a micro-switch 74 actuable by the Ieverwhen it falls beyond a certain point, the micro-switch controlling the power supply to the vibrator.

Various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. For example paddles may be included on the conveyors to assist in the conveying of bread crumbs over the base and inclined surfaces of the container and the top plate. It is not essential that the entire conveyor of the first arrangement is arranged between the top and bottom flights of the conveyor of the second arrangement and in certain instances it may be desirable to arrange that only the top flight of the first conveyor is between the top and bottom flights of the second conveyor.

It is possible that the first conveyor arrangement is modified in a mannersimilarto that shown for the second conveyor arrangement in Figure 3.

Claims (14)

1. A coating apparatus including first and second conveyor arrangements each having an open mesh endless conveyor arranged in a container, each conveyor arrangement have a top flight passing over a plate, a bottom flight passing over the base of the container and an inclined flight passing over a correspondingly inclined surface of the container in which it is located whereby coating material is circulated over said plates, bases and surfaces by said arrangements on movement of the conveyors said first conveyor arrangement being located between top and bottom flights of said second conveyor arrangement, the leading end of the plate of said second arrangement terminating above the to, flight of the first conveyor and the base of the first container being apertured to permit transference of coating material from one conveyor arrangement to the other, and means for supplying products to be coated to a flight of said first conveyor arrangement.

2. A coating apparatus as claimed in claim 1, in which each conveyor arrangement includes a single conveyor passing over said plate, container base and inclined surface.

3. A coating apparatus as claimed in claim 1, in which at least one of said conveyor arrangements includes two conveyors, one conveyor passing over said plate to provide said top flight, another passing over said container base and inclined surface to provide said bottom and inclined flights.

4. A coating apparatus as claimed in claim 3, in which said second conveyor arrangement includes two conveyors.

5. A coating apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 4, in which the direction of movement of the top flight of the first conveyor arrangement is substantially perpendicular to the direction of movement of the top flight of the second conveyor arrangement.

6. A coating apparatus as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, in which the leading end of the plate associated with the second conveyor arrangement extends obliquely across the path of travel of the top flight of the conveyor thereabove.

7. A coating apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 3 to 6, in which the conveyors of said second conveyor arrangement each move at the same speed.

8. A coating apparatus as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, including a hopper for coating material.

9. A coating apparatus as claimed in claim 8, in which the coating apparatus discharges into the container associated with the second conveyor arrangement.

10. A coating apparatus as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, including a sensorfordeter- mining the amount of coating material therein.

11. A coating apparatus as claimed in claim 10, in which the sensor is arranged to evaluate the depth of coating material on the plate associated with the second conveyor arrangement.

12. A coating apparatus as claimed in claim 11, in which a vibrator acting on the base of the hopper is actuable by the sensing means to cause a discharge of coating material from the hopper.

13. A coating apparatus substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figures 1 and 2 or Figure 3 of the accompanying drawings.

14. Any novel subject matter or combination including novel subject matter herein disclosed, whether or not within the scope of or relating to the same invention as any of the preceding claims.