GB335951A - An improved grading and weighing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

335,951. Hiscock, E. J., and Woodroffe, A. E. April 5, 1929. Sorting by weighing.-In apparatus for sorting eggs, packages of butter or other articles by weight into a number of predetermined grades, reciprocating feeding devices are provided for traversing a number of the articles at spaced intervals apart, simultaneously across a series of weighing devices each responsive to a different weight and each, when operated, serving to discharge articles to separate conveying and collecting means. In Fig. 1 is shown a machine for sorting eggs into four grades. The eggs are fed by hand to inclined guide ways 1, 2 and are admitted singly to a pair of troughs 5, 6 by stops 3, 4 intermittently raised by a cam. In the bottom of each trough are four apertures three of which are filled by scale platforms 30 arranged to descend and tip under various loads. A movable carriage 15, Fig. 3, is supported on the sides of each trough and is reciprocated by an inclined plate 47, Fig. 1, driven from the motor 14. Pivoted to the carriage are four rakes 20 coupled by a system of links as shown so that as the carriage is reciprocated, a pawl 24 comes into contact with a stationary plate 27 and raises and lowers the rakes so as to advance the eggs intermittently from the feed guides 1, 2 to the weighing platforms. The heaviest eggs are tilted off the first weighing platform and fall on to a belt conveyer 11 delivering to the first collecting receptacle 12. Lighter eggs are advanced by the rakes 20 to the succeeding weighing platforms and if not selected thereby are finally deposited through the fourth aperture in the trough and carried by a corresponding conveyer to the last of the collecting receptacles 12. Devices 42 count the eggs as they pass vane wheels 43. In a modified machine more suitable for grading packages of butter or like substances into three grades, correct, over and under weight, the rake-carrying carriages are reciprocated by cranks, and the balance beams contain a rolling ball to assist tipping. To prevent premature tipping of the scale pan a cam on the reciprocating carriage depresses a rack and causes a support temporarily to engage the scale pan until the packet is about to be moved on to the scale pan by the next reciprocation of the carriage.