FR2470527A1 - Portable fruit gathering machine - generates vibration in suction hose to prevent choking and jet of air to blow away leaves - Google Patents

Abstract

The small portable machine gathers fruit and nuts using a flexible air suction hose, vibration being generated to prevent choking. There can be a separate pipe, either fixed to the suction hose or independent of it, delivering compressed air so as to blow away leaves and other lightweight bodies. The fan generating the air currents can have teeth to strip the leaves off. The suction hose can be connected tangentially to the fan housing and via a separation passage.

Description

The present invention relates to a light, individual and portable machine, operating by single movement of air and intended to pick fruits, seeds or berries on the ground or on the ground, including in uneven terrain.
The machines existing to date, as far as we know, only concern heavy pick-up machines requiring a tiller or tractor, soils with low gradients and a uniform surface. The operating principles are at the same time different and more complex and present the inconvenience of our not usable in rough terrain, on small property, portable off the roads.

 Our machine uses a low power motor on the order of 3 to 5 CV and the principles of suction and discharge turbines.

The invented machine meets the needs observed on the ground of small farmers in Corsica. It allows a single individual to go picking off the roads, with a performance multiplying by four to six the capacities of a manual picker, with total autonomy of the machine, on soils of slope, appearance and very varied configuration or nature.

 The machine, possibly separable into three parts, has a total weight of 20 kg which can be subsequently reduced and fitted out to be portable and usable on a man's back with attachment by harness or on a carrier rack. Pickup or pickup is done by a round or rectangular tip modulated according to the type of object to be picked. A system vibrating by the movement of air during the suction prevents jamming in the tube and the collecting hose which follows it.

In addition, a variant of the machine is characterized by a double integral or autonomous piping system, blowing in front of the pickup tube to repel the leaves and light bodies located near the suction nozzle.

The suction turbine consists of a snail-shaped shell characterized by a smm space arranged between the lower flange which is equipped with teeth so as to ensure "tearing" or crushing of the leaves and other light bodies before expulsion outdoors
This turbine has great flexibility of use because it operates normally on a speed scale of one thousand to fourteen thousand revolutions per minute.

 The fruit and unwanted separation system is done by air movement. This system has a corridor inside the machine through which, by simply moving the different absorbed masses, a first separation between fruit and undesirable takes place. This air movement is obtained thanks to a tangential entry which creates a system of rotation inside the separation block.

The separation block is formed following the entrance and first separation corridor of a truncated cone whose open top, located at the bottom, allows the passage of fruit but prohibits the descent of light elements absorbed upwards by the movement of 'general air and by an air jet characterized below.

This separation system is also completed and characterized by a deflector supplied by an air jet placed under the cone. The purpose of this air jet is to lift the leaves and light bodies towards the turbine equipped with a light bodies recovery nozzle and the tooth grinding system defined above.

This same air jet applied to the deflector projects bodies of high density such as sands, small stones ... out of the fruit collection bag where any residual heavy elements are incidentally eliminated by gravity.

The fruits thus collected even on the ground on ground relatively cluttered with undesirable elements (leaves, pieces of bugs, small wood, small stones ...) comprise at most, performance still improving by small simple modifications, a percentage of unwanted about 5 z by volume and 2 z by weight.

 In the case of particularly delicate fruits, such as olives, arbutus, etc., in order to prevent them from circulating too long, causing different shocks in the system and in order to allow, if necessary, their collection in small quantities, a closure device and opening is arranged directly under the cone.

 This device is actuated by an air jet coming from the turbine discharge and acts on a valve. Maintaining the delivery jet ensures, by pressing a part of the valve, its own closure. As soon as it is stopped by simple closing or by cessation of the operation of the turbine, this air jet, the thrust on the valve stops and thus frees the opening of the valve and the flow of the products collected at the bottom of the cone.

Claims (8)

 1. Hose system vibrating by the movement of suction air during the absorption of fruit or undesirable, preventing clogging in the collection tube and the hose (fig. 5).  2. Double integral or separate piping system including a blowing piping in front of the collection tube to repel leaves and light bodies (fig. 5).  3. Use of bosses or teeth on the inner flange of the turbine ensuring the shredding of the leaves and light bodies before external restitution (fig. 2).  4. Pre-separation corridor system after tangential entry of the suction tube (fig. I and 3).  5. Completed by a truncated cone with open top downwards ensuring additional separation (fig. 3). 6. Whose efficiency is very seriously helped by an air push guaranteed on a reflector by means of an air jet supplied by pipe acting under the separation cone (fig. 1 and 3). 7. This same air jet applied to the reflector rejecting out of the collection bag objects with high density such as stones and large sands (fig. 1 and 3).  8. Equipment at the bottom of the truncated cone of a valve on an axis whose opening and closing is ensured by simple stopping or maintaining the separation air jet (fig. 4).