GB1473745A - Machines for cutting up vegetables - Google Patents

Abstract

1473745 Mushroom cutting apparatus SAF-CHAINETTE 19 Dec 1974 [28 Dec 1973 1 Feb 1974 13 Sept 1974] 55065/74 Heading A4C [Also in Division B8] A machine for cutting mushrooms comprises a conveyer 2 formed by two endless belts 3a, 3b arranged in a horizontal plane, a reference surface 30 arranged at the infeed to the conveyer, two endless bands 43a, 43b situated below the conveyer and which are driven at the same speed as said belts, the facing runs of the bands forming a moving supporting surface which is situated at the same level as surface 30 to hold the mushroom in a first higher position for cutting by two disc blades 45a, 45b, the conveyer having a gap forming device 60 whereby the mushrooms are dropped to a second lower position for cutting by blade 32. The bands 43a, 43b are faced with polyurethane foam. The gap forming device 60 comprises rollers mounted on a pivoted toothed quadrant plate 61, passage of a mushroom between fixed roller 61 and a roller on the quadrant plate causes the quadrant plate 61 to swing, pulling belts 3a, 3b apart. The quadrant is held in this position by a pawl until an electromagnet 71 is actuated by the passage of a mushroom head past photo-electric cell 73. The infeed end of the conveyer is provided with an area 37 between the belts which narrows progressively. At the outfeed end pulleys 5a and 5b are relatively longitudinally offset so that the mushroom heads fall into chute 36. An alternative gap forming device, Figs. 7 and 8 (not shown) has a wire which provides support for a mushroom head as it passes through the gap.