Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.

Cyrille J Precetti

Michael E Hartman

James L Hunter

James W Stevenson

Paul Chicoine

Container opening tool

A static sample divider of the present invention is adapted to sample a flow of material such as seed. The sample divider includes a housing which encloses an upwardly facing cone disposed above one or more sample cups. The sample cups are coupled to a sample receiving tube. When a flow of material is directed toward the cone, the cone spreads the flow of material radially and outwardly where a portion is caught by the sample cups and dumped into the sample receiving tube. The remainder of the material is discharged through a discharge tube. The sample cups can be removed and replaced with different numbers or different sizes of sample cups to control the proportion of material sampled.

Scaleable static sample divider

An automatically controlled seed dryer of the present invention is adapted to efficiently and precisely dry seed by automatically controlling the temperatures directions and air flow rate; of air flow through the seed within the bin. The invention includes an upper plenum for supplying a source of hot airs a lower plenum for supplying a source of ambient air, and a mixing plenum for mixing various proportions of hot and ambient air from the upper and lower plenums. The mixing plenum has upper and lower supply doors formed between the mixing plenum and the bin for supplying the mixed air to the bin either above or below the seed. Upper and lower exhaust doors are formed in the bin above and below the seed such that by controlling the operation of the supply and exhaust doors, the direction and air flow rate of the mixed air through the seed can be precisely controlled by an electronic controller. A plurality of linear actuators control the operation of the doors.

Growing community of inventors

Des Moines, IA, United States of America

Cyrille J Precetti