The United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of

Edsel A Harrell

Oliver L McCaskill

Alton N Sparks

William D Perkins

Zolon M Looney

Woodrow W Hare

A new apparatus and method for feeding cotton continuously, uniformally, and at a constant rate to individual gin stands in a battery of gin stands is disclosed. The full flow feeder comprises a rectangular chamber with an upper and a lower section. Valves which form part of the chamber sides in the open position close to form two sections when in the closed position, causing the device to operate as a single chamber in the open position and a dual chamber in the closed position. On-off control switches located in the upper and lower sections operate to balance the flow of seedcotton by signaling a system of hydraulic cylinders to open and close the valves.

Full flow feeder

A new apparatus for metering insect diet accurately and efficiently into individual insect rearing cells is disclosed. Insect diet is accurately metered into a set of plastic rearing cells which are preformed by a form-fill-seal machine. The insect diet is transferred from a thermally controlled reservoir through a pneumatic cylinder type metering device by means of a negative pressure on the intake and a positive pressure on the discharge. Thus very high viscosity diet materials can be utilized. The diet is discharged through a set of nozzles into individual plastic rearing cells. A ball type check valve is used on both the intake and discharge ends of the metering device, which can be incrementally calibrated by a threaded collar type mechanism. The whole apparatus is mounted to a stationary frame with a movable lower cross-head which imparts function to the metering devices. The number of metering devices can be varied and assembled in series and operated simultaneously with the number of rearing cells.

Growing community of inventors

Tifton, GA, United States of America

Edsel A Harrell