Brown International Corporation LLC

Olav Berge

Robert F Rohm

A feeder mechanism for controlling delivery of fruits to a processing apparatus such as a juice extractor and wherein the delivered fruits must be of a size equal to or less than a predetermined size, and in particular where the fruits from the feeder are to be delivered to a hopper of the rotary type having magazines or other restrictive passages through which the fruits must pass en route to the processing apparatus, the feeder mechanism being arranged to provide a gating roll for limiting the maximum size of fruit admitted from a supply source to a feed path which contains an adjustable discharge opening for limiting the minimum size of fruit to be fed to the processing apparatus and also discharge unwanted foreign objects, the feed path at its delivery end having a feed roll for moving fruits which are within the predetermined maximum and minimum size limitations from the feed path to a delivery path, and in the case of delivery to a hopper having a control for sensing the fruit level in the hopper, and being operable in response to an increase of the fruit level above a predetermined normal to stop the operation of the gating and feed rolls, until a normal fruit level in the hopper is again established.

Feeder mechanism for controlling delivery of fruit to a juice extractor

A rotary feeder mechanism capable of attachment to and synchronized operation with a variety of different types of fruit juice extracting apparatus, in which a fruit receiving hopper is rotatable about a generally vertical or tilted axis of rotation, the received fruit being moved under centrifugal force to the hopper periphery area containing entrance openings to depending magazines in which the fruits are stored in stacked relation. The lower ends of the magazines are respectively arranged with a pair of spaced-apart gating fingers which are controlled by separate cam tracks to successively release the lowermost fruit in the magazine, while opposing release of the other fruits in the magazine, at a predetermined point of the hopper rotation. The cam tracks are adjustable to advance and retard the fruit release point, and provision is also made for the selective interchange of gating fingers having greater and lesser spacing in order to accommodate the average size of fruits to be handled in a particular locality. The cam tracks are further arranged for mounting as a unit at relatively raised and lowered positions along the axis of rotation of the hopper.

Growing community of inventors

Monterey Park, CA, United States of America

Olav Berge