Frito-lay, Inc.

Robert M Echols

Kevin C Cogan

Tina T Dierl

An optical inspection machine has a discharge chute provided for receiving fragile articles thrown from a high speed belt in the course of ejecting such articles. The chute has an 'S'-shaped bottom with the top of the 'S' under the trajectory of the ejected articles, the mid portion of the 'S' positioned to receive the falling articles at a minimum impact angle, and the bottom of the 'S' discharging the sliding articles after being significantly decelerated due to the variable slope of the 'S'-shaped chute bottom. The inspection machine has another 'S'-shaped chute for receiving articles from an infeed conveyor and transferring them to the high speed belt while minimizing deceleration.

Discharge chute with variable slope bottom for fragile article sorting

An automated system for processing whole potatoes maintains a substantially constant mass flow of potatoes into an adjustable potato peeler that is capable or removing from the potatoes varying amounts of potato peel. Peeled potatoes are conveyed downstream of the peeler, while being electromagnetically inspected to determined the uniformity of peel removal, the presence of unacceptable material, and to identify oversized potatoes that exceed a predetermined size limitation. A diverter gate separates oversized potatoes and foreign materials from potatoes that have been identified as satisfactory.

Growing community of inventors

Copper Canyon, TX, United States of America

Robert M Echols