Roller gin with spiral blade rotobar

Abstract

A roller cotton gin including a ginning roller and a stationary knife to which seed cotton is conveyed by the friction surface of the ginning roller for separating lint fibers from the cotton seed, and a rotary stripping blade device adjacent the stationary knife having blades forming channel-like pockets therebetween for receiving the seed cotton deposited on the surface of the ginning roller and advanced to the zone of the stationary knife. The blades of the stripping blade device extend radially from a center shaft to span the width of the gin and are arranged in a one turn spiral path about the center shaft, and the stripping blade device has a diameter which is a small fraction of the ginning roller diameter and rotates at a speed causing the surface speed of the blade edges to be approximately the same as the surface speed of the ginning roller such as to restrain seeds in the channel-like pockets while the seeds are advanced over the edge of the stationary knife from the 'pinch point' to a 'release point' while the ginning roller strips lint from the restrained seeds and then releasing the seeds from blade restraint at the release point before they are pushed beyond the length of the fibers attached at the 'pinch point' (after they travel about 1/2 the staple length beyond the knife edge) to return to the knife edge before the next blade applies advancing force to the seed and thereby withdraw substantially all the fibers from the seed. An auxiliary feed control roller for providing more even feed to the blade device and a comb structure to return unginned seeds to the ginning zone are also disclosed.