The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 17, 1984
Filed:
Jul. 09, 1980
Errol C Armstrong, Salinas, CA (US);
William A Hanacek, Salinas, CA (US);
Thomas A Spinetti, Watsonville, CA (US);
Bud Antle, Inc., Salinas, CA (US);
Abstract
A machine for automatically removing soil plugs from the densely packed configuration of their growing tray and presenting them serially in a reliable and precisely positioned manner to appropriate plug takeup portions of an automated plug handling system. Broadly, the plug loader and feeder according to the present invention comprises a reciprocating plug ejection mechanism operable to remove a complete row of plugs from the tray, a tray indexing mechanism for incrementally moving the tray, one row at a time, past the plug ejection mechanism, and a carousel feeder which acts first as a receiving station and then as a plug presenting system. The machine further comprises a synchronous drive mechanism for taking motion from any appropriate input drive and generating the timed motions of the above-mentioned components over each machine cycle. A machine cycle is characterized by the ejection of one row of plugs from the tray, the typically downward movement of the tray by one row, and the movement of the carousel by a distance equal to the length of a row.