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:
Jan. 12, 1999
Filed:
May. 12, 1997
Joseph E Wallace, Creston, IA (US);
Vanmark Corporation, Creston, IA (US);
Abstract
A method of controlling the removal of peelings from a potato product in a peeling machine having abrasive rollers, a rotatable discharge gate, and a discharge conveyor includes providing a shadow-free lighting structure over the conveyor, taking photographs of product on the conveyor flowing under said lighting structure, determining the number of dark pixels in each photograph and passing that number to a processor, placing a defined value for the preferred number of dark pixels in the processor, comparing the determined number of dark pixels with the predetermined value of dark pixels, and adjusting the operation of the machine to increase or decrease the amount of peelings being removed to bring the number of dark pixels subsequently determined closely to the predetermined value of dark pixels. A product peeling machine has a high speed camera over the conveyor. A high speed camera is mounted over the conveyor to take photographs of groups of product moving with the conveyor. A computer control is connected to the camera for measuring the number of dark pixels in the photographs and comparing them with a predetermined number of desired dark pixels.