Apparatus for Inspecting and Sorting Comestible and Other Objects.

摘要

1,172,751. Sorting objects by colour. MANDREL INDUSTRIES Inc. Aug. 24, 1967 [Aug. 24, 1966], No.39121/67. Heading G1A. In an arrangement for developing a rejection signal in respect of an object which is viewed to determine whether a selected characteristic is up to a desired standard, the presence of the object in the viewing zone is detected to permit a rejection signal if existent to be used at a sorting station and to effect normalization of the photo-electric viewing apparatus as the object leaves the zone. Potatoes are pumped with a fluid to pass singly and separately through an instruction station comprising a transparent tube 42 Fig. 3, through a head 41 having an odd number of photo-multipliers 57 looking along diameters into the tube from a surrounding cylindrical wall 43. The potatoes are illuminated by a ring of lamps 47 and an outer sleeve 46 containing fluid is provided around the tube so that a potato in contact with the inner tube wall will have the same appearance. A card or plate 49 having a predetermined colour is mounted on the inner wall of housing 43 opposite each viewer to serve as an optical standard against which the colour and reflectance of each potato may be determined, a darker colour being arranged to produce a bigger output. In the absence of a potato, the photomultiplier output is set or normalized by a D. C. feedback circuit and the feedback signal is maintained by a capacitor when the arrival of a potato is detected by a further longitudinally-spaced pair of photo-cells so that an output from the photo-multipliers is developed only if the colour differs from reference plate 49, and irrespective of the condition of the intervening fluid. The further pair of photo-cells serve also to measure the length of a potato, and the ejecting compressed air blast is controlled accordingly, i. e. one of two delay times for a short or long potato is selected and the blast time adjusted. Separate jets may be selectively operated. The rejected potatoes are deflected sideways beyond a separating wall for conveyance to a reject bin. Electromagnetically controlled compressed air jets are described with reference to Figs. 9 and 10 (not shown).