JPS6338167B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a mushroom harvesting device, and more specifically, to harvest mushrooms that have grown above the bottle mouth in mushroom bottle cultivation by peeling them efficiently from a culture medium without damaging the mushrooms. This article relates to a mushroom harvesting device capable of harvesting mushrooms.

To harvest grown mushrooms in conventional mushroom bottle cultivation, hold the neck of the bottle with one hand,
With his other hand, he grasped the base of the mushroom and twisted it to separate the roots from the culture medium and harvest them.

However, since it is extremely inefficient to manually harvest a large number of cultivation bottles one by one, there has been a strong demand for the development of an automatic harvesting machine.

The present invention is the first to meet this demand,
The purpose of this is to use a container sizing feeding device and a mushroom cultivation bottle housed in the container fed by this sizing feeding device.
a vertical movement device that moves the cultivation bottles up and down relative to the container by contacting the bottom surfaces of the cultivation bottles corresponding to the rows perpendicular to the container advancing direction; A claw device having a pair of claw members that can be opened and closed to move forward and compress the bottle mouth and the base of the mushroom; A holding device that presses the shoulder of the cultivation bottle that has been raised by the motion device, and presses the shoulder of the cultivation bottle to push the cultivation bottle downward when the bottle opening and the base of the mushroom are gripped by the claw device. The present invention provides a mushroom harvesting device comprising:

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below based on the accompanying drawings.

First, the apparatus of the present invention will be explained. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the entire apparatus. In the figure, reference numeral 10 denotes a fixed size feeding mechanism for the container 12, and the guide rail 1
The container 12 placed on the containers 4a and 14b is pressed by a piston rod 16 and fed by a fixed length.

This constant feeding is performed using a micro switch (not shown) or the like so that the mushroom cultivation bottles 18 housed in the container 12 are stopped at a predetermined position on the guide rails 14a, 14b for each row perpendicular to the direction of movement of the container 12. Automatically controlled using

In this way, the container 12 is guided by the guide rails 14a,
When the piston rod 16 is extended by a predetermined length, the piston rod 16 retracts, and the retracted piston rod 16
The next container 12 is replenished between the container 12 and the preceding container 12, and the container 12 is continuously fed.

Note that this fixed-dimension feeding mechanism is not limited to the above, and for example, an endless chain (not shown) may be used instead of a guide rail.
In short, any device may be used as long as it can feed the container 12 by a fixed distance, such as driving this endless chain by a fixed length via a speed reducer.

Reference numeral 20 denotes a extracting device disposed on the travel path of the container 12, which is a extractor 20 that
It has four claw devices 22, 24, 26, 28 whose tips extend over the corresponding row of mushroom cultivation bottles 18 of the container 12 fed by the container.

This claw device 22 will be explained based on FIGS. 2, 3, and 4.

Reference numerals 30 and 32 designate a pair of claw members, each of which is formed into a substantially semicircular shape and arranged to face each other.

The base 34 of the claw member 30 is formed into a flat plate shape, and is fitted into the base 36 of the other claw member 32, which has a U-shaped cross section, from its open side and attached to the shaft 38.
The claw member 32 is configured to rotate in the direction of arrow A about a shaft 38 so as to squeeze the base of the mushroom as described later. As shown in FIG. 4, a protrusion 40 is provided on the inner surface of both claw members 30, 32, and the lower inner surface of the protrusion 40 narrows the bottle opening, and the upper inner surface is covered with a sponge or the like. Elastic member 4
2 is attached so as to gently and narrowly compress the base of the mushroom.

The shaft 38 passes through a long hole 46 provided in the base plate 44, and the enlarged portion 48 provided at the lower end of the shaft 38 extends through the base plate 4.
Both claw members 3 are guided through guide grooves 52 provided in a fixed plate 50 provided in contact with the lower surface of
0 and 32 are pressed by the pressing cylinder 54 and the base plate 4
4 It is designed to be able to move back and forth on the top.

56 is a cylinder whose one end is fixed on the base plate 44, and the rod 58 end is connected to the base 3 of the claw member 32.
6, and the expansion and contraction of this rod 58 causes the claw member 32 to rotate as described above.

Reference numeral 60 denotes a rotating shaft erected on the fixed plate 50, and the base plate 44 is pressed by a pressing cylinder 62 fixed at an appropriate position, with the claw members 30, 32 placed thereon around the rotating shaft 60. It is rotatable.

As shown in FIG. 5, the guide groove 52 is open to the side of the fixing plate 50 at the front position of the fixing plate 50, and the enlarged portion 48 is in this open position, that is, when the claw members 30, 32 are on the stand. When the plate 44 is pressed in the front direction, the enlarged portion 48 is detached from the guide groove 52 to the outside of the fixed plate 50 due to the pressure of the pressing cylinder 62, and the base plate 44 is moved to the claw member 3.
0 and 32, it is possible to make a large turn with respect to the fixed plate 50.

Reference numeral 64 denotes a presser foot, which is formed in a semicircular arc portion 66 and a straight portion 68 following this, and is rotated at the end of a rod 72 of a cylinder 70 disposed directly below the pawl device 22 at the center thereof. The straight part 68 is movably mounted at an angle of inclination of approximately 30 degrees so that the tip of the straight part 68 is lower, while a claw member is mounted on one of the straight parts 68 corresponding to the lower part of the claw member 30. A groove 76 is provided which engages with the lower end of the protrusion 74 protruding from 30 .

The cylinder 70 is fixed on a vertically movable plate 78 that moves slightly up and down by a suitable cam mechanism (not shown), and as the vertically movable plate 78 moves up and down, the presser foot 64 also moves slightly up and down. It's starting to move.

The other pawl devices 24, 26, and 28 are similarly constructed, and each has a presser foot (not shown) similarly constructed.

In FIG. 7, 80 is a push-up bar, and the guide rail 14 corresponds to just in front of the extraction device 20.
a, 14b, and each row of mushroom cultivation bottles 18 in the container 12 sent by the fixed size feeding device 10 is sequentially fed so as to stop at a corresponding position above the push-up rod 80. ing.

The push-up rod 80 is moved up and down by an appropriate vertical movement mechanism (not shown), passes through a hole in the bottom of the container 12, rises, and comes into contact with the bottom of each cultivation bottle 18 in the corresponding row to cultivate. The bottles 18 are raised all at once above the container 12 to a predetermined position.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the container 12, and a through hole 82 for passing a push-up rod 80 is formed in the bottom surface of the container.

The apparatus of the present invention is configured as described above. Next, the effects thereof will be explained together with the method of the present invention.

As described above, by moving the fixed length feeding mechanism 10, the container 12 containing the mushroom cultivation bottles 18 to be harvested is placed on the guide rails 14a, 14b.
8 row by row.

However, one row of cultivation bottles 18 is pushed up by a push-up rod 80.
When it stops at the upper position, the push-up rod 80 is raised by a drive device (not shown), and the corresponding mushroom cultivation bottle 18 is raised to a predetermined position.

At the same time, cylinder 54 and cylinder 7
0 is driven forward, presser foot 64, claw members 30, 3
2 moves forward, and when the presser foot 64 presses the shoulder of the rising cultivation bottle 18, the presser foot 64
The forward movement of the claw members 30, 32 is stopped, and the forward movement of the claw members 30, 32 is stopped when the claw members 30, 32 advance to a position corresponding to the bottle opening of the cultivation bottle 18.

At this time, the cylinder 56 is biased so that the claw members 32 are in the opening direction, and the bottle mouth enters into the open space of both claw members.

Next, the cylinder 56 is driven and the claw member 3
2 is biased in the closing direction, and the concave portion below the protrusion 40 narrows the bottle opening, and the elastic member 42 narrows the base of the mushroom.

Note that the advance of the presser foot 64 is synchronized to be slightly slower than the advance of the claw members 30 and 32, and after the advance of the claw members 30 and 32 has stopped, the presser foot 6 is moved forward.
4 still advances slightly, presser foot 64
The straight portion 68 of the presser foot 64 is pressed against the lower end of the projection 74, and the presser foot 64 is slightly pressed and rotated about the end of the rod 72.

In synchronization with this rotation, the vertically moving plate 78 and the push-up rod 80 are slightly lowered.

That is, since the cultivation bottle 18 has some play in the vertical direction between the upper end of the push-up rod 80 and the claw members 30, 32, and the presser foot 64 rotates, a slight twist is added to the cultivation bottle 18.

This twist causes cracks in the culture medium near the mushroom roots, and the mushrooms are peeled off from the surface of the culture medium with some of the culture medium still attached.

Next, the presser foot 64 is raised and retreated to return to its original position, and the push-up bar 80 is further lowered.
The cultivation bottle 18 is lowered together with the push-up rod 80 and accommodated in the container 12.

Also, almost in synchronization with this, the pressing cylinder 62 is operated, and the claw members 30, 32 are rotated together with the base plate 44 in a predetermined direction as described later about the rotation axis 60 while gripping the peeled mushroom. Next, the cylinder 56 drives the claw member 32 in the opening direction to drop the mushroom to a predetermined position below.

Next, the pressing cylinder 62 is driven in the opposite direction to the above, and the claw members 30 and 32 are rotated back together with the base plate 44. Furthermore, the cylinder 54 is driven in the opposite direction, and the claw members 30 and 32 are moved back to their original positions. It returns to its position.

In addition, this extraction procedure is performed simultaneously in each claw device until the push-up rod is raised, the presser foot is advanced, and the claw member moves forward to clamp the mushroom and extract it, but after that, the following steps are performed depending on the position of the cultivation bottle 18. It is done as follows.

That is, as shown in FIG. 9, first, container 1
The cultivation bottles 18a and 18b located at the outermost side of the container 2 are lowered, and the corresponding claw devices 28 and 22 rotate in the directions of arrows B and C, respectively, in the directions of the carry-out traverses 84 and 86, and are placed on the carry-out culverts 84 and 86, respectively. Let the mushrooms fall. Next, cultivation bottles 18c and 18d located in the center
is lowered and the corresponding pawl devices 26, 24 move in the direction of arrows D and E.
The mushrooms are rotated in the direction shown in FIG. Then, the rotation and recovery of the claw device is the reverse of the above.
That is, the inner pawl devices 26, 24 first return to rotation, and then the outer pawl devices 28, 22 return to rotation.

In addition, as in the above procedure, the outer cultivation bottle 18a,
The reason why there is a time difference between the harvest operations of the cultivation bottle 18b and the inner cultivation bottles 18c and 18d is to prevent each claw device from interfering with rotation of the other. For this reason, if necessary, a further time difference may be provided for the inner cultivation bottles 18c and 18d, such as first one and then the other.

The above example describes the case where four cultivation bottles are stored in a row, but it may be three or five, and in this case, the harvest is also carried out sequentially from the outside to the inside cultivation bottles. By carrying out the operation, the pawl devices can be rotated without any interference with respect to each other.

Furthermore, the cultivation bottles may be fed one by one or two at a time, and in this case, the harvesting operation can be carried out at once without creating a time difference.

As described above, according to the apparatus of the present invention, the mushroom harvesting work, which has conventionally been performed manually, can be automated and efficiently performed.

Although the present invention has been variously explained above with reference to preferred embodiments, the present invention is not limited to these embodiments, and it goes without saying that many modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. It is.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of the entire device of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a plan view showing one of the pawl devices, Fig. 3 is a front view showing the pawl device and presser foot, and Fig. 4 is a sectional view of the pawl member. , Figure 5 is a plan view of the base plate, Figure 6 is an explanatory diagram of the presser foot,
FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing the push-up rod. FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a container, and FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing the mushroom harvesting procedure of the present invention. 10... Fixed size feed mechanism, 12... Container, 1
4a, 14b... Guide rail, 16... Piston rod, 18... Mushroom cultivation bottle, 20... Extraction device, 22, 24, 26, 28... Claw device,
30, 32...Claw member, 34, 36...Base, 3
8... shaft, 40... protrusion, 42... elastic member, 4
4... Base plate, 46... Long hole, 48... Ampulla, 5
0... Fixed plate, 52... Guide groove, 54... Pressing cylinder, 58... Rod, 60... Rotating shaft, 62
... Pressing cylinder, 64 ... Presser foot, 66 ... Arc part, 68 ... Straight part, 70 ... Cylinder, 72
... Rod, 74 ... Protrusion, 76 ... Concave groove, 78
... Vertical movement plate, 80 ... Push-up rod, 84, 86
...Export gutter.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A sizing feeding device of a container, and a mushroom cultivation bottle placed in a container fed by this sizing feeding device, by touching the bottom surface of the cultivation bottles corresponding to a row orthogonal to the container traveling direction. A vertical movement device that moves up and down with respect to the container, and a pair of claws that can be opened and closed to move forward toward the bottle opening of the cultivation bottle raised by the vertical movement device, narrowing the bottle opening and compressing the base of the mushroom. a pawl device having a member; a pawl device located below the pawl member that moves forward and backward in the direction of the bottle mouth of the cultivation bottle, presses the shoulder of the cultivation bottle raised by the vertical movement device; A mushroom harvesting device characterized by comprising a holding device that presses the shoulder of the cultivation bottle to push the cultivation bottle downward when the mouth and the base of the mushroom are gripped.