JPH0430248B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to the artificial cultivation of mushrooms, in which operations such as scraping sterilized bacteria, scraping out culture medium, and washing bottles are performed by inverting a plurality of culture bottles stored in a container. This invention relates to a reversing device used for.

(Conventional technology) In the artificial cultivation of mushrooms, a culture medium mainly composed of sawdust is packed into a culture bottle, the medium is sterilized, a hole is made in the culture medium, and the inoculum is planted in it. Work involves scraping out the sterilized bacteria that covers the bed of the bottle mouth, cultivating the bacteria, scraping out the used culture medium after harvesting, and washing the bottles.

During these steps, such as removing sterilizers, scraping out the culture medium, and washing the bottles, unnecessary materials are taken out downward, so the culture bottle containing the container should be inverted, that is, with the bottle opening facing downward. , are performing each of the above tasks.

The conventional device used for this is the patent no.
As seen in No. 1010313 (Publication No. 154746 of 1982), a container containing a culture bottle is placed in a frame which is rotatably supported via a hinge at the end of the set table. It was intended to be set upside down.

(Problems to be Solved by the Present Invention) In such a conventional device, when inverted, the container and the culture bottle stored therein are compressed within the frame, and are surely inverted and set on the cap at a predetermined position. However, since the container rotates while being supported by the end of the setting table, it requires a considerable rotational torque. If this is done manually, a heavy burden will be placed on the operator when a large number of containers have to be processed, and even if a motor is used to rotate it, a motor with relatively high output must be used. , which causes high costs. Another reason for the high cost is that in order to ensure the reversed state, in the conventional device described above,
Various gears, chains and other mechanical elements must be attached.

Furthermore, in recent years, there has been a demand for mushroom cultivation equipment suitable for mass processing, and the conventional equipment described above is
After processing, the container returns to its original position, so it is not possible to send out the container in one direction and perform line processing in large quantities as assembly line work.

(Means for Solving the Problems) The present invention was developed in view of the above-mentioned problems, and its purpose is to make it possible to reverse a container manually or by using a motor. The purpose of this invention is to provide a reversing device with low rotational torque, and when the reversal is performed, the mechanism for supporting the container and culture bottle in the inverted state is extremely simple, and the manufacturing cost can be reduced compared to the conventional one. The aim is to provide a device that can be made more inexpensive.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a reversing device that enables large-volume processing by assembly line operations by feeding and discharging containers in one direction.

The present invention was devised with such an objective in mind, and includes a base having two parallel supporting rods spaced apart, and a shaft that is rotatably mounted at the center of the shaft bridged between the supporting rods. a rotary frame which is stopped and is provided with a means for feeding the container and a stop means for regulating the stop position of the container; An inversion of a container for a mushroom culture bottle, characterized in that the holding plate is provided with a plurality of holes that are positioned directly above each culture bottle in the container when the container is lowered, and can press against the shoulders of the culture bottles when the plate is lowered. It is a device.

The base may be either a frame material or a box type, but
A space is provided in or below it to accommodate devices such as a sterilization scraper, a culture medium scraper, and a bottle washer. In some cases, the base consists of only two parallel supports, and the frame or box of the above-mentioned sterilization scraper, culture medium scraper, and bottle washing device itself are placed directly below them. Therefore, at least this base has parallel spaced support rods.

A shaft is bridged between the parallel support rods of this base, and a rotating frame is provided which is pivotally supported at the center of the shaft and rotates between the support rods of the base. Further, this rotating frame is equipped with a feeding means such as a chain or a roller in order to feed the container containing the culture bottle to a predetermined position.

Furthermore, a stop device such as a stop plate for stopping the culture bottle of the sent container so that it is located directly below the hole formed in the holding plate, which will be described later, is protrudingly provided on the rotating frame. When the container is loaded, it is projected onto the rotating frame, and when it is unloaded, it is lowered.

On top of this rotating frame, a presser plate with holes drilled through it that extends to the shoulders of each culture bottle stored in the container is placed so that it is pressed downward by a compression means such as a coil spring. In addition, sliders such as bearings, small rotors, and other sliders are protruded from both ends of the center of the rotating frame, and these sliders engage with guides having curved guide surfaces provided upright on the support rods of the base. As a result, when the rotating frame is kept horizontal, the holding plate is held horizontally at a height sufficient to allow the container containing the culture bottle to pass through.
This guide may be rail-shaped or cam plate-shaped, and is fixedly erected on the support rod, and at the top dead center of the slider, the distance between the rotating frame and the holding plate is adjusted as described above. Maintaining a gap that allows containers and culture bottles to pass through, and as the rotating frame rotates, the gap between the holding plate and the rotating frame is narrowed, and due to the pressure of the spring, the hole in the holding plate reaches the shoulder of each culture bottle, and the hole is closed. The slider is configured to come into elastic pressure contact with the periphery of the slider, thereby relieving the drag force against the slider.

That is, when the rotary frame rotates, this guide changes the distance between the presser plate and the culture bottle from the initial position or the height at which the culture bottle can pass at the top dead center through the engagement with the slider. This guide is used to gradually reduce the distance between the slider pressed by the guide and the axis of the rotating frame as the rotating frame rotates. A curved surface shape is provided that prevents the slider from resisting when the shoulder of the slider is pressed against the slider. Since the slider will reciprocate, the curved shape of the guide is preferably gentle.

On the other hand, after the container-filled culture bottle sandwiched between the rotating frame and the holding plate has been completely inverted, and the prescribed work such as killing and sterilizing is completed, the rotating frame can be reversed and the culture bottle It may be returned to its position, but
While one container is inverted, the container containing the other culture bottle is placed on the inverted rotating frame, and after the work on the inverted culture bottle is completed, the rotating frame is rotated in the same direction and returned to its original position. In this case, the shape of the guide may be molded symmetrically about the rotation axis. Note that in order to manually rotate the rotating frame, a suitable handle is attached to the rotating frame, and in order to automatically rotate the rotating frame, a driving means is attached to the shaft of the rotating frame and the rotating frame is rotated.

When installing a stop plate to accurately determine the stop position of a container, electrical sensors such as phototubes and limit switches are used to stop the container being fed into the rotating frame at a predetermined position. When this is detected, a stop plate is projected above the rotating frame, and when the rotating frame reverses and returns to its original position, a sensor detects this and the control device uses the signal to lower the stop plate below the rotating frame. It is carried out with For continuous rotation in the forward direction, stop plates are provided before and after the predetermined stopping position of the container and are controlled in substantially the same way. Furthermore, control means for stopping the rotary frame in a horizontal position is also provided.
For example, a horizontal position detection sensor and a solenoid that temporarily supports the rotating frame horizontally based on its signal are provided. However, in the case of manual rotation, a slight concave surface may be formed at the top dead center of the guide, and the slider may be clicked on the concave surface to maintain the horizontal position. Normally, it is sufficient to use a servo motor to determine the rotation range for forward and reverse rotation.

As mentioned above, in the artificial cultivation of mushrooms, the operations performed on the inverted culture bottle include scraping out sterilization, removing the culture medium, and washing the bottle.These devices are installed under the inverted culture bottle. will be installed in

In addition, this device may be incorporated into a series of processing lines, in which case a roller conveyor may be installed before and after the device, a decapsulation device may be installed in front of the device, and a cap may be installed afterward. A mounting device is installed in series. In addition, when the present apparatus is equipped with a culture medium scraping device, it is preferable to continuously equip the present apparatus with a device equipped with a bottle washing means.

(Function) Since the present invention is configured as described above,
At the time of reset, the rotating frame is held horizontally between the support rods of the base, and directly above it are sliders protruding from both ends at a height that allows the culture bottle in the container to pass through. is pushed horizontally downward by a spring against a guide installed upright from the support rod.

From this state, when each culture bottle in the container is sent under the holding plate by the feeding means installed between the rotating frames, this is detected and the stop plate rises, and the container is stopped by this stop plate. A culture bottle is placed directly below each hole in the holding plate.

If positioning is done in this way,
In the case of manual operation, a handle attached to the rotating frame is used, and in the case of automatic operation, a motor that rotates the shaft of the rotating frame is driven.

The holding plate is pressed by a spring toward the rotating frame below, but the slider provided on the holding plate engages with the guide, and the guide resists the pressure, so the rotating frame and holding plate are pressed together. We are keeping a certain distance. The curved surface of the guide narrows the distance between the presser plate attached to the slider that is pressed by the guide toward the rotating frame, and since the presser plate and the rotating frame rotate at the same time, the rotating frame rotates. As the presser plate approaches the culture bottle at an arbitrary point due to the pressure of the pressure means, the hole provided there extends from the bottle mouth of the culture bottle to the shoulder of the bottle, and the guide resists the slider. When the culture bottle is stopped, the pressure is released and the entire holding plate presses against this shoulder, and in an inverted state, the culture bottle is firmly pressed against the rotating frame by the holding plate. In this inverted state, for example, a sterilization scraping device is provided directly below the inverted bottle mouth, and the scraping tool moves up and down to scrape off the dead sterilization inside the inverted bottle mouth.

Once these operations are completed, if the rotating frame is reversed, the slider will first engage with the guide and lift the holding plate against the spring, removing the culture bottle from the holding plate. The slider reaches the top dead center by releasing the pressure contact with the slider and rotating it in the reverse direction. When this is detected, the stop plate falls from the rotating frame, and the container becomes ready to be sent out.

On the other hand, if you send another container to the top of the inverted rotating frame and rotate the rotating frame further,
The container of the culture bottle that has finished the scraping operation is rotated to the opposite side and similarly reset to its original position, allowing it to be sent out.

(Example) The following description will be made according to the drawings shown as an example. Reference numeral 1 is a base having two parallel support rods 3 supported by legs 2 and provided at an arbitrary height. There is space between the support rods 3 above and below. 4 is a shaft bridged between the support rods 3, and 5 is a servo motor that rotates this shaft in forward and reverse directions via a belt. A rotary frame 6 is rotatably supported on the shaft 4, and a plurality of rotary rollers 7 are mounted within the rotary frame 6 at appropriate intervals, and the rollers 7 further rotate the rotary frame 6. A stop plate 10 for positioning a container 9 containing a plurality of culture bottles 8 guided on a frame 6 is protruded so as to be movable up and down.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a holding plate, and a rotor 12 is provided at both ends of the holding plate. is held horizontally while being pressed downward by coil springs 14 suspended between the four corners and the rotating frame 6. rail 1
3 only needs to be provided on one side of the shaft 4 as shown by the solid line in Figure 1 when the rotation direction of the rotating frame 6 is normal or reverse. When placed on a rotating frame and rotated in order to return to the original position, symmetrical rails 13 are attached to both sides of the shaft 4 (see dotted lines in Figure 1).

The holding plate 11 has a hole 15 which is located directly above the culture bottle 8 when it reaches a predetermined stop position and has a size equal to the diameter of an arbitrary position on the shoulder of the culture bottle 8. 16 is a vertical rail installed vertically on both sides of the rotating frame, and this rail 16 is provided with a presser plate 11.
A guide portion 17 fixed to the rotor 12 is fitted into the guide portion 16, and the rotor 12 is protruded from the guide portion 16.
engages with the rail 13 while pressing it.

Reference numeral 18 denotes a killing sterilization scraping device provided under the base 1, 19 a lifting platform that ascends and descends guided by the legs 2 of the base 1, and 20 a rotatable plant on the elevator platform 19. This is a scraping tool that enters the bottle opening of the culture bottle 8 which is turned upside down and scrapes out.

(Effect) As described above, in the present invention, the rotating frame 6
does not rotate about the end of the base 1 as a fulcrum, but instead rotates about the shaft 4 provided at the center of the rotating frame 6, so it is possible to reduce the area occupied in the factory and to reduce the rotational torque. Since the motor is small, it is possible to easily perform the reversing work manually without putting an undue burden on the operator. Even when using a motor, it only requires a small output, which reduces manufacturing costs and running costs. It is extremely advantageous in terms of

In addition, the rotating frame 6 is equipped with a container feeding means such as a roller or a chain, and a stopping means for regulating the stopping position, so that the container sent to the base is kept in a horizontal state from the previous stage roller conveyor, etc. It is continuously fed onto the rotating frame and set at a predetermined position, and after the work is completed, it can be sent out in any direction.

In particular, since the rotating frame 6 rotates about the central axis 4 as described above, the rotation angle is not limited to 180 degrees, but can also be rotated 360 degrees. Therefore, by providing press plates for setting containers on both sides of the rotating frame 6, while a container on one side is inverted, another container can be placed on the other side, and the inverted container can be cultured. After performing the desired operations on the bottle,
A device with high processing capacity that rotates the container 360 degrees, sends the container to the subsequent conveyor, then sets another container on an open rotating frame, and performs the desired operation on the culture bottle in the inverted container. It is possible to provide

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of the device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a front view thereof, and FIG. 3 is a plan view thereof. 3... Support rod, 4... Shaft, 6... Rotating frame, 7...
Roller, 8... Culture bottle, 9... Container, 11...
...Press plate, 12...Rotor, 13...Rail, 1
4...Coil spring, 15...Hole.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A base having two parallel support rods spaced apart from each other, and a shaft bridged between the support rods, which is rotatably fixed at the center, and regulates the means for transporting the container and the stopping position of the container. a rotating frame provided with a stopping means; and a rotating frame located on the rotating frame and pressed downward by a pressing means, and positioned directly above each culture bottle in the container when the container is further fed to a predetermined position on the rotating frame. An inverting device for a mushroom culture bottle container, comprising a holding plate having a plurality of holes that can press against the shoulders of the culture bottle when the container is lowered.