GB421411A - Improvements in or relating to the treatment of tea leaf - Google Patents

Abstract

421,411. Endless - belt conveyers. THOMSON, G. N., Dunsinane, Exmouth. June 15, 1933, No. 17145. [Class 78 (i)] [See also Group XIII] Tea leaf is evenly spread on a band conveyer which feeds it through crushing and squeezing rollers and then into a feed hopper which travels automatically over the top of a drying chamber to spread the leaf on to the upper set of a number of sets of pivotally supported trays arranged above one another in the drying chamber. In the form shown, the material is fed on a rubber belt 10 from the primary hopper H, past the revolving spreader 9, between a rubber-coated roller 11 and a supporting roller 11<a>, and under another squeezing roller 12, being then transferred by a revolving brush 13 to a moving feed hopper 14. The moving bottom of this hopper is formed by an endless rubber belt 15, which travels continuously in the direction A to B, so that the crushed tea leaf is fed on to the tilting trays in a drying chamber C. The moving chains 42 and 43 carrying the traytilting pawls are driven through gearing from the shaft of the fan 50. The hopper is carried on runways by rollers 25, 26, 27, 28 mounted loosely on shafts 21 and 22 and fitted with sprockets such as 24 driven by a chain from a sprocket 23<a>. The reversal of this sprocket, and therefore of the movement of the hopper, is obtained by the use of two fast and two loose pulleys together with a direct and a crossed driving belt. Fig. 6 shows the connection between the rear supporting rollers 27, 28 and the shaft 22 of the roller 17 supporting and driving the endless belt 15, which provides for the forward drive of the shaft 22 when the whole hopper is moving backwards. Another arrangement of ratchet and pawls on the shaft 21 provides a forward drive to the belt when the hopper is moving forwards.