JP2952618B2 - Method and apparatus for filling seedling mat - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and a device for filling a nursery box with a mat such as rock wool used as a bed soil for a rice planting plant.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the spread of rice transplanters, seedlings using a seedling box have been adopted. In order to grow seedlings in the seedling raising box, the soil filled in the seedling raising box is leveled, then watered, sowed and covered with soil to keep the seedlings in a growing environment.

[0003] The process from earth filling to earth covering is automated.
In order to save labor, various devices have been proposed so far. For example, in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 60-38333, as shown in FIG. 1, a soil filling device 2, a leveling device 3, an irrigation device 4, and a soil filling device 2 are transported along a conveyor line 1a to 1c for feeding a seedling raising box from one side to the other side. In a sowing plant in which a sowing device 5 and a soil covering device 6 are arranged, a plant in which a seedling box mounting frame 7 is provided so as to be able to freely enter and exit along a guide rail 7a is introduced. As the leveling device 3, a leveling roll brush rotatably supported by the same frame as the soil filling device 2 is employed, and is driven by a motor 3a provided on the lower side.

[0004] A plurality of seedling boxes are placed on the seedling box placement frame 7 pulled out from the guide rail 7a and are sent out one by one onto the conveyor 1a. Each seedling box is packed with soil while being transported by the conveyors 1a to 1c, and leveling, irrigation, sowing, and soil covering are performed. After the seeding operation, the seedling raising box is sent out of the apparatus by the roller conveyor 1d and transported to a predetermined growing environment.

[0005] A sowing plant that automates the transfer of seedling boxes is introduced in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 1-98550.
This seeding plant is detachably provided with an automatic feeding device for feeding seedling boxes one by one to a transport line and a stacking device for stacking seedling boxes for which seeding operations have been completed.

[0006]

The conventional sowing plant has been developed on the premise that natural soil is filled as floor soil. By the way, the use of mats entwined with fibrous materials such as rock wool for floor soil instead of natural soil has been studied in some cases. Rock wool is a raw material of constant quality made from raw materials such as blast furnace slag, and does not pollute the working environment. Further, the soil filling step, the leveling step, and the like are omitted, and the seeding plant itself has a possibility of being simplified.

[0007] However, unlike natural soil in which particles are scattered, it is difficult to automatically and automatically fill a nursery box with rock wool in which fibers are entangled. For example, if the rock wool is not properly fed into the inner space of the nursery box, a gap is formed on one side and the rock wool swells on the other side.
Therefore, manual work for correcting the posture of the rock wool in the nursery box is required, and the work efficiency of the entire sowing work is reduced.

[0008] The present invention has been devised to solve such a problem, and one side of a mat is brought into contact with an inner wall of one side of a seedling raising box by utilizing falling energy, so that the inside of the seedling raising box is provided. An object is to automatically fill a mat such as rock wool with a good posture.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the object, a method for filling seedling mats according to the present invention is to slide a plurality of fibrous mats placed on a horizontal top of a slide table one by one diagonally downward. The seedling box is continuously or intermittently conveyed to collide with the inner wall surface at the front end, and then the mat raised at the rear end of the seedling box is pressed down.

In addition, the seedling raising mat filling device includes a conveying means for sequentially conveying a plurality of seedling raising boxes, a slide table in which a tip of a downhill portion is directed to an inner wall surface at a tip end of the seedling raising box being conveyed, A sensor for detecting the position of the seedling box that has been placed, and a locking device that sends out the fibrous mats placed on the horizontal top of the slide table one by one to the descent section based on the detection signal of the sensor. Wherein the leading edge of the mat sliding down the downhill collides with the inner wall of the leading end of the seedling raising box.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. As a mat to be filled in the nursery box, a packing density of 65 kg made from blast furnace slag
Rock wool having a length of 580 mm, a width of 280 mm and a thickness of 18 m ² , an average fiber length of 80 mm and an average fiber diameter of 0.04 mm.
What was cut to mm was used.

The rock wool mats 21 and 22
23 are superimposed in the horizontal direction and placed on the horizontal top 31 of the slide 30 as shown in FIG. The front two mats 21 and 22 are maintained in a predetermined upright posture by locking devices 40 provided up and down and left and right.
A push plate 32 is applied to the surface of the rear mat 2n, and a compression spring 34 is interposed between the push plate 32 and the reaction force receiver 33. The elastic force of the compression spring 34 is transmitted to the mats 21, 22, 23,... Via the pressing plate 32, and acts as a force for constantly urging the mats 21, 22, 23,.

The slide 30 is provided with a downwardly inclined downhill 3
5 is provided. The sliding section 35 is inclined at an angle such that the tips of the mats 21, 22, 23,... Sliding down thereon come into contact with the inner walls on the tip side of the seedling boxes 61, 62, 63,. doing. Also, mats 21 and 21 are provided on both left and right sides of the horizontal top 31 and the downhill 35.
Side walls for positioning or guiding the lower portions of 2, 23...

The locking device 40 includes a horizontal top portion 31 and a downhill portion 3.
5 is provided near the boundary. In the locking device 40, for example, as shown in FIG. 3, a rotating shaft 41 is supported by a pair of bearings 37 and 38 protruding from a side wall 36 of the slide table 30. A pair of arms 42 radially from the rotation shaft 41,
43 protrudes, and cylindrical portions 44, 45 are provided at the tips of the arms 42, 43. In the tubular portions 44 and 45,
Locking needles 46 and 47 are inserted across the slide table 30 so as to be able to advance and retreat.

The forward and backward movement of the locking needles 46 and 47 is performed by an appropriate driving device (not shown). For example, when the tip of the seedling box 64 being conveyed on the conveyor 50 reaches a predetermined position, the sensor 48 detects the tip of the seedling box 64. The traveling of the conveyer 50 depends on the sliding speed of the mats 21, 22, 23,.
.. May be continuous or intermittent as long as a sufficient speed difference is provided between the moving speeds of the moving speeds 1, 62, 63.

The detection signal of the sensor 48 is input to the driving device as a control signal, and the operation of extracting the locking needle 46 piercing the front mat 21 through the tubular body 44 in the direction of arrow a is started. At this time, the other cylindrical body 45
Is inserted through the cylindrical body 45,
It pierces the second mat 22 from the front side.

The mat 21 from which the locking needle 46 has been removed is
The sliding part 35 is released from the restrained state, and as shown by the arrow b.
Slide down. Here, the seedling box 6 in which the tip of the mat 21 that has slid down the downhill 35 is transported to the lower end of the downhill 35.
The time when the seedling raising box 64 is transported from the tip of the seedling raising box 64 detected by the sensor 48 to the lower end of the downhill 35 so as to collide with the inner wall surface on the tip side of the mat 4 and the mat 2 along the downhill 35
A timing is set between the first downhill time.

When the locking needle 46 is withdrawn from the tubular body 44, the locking device 40 becomes rotatable about the rotation shaft 41. The mat 22 to which the locking needle 47 pierces is urged by the compression spring 34 to move forward. Therefore, the locking device 40 rotates around the rotation shaft 42 in the direction of arrow c. As a result, the mat 22 pierced by the locking needle 47 penetrating the cylindrical body 45 moves the slide table 30 forward by one pitch while being slightly lifted. On the other hand, the locking needle 4 that has been pulled
6 again. Then, the subsequent mat 23 is pierced by the locking needle 46. Thus, the preparation for sliding the next mat 22 is completed.

In order to smoothly rotate the locking device 40, a spring or the like for urging the rotating shaft 42 in the direction of arrow c can be incorporated. The insertion or withdrawal of the locking needles 46, 47 from / to the tubular bodies 44, 45 can be performed via an appropriate cam mechanism.

The mat 27 slid down the downhill 35 is sent to the seedling raising box 63. Here, when the tip of the mat 27 collides with the inner wall surface on the tip side of the seedling raising box 63,
The alignment between the inner wall surface on the distal end side of the seedling raising box 63 and the distal end portion of the mat 27 is performed. However, the rear side of the mat 27 may be caught by the side wall of the seedling raising box 63 and may be raised. So, to hold the mat 27 raised,
A mat holding device 70 is arranged downstream of the slide table 30.

The mat pressing device 70 rotatably supports a brush roll 71 having a large number of brush bristles on its peripheral surface by a frame 72. The drive pulley 73 is coaxially connected to the transport roll 51 of the conveyor 50.
A power transmission tool such as a belt 75 is stretched between the driven pulley 74 and the driving pulley 73 of the brush roll 71 in a dashed manner.

Thus, the brush roll 71 receives power from the transport roll 51 of the belt conveyor 50, and rotates in the same direction as the transport direction D of the belt conveyor 50. The raised portion of the mat 27 is pressed down by the brush bristles of the brush roll 71, and is filled in the seedling raising box 63 with a good posture. At this time, the relationship between the running speed of the seedling raising box 63 and the rotation speed of the brush roll 71 can be adjusted by changing the radius ratio between the pulleys 73 and 74.

In the example shown in FIG. 2, the rotational force of the brush roll 71 is obtained from the transport roll 51. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the brush roll 71 can be rotated by a dedicated drive motor. In this case, the rotation speed of the drive motor is controlled using the traveling speed of the belt conveyor 50 as a control signal.

A leveling device 80 is provided downstream of the mat holding device 70. The leveling device 80 includes an elastic roll 83 such as a rubber roll suspended from a fulcrum 81 by a spring 82. The elastic roll 83 has a certain weight and comes into contact with the surface of the mat 26 filled in the seedling raising box 62. The raised portion of the mat 26 receives a large pressing force from the elastic roll 83 and is leveled to the same state as the other portions.

Thus, the mat 25 is filled in the seedling raising box 61 sent out from the belt conveyor 50 while maintaining the desired positional relationship. Therefore, the seedling raising box 61 filled with the mat 25 can be sent to lower processes such as watering, sowing, and covering soil as in the case of FIG. That is, even when a fibrous mat such as rock wool is used as the floor soil, the entire process can be automated and labor-saving.

In the above example, the case where the rotating locking device 40 is employed as means for feeding the mats 21, 22, 23... However, the present invention is not limited to this, and other feeding means can be employed. Although several examples are shown in FIG. 4, a stopper that moves in and out across the slide can also be used. .

FIG. 4A shows a pair of pulleys 40a and 40b rotatably provided on the upper surface of the side wall 36.
An example is shown in which a feed belt 40c having a surface layer having a high friction coefficient is stretched between the feed belt 40b and the pulley 40b. Pulley 40
a or 40b as a drive pulley, and a feed belt 40
By intermittently driving c in the direction of the arrow, the mat 2
Are sent out to the downhill 35 one by one.

FIG. 4 (b) shows a case where the stopper 2 works as a stopper.
The semi-circular blades 40d and 40e are
The components attached to the rotating shaft 40f at the same intervals as the thicknesses of 2, 23,...
At one end of the rotating shaft 40f, there is provided a driven pulley 40h to which power is transmitted from an appropriate driving pulley (not shown) via a belt 40g. The driven pulley 40h is
Make a half turn with the running speed and timing of the seedling raising boxes 61, 62, 63. The semicircular blades 40d, 4
0e has an edge cut at the outer peripheral edge thereof.
Fit smoothly between 1,2,23 ...

In the state of FIG. 4B, the semicircular blade 4
0d is in the retracted position, so that the semicircular blades 40d and 4d
0e is released from the restraint state,
It slides down the downhill section 35. Then, when the rotation shaft 40f makes a half rotation, the semicircular blade 40d moves to the forward position, and the other semicircular blade 40e moves to the retracted position. As a result, the next mat 22 pressed by the semicircular blade 40e advances and comes into contact with the semicircular blade 40d. When the rotation shaft 40f further makes a half turn, FIG.
The state shown in (b) is reached, and the next mat 22 is sent out.

[0030]

As described above, in the present invention, one side of the mat is aligned with one inner wall surface of the seedling raising box by utilizing the falling energy of the mat, and then the other part of the mat is moved to the inner space of the seedling raising box. Since the method of storing seedling mats is adopted, the filling of the seedling raising mat can be automated with high accuracy.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a conventional sowing plant using natural soil.

FIG. 2 shows a main part of an apparatus for filling a seedling box with a fibrous mat in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the locking device.

FIG. 4 shows another example of the locking device.

[Explanation of symbols]

21, 22, 23 ... Mat 30 slide
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 31 Horizontal top part 35 Downhill part 40 Locking device 48 Sensor 50 Belt conveyor (conveying means) 61, 62, 6
3 ... Nursery box

Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification symbol FI A01C 7/08 320 A01C 7/08 320F B65G 59/06 104 B65G 59/06 104

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A plurality of fibrous mats placed on a horizontal top of a slide table are slid down one by one diagonally downward, and are continuously or intermittently conveyed to the inner wall at the tip end of a seedling box. A method for filling seedling mats, comprising colliding and then pressing the mat raised at the rear end of the seedling box. 2. A transportation means for sequentially transporting a plurality of seedling boxes, a slide table in which a tip of a downhill portion is directed to an inner wall surface at a tip end of the seedling box being transported, and a seedling box transported by the transportation means. A sensor for detecting a position, and a locking device for sending out a fibrous mat placed on a horizontal top of the slide table one by one to the downhill section based on a detection signal from the sensor, A seedling mat filling device, wherein a leading edge of the mat that slides down the inner wall of the mat collides with a tip inner wall surface of the seedling raising box.