Table of Contents

Design and Fabrication of Vegetable Cutter -Mechanical Project

ABSTRACT:

The investigation on the existing vegetable cutting machine reviews the following drawbacks such as high investment cost, the contamination, additional manpower and time consumption caused by manual processing.
The setup involves a container and it carries the cutting blades at its bottom and an steel plate for providing high pressure is mounted rigidly on the container and the plate is activated by means of an rack and pinion circuit, due to activation of an rack and pinion cylinder creates high pressure on to the vegetables and forces the vegetable placed in the container on to the blades, due to this the vegetables are made into pieces and this are collected at the tray which is placed below the overall setup.
The system is advantageous in the fact that existing automation is high in cost, and the power consumption is high. The proposed work is benefitted by rack and pinion power, which is abundant.

INTRODUCTION:

The automatic vegetable cutter is a Chinese manufactured one, currently available in the market. The cutter operates on the concept of ‘rotating grid’, wherein, the cutting grid is rotating inside a casing, powered by AC motor.
The vegetables are fed via the Container arrangement, at the top. The cutting grid rotates at a high speed which cuts the vegetables as they pass through them. The cutting grids are varied according to the need of the customer. The shapes of the cut vegetable vary with the change in cutting grids.
The above mentioned cutter has some demerits with regards to its operation. First of all, the vegetable feeding is not automatic, and a person has to devote his time to feed the vegetable one by one, till the required quantity is cut.

EXISTING MODEL:

The above mentioned cutter has some demerits with regards to its operation. First of all, the vegetable feeding is not automatic, and a person has to devote his time to feed the vegetable one by one, till the required quantity is cut. Then, the grids are powered by a motor, which has high power consumption.
Considering the fluctuating power supply that, the process has to be electrically powered continuously for operation, is a disadvantage in itself. Most important of all, is the initial investment on the cutter. The cutter is approximately priced at a range of $ 3500, inclusive of shipping cost and taxes. It is a high investment, for those who run a mid-level catering business. Therefore, considering all these demerits, the idea for a pneumatics powered cutter is conceived.

PROJECT LAYOUT:

DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF VEGETABLE DICER

WORKING PRINCIPLE:

• The experimental setup consists of specially designed container which is mounted with steel plate for providing high pressure on its top most portion in the rigid link manner with the container walls, and at the bottom of the container consists of cutting blades made up of stainless steel.
• The steel plate is activated by means of pneumatic cylinder which is controlled by a pneumatic pressure and it gets transferred to the components placed inside the container for cutting, after cutting pieces are collected in the tray which is placed below the overall arrangements.
• When the vegetables to be chopped is loaded inside the container and the steel pressure plate is placed in the guided path and the compressor arrangements is attached with an experiment and due to the activation of the solenoid valve its retracts the position of the piston so the piston activates the disc which gets attached with it its forces the vegetables loaded on to the cutting blade sharp edge due to this movement the vegetables get chopped and collected in the tray which gets attached at its lower end. And the process is repeated for continuous operations.

ADVANTAGES:

• Low investment cost
• No contamination
• No additional manpower
• Less time consumption
• Reliable
• Simple construction
• Can be cut the vegetables into various shapes according to our requirements.
• Automation

APPLICATIONS:

• Used for cutting various leaf and stem vegetables, green onion, garlic sprout, leek, celery, cabbage, apples, bananas, beetroot, cabbage, carrot, celery, cucumbers, fennel, kiwis, kohlrabi, leek, mushroom, onions, parsley, peer, pepper, pickled cucumbers, potatoes, radish, tomatoes, zucchini et cetera various roots vegetables like carrot, potato, sweet potato, bamboo shoot, onion, eggplant, cucumber, etc.,