1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to a material handling apparatus and more particularly to an improvement in such an apparatus adopted to protect the apparatus from damage by extraneous materials and insure operation at maximum efficiency for the dependable separation of materials handled thereon.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
A wide variety of material handling machines have been developed for conveying and processing agricultural products. The applicant is the patentee of U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,335 entitled "Material Handling Apparatus". The apparatus of that patent operates automatically to pick up rolled paper trays containing dried fruit from the earth's surface, separate the trays and fruit, and deposite the trays and fruit in individual receptacles. This apparatus is the only such patented device known to the applicant.
Where agricultural equipment, such as that of the applicant's aforementioned patent, operate in the field, certain onerous difficulties are encountered. Typically the earth's surface has extraneous materials such as sticks, branches, rocks, stones and the like strewn thereover. Such materials may be inadvertantly picked up by agricultural equipment and can result in damage to such equipment. For example, in the applicant's patented apparatus the mechanism which grasps the trays may be damaged by such extraneous materials.
In material handling machines which process articles of uneven shapes and non-uniform size mixed with extraneous materials, it has in the past been difficult to provide a structure which is at once economical, simple to operate, easy to maintain, free from damage by extraneous materials, and yet provides perfect separation of mixed materials presented for separation on a production line basis. In regard to the applicant's patented apparatus it has been found difficult completely to eliminate the occasional delivery of emptied trays along with the dried fruit to the same receptacle.
Therefore, it has long been recognized that it would be desirable to have improvements in material handling apparatus which insure operation of such apparatus on a dependable and economical basis while affording a capability of discriminating between the materials to be handled and materials which are extraneous to the handling operation so as to avoid damage to the operative components thereof.