Importance

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Abstract

Fruit, which may be oblong fruit such as olives, are mechanically sorted into two separate vessels, depending on whether they are, or are not individually thick enough to be clamped between a reciprocating head and a plate, while the head and plate rotate about a drum axis at a downstream end of a carrying run of an endless conveyor for the fruit. The clamped (oversized) fruit are carried further about the periphery of the drum than are the non-clamped (undersized) fruit, allowing these two classes of fruit to be collected separately. In a preferred embodiment, the fruit are individually deposited on the conveyor and subjected to common orientation before passing between the reciprocating head and the plate.

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First Claim