Study on an automatic roller-type equipment for seed drilling into seedling trays

Abstract

Designing and building an automatic sowing machine It consists of a soil release set, a soil drill set and a vacuum-operated sowing roller. The programmable logic controller was programmed as a set of operating instructions for the machine, using coated green oak kernels as a case study. The vacuum pressures of 5, 10 and 15 inHg were studied. It was found that at a vacuum pressure level of 5 inHg, the number of dropped seeds was in the range of 0 to 3 seeds, representing 80 percent, and a vacuum pressure of 10 inHg, the number of dropped seeds was in the range of 3-5 seeds, representing 98 percent and at a vacuum pressure level of 15 inHg, the number of seeds dropped is in the range of 3-5 grains, representing 96 percent. Therefore, a vacuum pressure level of 10 inHg is optimal to achieve the best accuracy compared to other levels. In terms of operating an automated sowing machine, it can produce 260 percent of the productivity compared to a manual worker and take 20 seconds to run per tray.