Development of Mangosteen Cutting Machine

Abstract

This research was to design, construct, test, and evaluate the Mangosteen Cutting Machine (MCM) for mangosteen freezing export industry. The developed MCM was categorized into a) the manually operated type comprising steel cylindrical base of 70 mm. radius and 25 mm. high, 47 mm. cylindrical rubber supporter which was bored hemispherically to hold the fruit firmly during cutting, knife with horizontal and vertical screw control and b) the semi-automatic type comprising the 220 V. 50 Hz 1-Phase ¼ Hp. driving motor, 1:20 gear reducer, gearing system, cutting knife of semi-elliptical shape with 2 cm. wide and 6 cm. long., a replacable rubber seat according to fruit sizes. Timer switch was also included and the knife was controlled by 1 kg./cm. solenoid switch. Testing of the manually-operated MCM revealed that the machine could cut small (S), medium (M), and large (L) mangosteen at the of 109, 107 and 101 fruits/hr., respectively. One hundred percentage of smooth cut and cutting openability were obtained. Less than 20% of fruit samples showed not close-loop cut. Two prototypes of semi-automatic MCM with similar principal components were developed. Rubber seat of first MCM was built to hold mangosteen stationarily during cutting without hands while that of the second MCM needed a hand to do so. Cutting experiments with the newly-harvested mangosteen of 3 different sizes (small, medium and large), 50 fruits each showed that the first MCM could cut mangosteens at the capacity of 237, 214 and 216 fruits/hr. for S, M and l sizes. All fruits were easily openable. More than 80% of the cut mangosteen has close cut. More than 92% of the samples had neat cut. The second MCM could cut mangosteen fruits of lower quality (open-market mangosteen) better than the first MCM, ie, for S, M and L sizes it could cut mangosteen at the capacity of 413, 363 and 377 fruits/hr. with no close-loop cut less than 10%. Openability of the cut was 100%. Small fruit could be easily opened while bigger fruits were difficult to open. This might be due to some mechanical damage inherent to the fruits from the market. Economic study showed that the investment on materials and labor amounting to 7,130 baht to construct a MCM. Expenses on mechanical cutting of 100 mangosteen fruits did not exceed 7.50 baht.