The Design and Mechanism Developing of Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Machine for sugarcane planting

Abstract

The pruning of sugarcane leaves are usually done two months before harvesting in order to facilitate the human labors in harvesting and to avoid traditional burning of the sugarcane leaves. Generally,the sugarcane leaf pruning machine is used to harvest sugarcane for factory. However it can’t remove sugarcane leaves for planting because the seed bud is damaged about 60 – 70%. The objective of this research is the design and mechanism developing of Sugarcane Leaf Pruning for planting. So it applies the Slider – crank mechanism for the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller which can to moves in a vertical direction by tow the small tractor 22 hp. It can to remove the sugarcane leaves form the ground up to 2.35 m. The DC motor 900 W 24 V is used to be the power and controlled a rotation by the microcontroller. It’s tested with the Khon Kaen 3 sugarcane cultivar which has 0.6 years old in Tha Muang district, Kanchanaburi province and 2.05 m for the average height of sugarcane. Three factors is used this testing which consist the forward speed of tractor, linear velocity of the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller and direction of a rotation for the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller. The forward speed of tractor is 2.09 km h- 1, 0.5 m s-1 for a linear velocity of the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller and upward direction of the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller are found the least damage of seed bud be 1.38%, the least damage of stalk be 1.45%, 0.84 rai per hour for the performance, 37.33 ampere per hour for an average of the power electric and 4.11 liter per rai for the minimum fuel consumption. The cost of the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Machine is 35,000 baht, 250 baht per rai for the earnings of Sugarcane Leaf Pruning and 8 hours per day for working. So the Break Even point is 182.37 rais and 1.58 years for the payback time.