Lint cleaner
4 United States Patent Horn Apr. 15, 1975 [54] LINT CLEANER 3,355,776 l2/l967 Reddick l9/202 [75] Inventor: James L. Horn, Lubbock, Tex.  
  Primary Examiner-Dorsey Newton [73] Ass1gnee: Horn &amp; Gladden, Lubbock, Tex. Attorney Agent or w Coffee [22] Filed: May 23, 1973 211 App]. No.: 363,062 1 ABSTRACT In a condenser to condense lint cotton from an air 52 vs. C! 19/202; 19/203 Stream before the is fed a cleaner, a 100 51 Int. Cl D01b 1/00 mesh Screen is used and very high air P drop [58] Field of Search 119/202 203 204 205, across the screen tightly compacts the particles of lint 19/89.,55/97 to the condenser screen. Thereafter, the lint is removed from the screen in conventional fashion and [56] References Cited fed through no more than two sets of directional roller and a feed roller where it is fed onto a lint cleaning UNITED STATES PATENTS saw with a combing ratio of about 24 to l. 2,704,862 3/1955 Moss 19/202 3,014,247 12/1961 Salmon 19/202 8 Claims, 1 Drawing Figure COTTON LINT IN AIR STREAM LINT CLEANER BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to fiber preparation and more particularly to cleaning lint in a cottin gin after the lint has been separated from the seed.  
 2. Description of the Prior Art The cleaning of lint in the gin is a well known process in fiber preparation. Basically. the process includes snagging the lint upon a saw cylinder and then flaying the lint against mote bars to remove the trash therefrom. After the lint has been beaten against the mote bars, it is doffed from the saw cylinder by doffing brushes.  
  The cotton is customarily delivered to the lint cleaning unit as particles of lint located Within an air blast; therefore. it is necessary to condense&#39; the cotton. i.e.. to remove the air from the lint and to form cotton into a batt, after which time the cotton batt is fed to the saw cylinder.  
  At the present time. course screens are used upon the condenser cylinders and at least three sets of directional rollers are used to feed the cotton to the saw cylinder. Also, under present technology. the speed of the saw cylinder compared to the speed of the roller. prior to this time, was traditionally less than to l.  
  The following MOSS US. Pat. Nos. were known to applicant at the time of filing this application:  
  The 1.1.8. Pat. No. 2.704.862 and the US. Pat. No. 2.952.881 patents both emphasize the importance of having a smooth uniform batt.  
 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION New and Different Function Course screens as used in the prior art permit a certain amount of lint to pass through the condenser screen and be discharged into the atmosphere from the fans in the form of a fly lint. Although the loss of lint is not objectionable. it contributes polution into the air.  
  I ha e found that creen of about 100 mesh can be used if it is placed over a coarser screen and. also, if a very high pressure drop is obtained across the screen. 1 have found that it is necessary to use very high volumes of air and a very large pressure drop across the screen. This process has certain advantages. In this Case. the cotton is very tightly compressed upon the screen so it forms a more manageable batt upon the screen. This results in being able to use fewer directional rollers and. subsequently. feeding the batt to the saw cylinder; therefore, I am able to obtain a more compact and economical machine. Also. better cleaning results from having a better batt fed to the saw cylinder. In addition to greatly reducing air polution. I am able to build a more compact machine at no greater cost.  
  Also. I have determined that much better results are obtained if the speed of the operation is adjusted so a good batt is always produced. l.e.. the speed of the condenser and all the subsequent directional rollers are driven from a common source and the speed of all of this machinery is adjusted according to the rate the cotton is being fed to the condenser. If the flow of cotton is heavy. the machinery may be run faster. or if cotton is being fed at a slow rate. the speed of the machinery may be retarded to accommodate the slower feed rate. There is always a uniform thickness of batt being removed from the condensor and fed to the saw.  
 OBJECTS OF THIS INVENTION An object of this invention is to clean lint while keeping air poluti&#39;on at a minimum.  
  Further objects are to achieve the above with a method that is versatile. rapid, efficient. and inexpensive. and does not require skilled people to install. adjust. operate. and maintain.  
  The specific nature of the invention. as well as other objects. uses. and advantages thereof. will clearly appear from the following description and from the accompanying drawing.  
 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING The drawing is a schematic representation of the machinery used in this invention.  
 DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The elements of the machinery used to perform my invention are standard equipment which are commercially available on the market. The drawing is only schematic inasmuch as those people with ordinary skill in cotton gin machinery would be able to construct it once they have been given the information contained in this specification. Therefore, the housing, gear drives. chain drives. etc, have not been shown.  
  Referring to the drawing. the cotton first encounters condenser drum 10. The cotton lint is fed to the bottom of the drum in an air stream. The drum is 50 inches in diameter. 14 feet in length and constructed by conventional techniques. except that it is covered first by an 8 mesh screen (8 wires per inch) and this 8 mesh screen is then covered by the 100 mesh screen 1 100 wires per inch). The 8 mesh screen is necessary because the 100 mesh screen is so fine that it lacks the property of being self-supporting unless it is supportd by the courser screen behind it. An mesh screen is operable although for ecological reasons at least a mesh is preferred.  
  The cotton is fed to the screen in an air stream of about 17.000 cu. ft. per minute and there are 82 sq. ft. of the screen exposed to the air stream. Therefore. the velocity of the air through the screen is about 200 feet per minute or calculated exactly at 207 feet per minute. I have measured the pressure drop across the condenser screen to be 5 lbs. per square foot. At this rate. I have found that I am able to handle about 50 lbs. of cotton per minute. The cotton will have a density on the screen of about 0.017 lb. per square foot.  
  The condenser is rotated in the direction as shown in the drawing and then the lint is doffed from the screen by the doffing roller &#39;12,- which is rotated in the direction of the arrow thereon. The smoothing roll 14 bears against the condenser roll. I choose to have the main drive to the mechanism through the smoothing roll 14.  
 The smoothing roll 14 is a smooth wooden roller 9 inches in diameter and is driven by a variable speed mechanism. This mechanism may be either a step pulley or a variable speed electric motor. however. I prefer to use a \ariable spccd electric motor. It is driven between 40 rpm and 90 rpm. In order to understand-the invention, the surface speed of all of the equipment has been calculated in feet per minute, assuming that the smoothing roll 14 is driven at 60 rpm. However, it is emphasized that the speeds are only relative and that if the cotton is fed to the condenser at afaster rate. the speed of the smoothing roller will be increased and all of the speeds will be increased, except for the speed of the saw cylinder 16 and its doffing brush- 18. These are driven by a separate drive source and their speed will remain the same regardless of the speed at which the other equipment is being driven.  
  It may be calculated. therefore, that smoothing roller 14 will have a surface speed of 141 ft. per minute. The chain drive is such that the doffing roll 12 will have a speed of 141 ft. per minute, and the condenser will have a speed of 216 ft. per minute. The doffing roller is a 9 in. diameter roll with 20 flights of rubber doffing material.  
  Immediately after passing the doffing roller 12 and the smoothing roller 14, the batt is guided or supported by the transfer roller 20 which is a 5 in. smooth aluminum roller driven at a surface speed of 143 ft. per minute. From the transfer roller. the cotton batt passes through the first directional rollers 22 and 24. These directional rollers are 6 in. diameter smooth aluminum rollers and they each have a surface speed of 148 ft. per minute. Immediately after passing through the first directional rollers, the batt passes through the second directional rollers 26 and 28. Roller 26, in this case, is a 4.5 in. splined aluminum roller and the directional roller 28 is a 4.5 in. smooth aluminum roller. The rollers are rotated at a surface speed of 174 ft. per minute.  
  After passing through the second directional rollers 26 and 28, the batt is immediately fed to feed roller 30, which is a 4.5 in. splined steel roller having as surface speed 174 ft. per minute. It works against a quarter moon-shaped aluminum feeding plate 32. From there the fatt is fed to the saw cylinder 16 which has a 16 inch diameter and rotates at a surface speed of 4,180 ft. per minute. While the cotton is on the saw cylinder, it is beat against three mote bars 34 as is conventional in cotton cleaning equipment. The cotton is doffed from the saw cylinder by the brush cylinder 18 with hair brushes 18 in. diameter from tip to tip and having a surface speed of 7,500 ft. per minute.  
  Those skilled in the lint cleaning arts will understand the spacing between the different rollers and drums is all conventional and, in some cases, the drums are spring biased. E.g., the feed roller 30 and the feed plate 32 are biased toward one another. As stated before, the drive for the equipment is conventional and] prefer to use a chain drive throughout so the relative speed between the different drums is maintained accurately. The spacing between the rollers. from one roller to the other and their mounting and housing is all conventional and well understood by those people having ordinary skill in the lint cleaning art.  
  The embodiment shown and described above is only exemplary. 1 do not claim to have invented all the parts, elements or steps described. Various modifications can be made in the construction. material, arrangement, and operation, and still be within the scope of my invention. The limits of the invention and the bounds of the patent protection are measured by and defined in the following claims. The restrictive description and drawing of the specific example above do not point out what an infringement of this patent would be, but are to enable the reader to make and use the invention.  
 1 claim as my invention:  
  1. The method of feeding and condensing cotton to a lint cleaner comprising:  
 a. moving cotton in an airstream b. condensing the cotton upon at least an mesh moving condenser screen,  
 c. forming a compressed layer of cotton on said screen by having an air flow velocity of about 200 feet per minute through the screen with d. a pressure drop of about 5 pounds per square foot across the screen so that it forms a compressed layer of cotton on the screen,  
 e. doffing the cotton from the screen,  
 f. passing the cotton in the form of a batt through no more than two sets of rotating directional rollers,  
  and then g. feeding the batt onto a rotating saw cylinder for cleaning,  
 h. regulating the feed of the batt to the saw cylinder with a rotating feed roller.  
 2. The invention as defined in claim 1 wherein j. the surface speed of the saw cylinder is over 20 times the surface speed of the feed roller.  
 3. The invention as defined in claim 1 wherein j. the speed of the batt at the feed roll is about 1.24 times the speed of the batt after doffing from the condenser screen.  
 4. The invention as defined in claim 1 with an additional limitation of j. adjusting the speed of movement of the screen to maintain a smooth batt of uniform thickness.  
 5. The invention as defined in claim 1 wherein j. the cotton is condensed on the condenser screen at a density of about 0.017 lb. per square foot.  
 6. The invention as defined in claim 5 with an additional limitation of k. adjusting the speed of movement of the screen to maintain a smooth batt of uniform thickness.  
 7. The invention as defined in claim 6 wherein m. the speed of the batt at the feed roll is about 1.24 times the speed of the batt after doffing from the condenser screen.  
 8. The invention as defined in claim 7 wherein n. the surface speed of the saw cylinder is over 20 times the surface speed of the feed roller.