Innovation Description
Profile
Innovator Mr. K. Viswanathan hails from Erode district of Tamil Nadu. He has completed ITI in Mechanic Motor Vehicle. He has worked as a mechanic in companies in India, Saudi Arabia and Muscat. He is inclined towards mechanical work right from childhood and wanted to be a mechanical engineer. His family especially wife supported the most in his endeavour.
Purpose
Agriculture lands in Erode districts have a problem of stones in the field. Mr. Viswanathan saw farm labours removing stone from the field and found that the task is laborious, involves drudgery, consumes time and labour shortage. This inspired him to devise an implement that solves this problem. Farmers often turn up to the innovator for repairing turmeric harvester. So he made one model based on that mechanism and took 16 stages to complete the commercial version of this implement.
Technical details
It is a tractor-drawn implement capable of removing stones from the agriculture field. It consists of PTO shaft connected to the tractor of over 35 hp, gearbox, hydraulic tipping, chain conveyor, belt conveyor and gears with chain. The entire machine is divided into 3 sections; chain conveyor section, belt conveyor section and trolley section. The PTO shaft is connected to the gearbox, which at one end is connected to the gears that drive chain conveyor and other for a driving rod that removes soil over the blade. The chain conveyor is driven by gears connected at bottom, middle and top end. The belt conveyor is driven by gears attached to the chain conveyor. The trolley is mounted on two tyres and is attached as such that stones from belt conveyor directly fall into it. It has a blade with tynes fabricated over it.
The power from the tractor is transmitted to each section of the machinery using a PTO shaft and gears attached. The blade with tynes attached at the bottom digs soil and the material flows over chain conveyor where vibrations cause the soil to separate the stones and are conveyed to belt conveyor that transfers the stones to the trolley attached.
Performance
According to the innovator, it removes stones of 4 acres of land in a day (8 hours).
Benefits
The stone collected in the hydraulic trolley so no labour for unloading is required. If a woman can be trained she can also operate this implement.
Suggested Reading(s):
Nivash, V., Nethaji, K. J., Manikandan, S., N.Kavin, Meyvel, S.M.(2018). Design and fabrication of stone removal machine over the ground surface. International Journal for Scientific Research & Development, 6(2), 553 - 554.
Rudani, M. R., Jakasania, R. G. & Gupta, R. A. (2018). Design and development of stone collector. International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences, 7(4), 1424-1431.
