Development of Spike Cylinder Type Single Locking Cotton Feeder cum Cleaner for Double Roller Gin

Spike cylinder feeder unit comprises of a pair of feed roller, spiked cylinders, grid, feeder hopper and distributor chute. A single locking cotton feeder cum cleaner was designed and fabricated with an aim to maintain constant feeding rate of individual locules at the ginning point of Double Roller (DR) gin. The effect of single locking of cotton on ginning efficiency of DR gin was studied. Extent of unlocking was determined by measuring the change in bulk density of cotton before and after passing through the feeder which decreased with increase in spike cylinder speed. DR gin output was found to increase by 15–20% with use of single locking feeder cum cleaner as compared to conventional feeding system comprising of auto-feeder and micro-feeder. Cotton quality was also found to improve in terms of colour grade. The single locking feeder cum cleaner thus would be highly useful for Indian ginneries.