Abstract

In view of the importance of proper sized candies having sharp edged sides for high quality standards and in various capacities, a manual operated fruit bar/candy sizer machine based on the principle of dye and punch system was designed and developed. The main components of the sizer machine are base table, cutter blade assembly and manual operating system consisting of flywheel, flywheel shaft and flange connected eccentrically. The base table of the sizer machine was made from 1300 × 800 × 5 mm thick MS sheet with 2 mm thick SS Sheet top. Two MS bright bar 670 mm long, 50 mm diameter was fitted over the base table to support the cutter blade assembly attached with connecting rod, MS flange and flywheel. Angular movement of flywheel imparts up and down movement of cutter blade assembly against the solid base table fitted with food grade plastic sheet resulting in sizing of the fruit bar/candy sheet. The plastic sheet acts as dye and cutter blade assembly as punch. The sizer had the provision to cut the fruit bar/candy into different sizes just by changing the cutter blade unit made-up of 5 mm thick sharp edged SS sheet having eight segments. The capacity of manually operated sizer machine was 50 kg/h with excellent sharp edged size fruit bar/candy of 10 × 5 cm with 8 pieces in single cut without any damage.

Key words: Sizer, fruit bar/candy, sizer design.