Normally one would expect stories about innovations and new applications. In this case, however, we zoom in on a small but very important detail in egg graders that has existed for decades: the rollers.
Eggs are transported into an egg grader on hourglass-shaped rollers. In many cases, these are made of industrial plastics or rubbers. Metal rollers have also been developed. Moba is one of the few manufacturers that uses two specific shapes and that is for an important reason: if you choose the right shape it prevents cracked eggs. The difference this makes can be as much as one percent or even more!!
There are egg graders that orient the eggs (point setting) towards the in-feed of the machine, so technically they are also rollers, while other machines that use the non-individual egg handling do this in the packer after a reservoir.
Moba has always combined orientation in the in-feed with the use of a specific wide shaped roller at the beginning of the in-feed. This little invention may only seem like a tiny detail, but in reality, it is a decisive factor when it comes to choosing the right machine type to maximise profits. At the beginning of the grader, eggs arrive from an accumulator in random positions or via a loader, placed on the rollers in a vertical position. In both cases, the eggs are not immediately flat ‘on their side’ and lying in between the rollers as they should. Often (in case of a loader per definition) they are in a non-aligned position, i.e. they ‘rock and roll’ at the same time.
After being put on the rollers, the rollers and eggs start rotating and after a while these eggs will be positioned correctly. There are two important factors that might invite you to take a closer look. If the eggs are tumbling they will hit each other. The Moba roller is shaped in a way that stops tumbling in milliseconds and prevents egg-to-egg contact. This prevents micro-cracks from being created. If eggs coming from a loader are tumbling, there is an even bigger risk: if the loader head with suction cups brings new eggs to the rollers, the eggs can hit an incidental egg that ‘leans back’ from the previous loading cycle. So as well as the micro-cracks mentioned above, the loader adds a significant extra amount of cracks and sometimes even leakers if too much tumbling occurs.
Moba’s wide roller has proven to be the best way to counter these problems. Where other graders in the industry use the same narrow shaped rollers that are needed to hold eggs firmly for detection and weighing purposes, Moba uses two different types, each designed according to the best properties for the respective purposes. The first roller section allows the eggs to ‘roll but not rock’!!
The specific roller shape can prevent more than 1% machine generated cracks
In countries where eggs are not washed, there is an additional feature in this roller section. In order to prevent egg-to-egg pollution by a leaking egg, each egg can be placed on its own individual set of two rollers. This unique feature, combined with the special roller shape, is unsurpassed in the industry and means that a leaking egg is detected and removed without the traditional rings of egg liquids being passed onto its neighbours. Polluted eggs are potentially falsely detected as leakers and if not, they will almost certainly end up glued into the consumer-pack or tray, resulting in an inferior quality end-product.
The famous wide roller is not only found in graders but also in Farmpackers…
The double roller function results in lower falsely rejected eggs and higher product quality and food safety in machine configurations where eggs are not washed. It is available in all Omnia FT and PX configurations. The enormous spacing between rows of eggs is clearly visible, and you can see that each egg is carried by its own set of rollers.