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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Cotton Ginning Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #418008

Research Project: Development and Evaluation of Novel Technologies to Improve Fiber Quality and Increase Profitability in Cotton Processing

Location: Cotton Ginning Research

Title: Belt feeding a 10-saw gin stand

Author
item Donohoe, Sean
item Alege, Femi
item Thomas, Joseph

Submitted to: Applied Engineering in Agriculture
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/18/2024
Publication Date: 2/3/2025
Citation: Donohoe, S.P., Alege, F.P., Thomas, J.W. 2025. Belt feeding a 10-saw gin stand. Applied Engineering in Agriculture. 4(1),67-74. https://doi.org/10.13031/aea.16159.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13031/aea.16159

Interpretive Summary: Cotton breeders use small gin stands when developing new lines of cotton. These small breeder gin stands are often hand-fed. The hand-fed nature of the process makes it difficult to obtain a steady feed rate, and it is hard to account for when comparing data sourced from different tests. This study addresses that by looking at the performance of a conveyor belt system feeding the gin stand. The study used a 10-saw breeder gin stand with 10-inch saws and a power logger. Tests included samples ranging from 200 to 400 grams and three operators. The power logger data provided the energy used to gin each sample of cotton and the time needed. The study included a total of 90 samples of cotton. A pairwise test of the operators did not show that the operator had a significant effect on the energy or the time. The belt feeder system worked well and it helped support the goal of a steady consistent feed into the small breeder gin stand.

Technical Abstract: Breeder gin stands are often hand-fed, unlike commercial large-scale operations that have a feeder system. However, hand-feeding makes it difficult to obtain a consistent feed rate, and it becomes a variable that is hard to account for when comparing data. This study investigated the system performance of using a conveyor belt for feeding the seed cotton to a breeder gin stand. To achieve this objective, a 10-saw breeder gin stand with 10-inch saws was instrumented with a power/energy logger and operated on cotton samples ranging from 200 to 400 grams by three different operators. The instrumentation recorded the electrical power over time, and the power data was post-processed into energy and ginning time per run. Over the course of 90 runs, sample size was a significant factor for ginning time. A pairwise comparison failed to show that operator significantly affected energy or ginning time. The belt feeder system was successful at feeding the cotton. Therefore, the system does help maintain consistency of feeding, and consequently improve the accuracy of data obtained when operating the breeder gin.