Design and development of cup in cup feed metering seed drill for seed pattern characteristics study of paddy seeds

Abstract

Proper design of cup in cup feed metering seed drill is very important to enhance the performance of a seed drill. Earlier the cups used were of semi circular type. Due to vibration and shock, the seed retention and release for these cups were poor. So the cups were modified to cylindrical at top and conical at the bottom. An experimental test rig was developed in the laboratory in the Department of farm Machinery and Power, OUAT, Bhubaneswar, Odisha during the year 2009-10 to evaluate the best suitable dimensions of cup for the paddy variety pathara. Five different sizes of cups i.e. 14.83 mm, 11.71 mm, 9.48 mm, 7.84 mm and 6.58 mm depths with diameters of 8 mm, 9 mm, 10 mm, 11 mm and 12 mm respectively were prepared keeping the volume constant and were used for the study. The five different peripheral speeds of the cup discs were chosen to 6.28 m/min, 9.42 m/min, 12.55 m/min, 18.84 m/min and 23.56 m/min. The belt speed was calculated and maintained to study the seed rate deviation, seed distribution and seed damage. It was found that the dimensions of cup of 10 mm × 9.48 mm were found best with a permissible peripheral velocity up to 23.56 m/min and an overall efficiency of 80.94 %. The above dimensions of the cup may be taken to develop a suitable seed drill for use in the field condition for sowing of paddy seeds.