Designing and fabrication of Low-cost Melon Seed De-husking Machine using locally sourced Materials

Abstract

A Melon shelling machine was designed, constructed and tested in order to reduce the stress associated in manual shelling of melon process. The melon shelling machine was made from locally sourced machine parts which were assembled by machining and joining processes. The machine operates on the principle of friction as opposed to the use of an impact force in the shelling chamber for shelling melon seeds. This results in minimum seed breakage thus, reduces the amount of wastage involved in the mechanized processing of melon seed. This machine consist of a feed hopper, shelling chamber, gear unit and electrical motor unit. The melon shelling machine operates at a maximum shelling speed of 1400rpm, feed rate of 4g per minute and a shelling efficiency of 75.2%. The effect of moisture content of melon seeds regarding the shelling performance was considered and the result shown that 10ml of water in 36.6g of melon yields good shelling efficiency.