VietNamNet Bridge – A general purpose sieving machine invented by Nguyen Xuan Tinh, a primary school teacher, ca sort litchis and improve the quality of dried fruit.

Inventor Nguyen Xuan Tinh.

Tinh is a teacher in Luc Ngan District in Bac Giang Province, Vietnam’s main litchi cultivation area.

Consumers do not have litchis to eat all year round. The litchi harvest lasts one month only in early summer. After the month, farmers have to throw tons of fresh litchis away, because only a small percentage of litchis can be dried and stored.

Dried litchis are not favored by consumers due to the low quality of the products. The drying is done by manual methods.

Tinh, who understands the problem of the farmers in his homeland, decided that he needed to make a machine which can mechanize all the phases of litchi sorting and processing, which can help reduce the manual work and upgrade the quality of dried fruits.

According to Tinh, the quality of the dried fruits can be improved by 10-25 percent, while the time needed for every litchi drying batch has been shortened significantly.

Tinh’s machine has a chassis, three screens with different sizes, a funnel for fruit and a another funnel for output of dried fruits. It is run by a 1.5 KW motor attached to the hard-axis motion with soft joints.

The machines sorts fruits based on the vibration principle, and is capable of selecting four groups of products. These include first-class products – big, round fruits; the second-class – smaller products; the third-class – the smallest ones with lower quality; and the fourth-class – the waste products litchi stem, leaf and broken fruits.

Tinh’s machine is useful for farmers in the litchi growing area of Bac Giang. As the machine runs by electricity, the sorting and drying of litchis does not cost them much time and effort anymore. Meanwhile, the capacity is high and quality very good.

The machine not only can help classify fruits, but also can help farmers put litchis into a drying room and turn litchis over. It also assists in packaging and some other phases of the production process.

A farmer in Luc Ngan District said that he highly appreciated the machine for its ability to sort out substandard fruits, which then allows it to upgrade the quality of dried products. He said that the feature cannot be found in any other machine of this kind.

Tinh said that since the day his machine came out, he has received over 30 orders, mostly from farmers.

An official of the Luc Ngan District local authorities estimated that if 70-80 percent of the households in Luc Ngan use a drying machine, Luc Ngan would earn hundreds of billions of dong more from litchis every year.

The official praised Tinh’s invention for its impact on the environment. Since the machine shortens the drying time, it can help save fuel.

Tia Sang