Energy-Efficient Coffee Pulper
摘要
There is an increasing need for a versatile, energy-efficient coffee pulping machine in both the remote and urban coffee-growing areas of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Coffee requires hefty processes from harvesting to processing that involves a lot of human effort and labor. The most energy-draining is the pulping process where the coffee cherry is reduced to coffee beans. The coffee growers in the highlands and some parts of the lowlands of PNG have been using stones, coffee pulping machines, and some other techniques and methods to do the job. However, as more coffee is produced, the need for a more efficient pulping technique emerges. Many farmers resort to using electric motors to drive the pulping machine making the work much faster and more efficient. However, with little consideration, we can see that electricity is dangerous, costly, and only accessible to some privileged urban farmers. Therefore, in this paper, a new technique is proposed by carefully considering the problems encountered by the existing methods. The proposed technique employs a bicycle-driven mechanism that drives the pulping machine via the chains from the bicycle paddle to the back wheel (which acts as a flywheel) and to the pulping machine. The velocity ratio of the system is roughly four; hence, the output velocity and work are four times greater than the conventional pulping using direct effort by hand to pulp the beans. For instance, if you are to spin the wheel (coffee pulping machine) by hand for 36 revolutions per minute, the same work can be done with only nine revolutions per minute using the energy-efficient coffee pulper (the proposed technique). The energy-efficient coffee pulper is very efficient, versatile, safe, sustainable environmentally friendly, and most thrilling; it can be made from waste metals.