The Development and Evaluation of Onion Peeling Machine for SMEs Industry

Abstract

An onion peeling machine has been designed, developed and evaluated according to SMEs food industry needs. Previously the onion peeling process was done manually and required a lot of time and manpower. Therefore, this project was developed to produce onion peeling machine that can peel onions in larger quantities. The machine is designed by using drum application with AC motor control system and microcontroller. The drum speed is controlled through the use of a variable frequency drive (VFD) at a maximum speed of 40 rpm. Meanwhile, the microcontroller is used to control the motor rotation at the specified time. The drum will rotate the onions in one direction at maintain speeds without damaging the onion structure. The evaluation process was conducted under three different drum rotational speeds (30, 35 and 40 rpm), three different peeling times (2, 3 and 4mins) and three different batch loads (2, 4 and 6kg). The evaluation shows to achieved the quality of onion peeled in 2 to 4kg, 2 to 4 minutes’ rotation with an ideal speed of 30 rpm to 35 rpm are used. It saves up to 2 times from the traditional peeling method. The usage of minimal electricity, low maintenance and can be operated by only one employee is also an extra benefit to the industry. With the innovation of this onions peeler machine, it is expected to meet the demands of small and medium Enterprises (SME) industries in producing low cost machines with high productivity products.