Development of an Egg-washing and Grading Machine

Abstract

This work presents the design and construction and performance evaluation for an egg-washing and grading machine capable of efficiently washing and grading up to 1200 eggs per hour. The primary objective is to streamline the cleaning and grading of chicken eggs into standard grade sizes to encourage hygiene and uniformity in the egg production especially for smallholder poultry farms. The novelty of this machine lies in its compact, dual-functionality system combining washing and grading using low-cost microcontroller-based automation. The control system of the machine uses the Arduino Uno development board while load cells are used to estimate the weight of each egg before they are graded into categories using an array of servo motors and stepper motors for moving the eggs within the system. The eggs are washed by a soft nylon brush of 10cm which cleans the shells of the egg. The developed machine efficiently washes eggs to remove common stains, such as faces, blood, and feeds/sawdust residues adjudged to be the most common forms of stains on the shells of eggs. The combined washing and grading accuracy of the machine is evaluated to be 93.3% and an efficiency of 94% was also obtained. The egg washing and grading machine also achieved impressive performance metrics, with a combined washing and grading time of approximately 2.99 seconds per egg.