A pedal operated cocoa POD breaker

Abstract

A simple pedal operated cocoa pod breaker was designed and tested. It consists of a splitting knife, a trommel, a pedaldrive and a frame. Initially, the dimensions of the cocoa pods were measured and the pods were classified according to their diameter and type. The average number of beans in thepodswas counted. The parameters measured to test the performance of the cocoa pod breaker include capacity, bean damage, husk chips in beans and efficiency. The performance was compared to the traditional method using cutlass. The machine occupies a working area of 1.86mx1.40mx1.25m. The average weight of wet beans in a pod was 108.37 g. The capacity of the machine was 178 pods per hour. The damage to the beans was 0.67% and the inclusion of pod chips 0.3%. The cocoa breaker will be useful to peasants in the rural area where there is no source of electricity.