Design assembling and testing of the oil palm bunches cutting machines

Abstract

One of Indonesia plantation products, which is considered very potential and strategic to be developed, is palm oil, which is a national mainstay product, and palm oil has a bright prospect for the growth of plantation commodity exports when compared to other vegetable oil products. Harvesting oil palm is cutting fresh fruit bunches from trees to transportation to the mill. This tool is designed from a lawnmower by changing the motion of lawn blades into a back and forth translational motion. Trimming or cutting blades will be converted into a back and forth movement of movements to cut oil palm bunches. From the results of this development found the results of research in the form of the speed required by the machine that is 1400 mm/min then the power needed to cut fresh fruit bunches with age 3-8 years which weighs 3.5-13 kg/bunch is 0.81 kilowatts or 810 watts which have a 6000 rpm combustion motor rotation using a cutting blade whose material is steel with an angle of 1350 with a pole length of 2.9 m which can be extended to 4.5 m.