Potatoes are sold in the market without grading in Bangladesh. If potatoes were sold after grading, this would be beneficial to both producers and consumers. Since mechanical graders are not available, potatoes are graded, when necessary, by hand. This is a time consuming, costly, and inefficient method. In view of this, a power-operated potato grader was designed and fabn-cld using M.S. angle, M.S. shaft, G I wire, and rubber tubes. The grader consists of a frame, feeding mechanism, sieve, collection mechanism and power transmission. The first prototype was developed and tested in the laboratory in 1998 to observe its performance. Based on the performance test the grader was modified, especially the feeding mechanism. The maximum power consumptionwas found to be 1,637 watts The average capacity ot the grader was 2,030 kg/hr. The cost of grading was only Tk 0.03 per kg. No injury occurred to graded potatoes. Field performance at a private cold storage in Rajshahi District was highly satisfactory.The capacity of the grader at the cold storage was 1,500 kg/hr. The use of this grader will reduce the time and the cost of grading.
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