EVALUATION OF LABORATORY GRAIN CLEANING AND SEPARATING EQUIPMENT .2.

Three different laboratory grain cleaners were tested in order to dete rmine their feasibility for use in grain grading. The three machines t ested were: 1) Dockage Tester (XT 3) made by Carter-Day Co. (USA); 2) Mini Cleaner and Grader (Labofix) made by MCK Maschinebau (Germany); a nd 3) Laboratory Separator Cleaner (NSL) made by Tripette and Renaud ( France). The main objective of the study was to compare the grain clea ning performance of the Labofix and NSL models with that of the XT 3 m odel dockage tester. Data on the performance of all three machines wer e collected and analyzed from tests with five different crops, hard re d spring wheat, white wheat, grain sorghum, rye, and flaxseed. Two uni ts of each type of machine were tested with samples prepared at two le vels of moisture content (11 and 15% w.b.) and three levels of impurit ies (5, 10, and 15%). The test results showed that the Labofix model i s more feasible for use in grain grading, based oil the analyses of im purity removal efficiency accuracy, reproducibility, applicability, an d ease of operation.