Design and Development of Reciprocating Type Cumin Cleaner Cum Grader

India is famous for its pet name in the world of agriculture as the 'Home of Spices'. India grows 47 out of 70 varieties of spices that are grown in different parts of the world. The major marketing cities for cumin seeds are Unjha, Palanpur, Mahesana and Visnagar in Gujarat and Jaipur, Kisangarh and Kokri in Rajasthan. Cumin seeds as it comes from the field contain foreign matter like weed seeds, stems, leaves, broken seeds, stones, dirt, etc. These foreign matters must be removed to increase quality of seed in the market, storage period of seed, cost of selling and net income to the farmers as well as sellers and to perform different kinds of post-harvest operations. Cleaning and grading of cumin in the marketing yard is time consuming and laborious operation because large quantity is to be handled. Some of the big traders used mechanical cleaners and graders, but the initial investment required in the purchasing of such machinery is quite high. Efforts were made to develop a low cost machine that can clean and grade the seed of cumin and can be utilized for the above operation at low investment for small farmers. Effects of different machine operating parameters on its performance i.e. feed rate, speed and screen slope were evaluated for cleaning efficiency and power consumption. For getting best cleaning efficiency and low power consumption, the machine should be operated at 50 kg/h feed rate, 150 rpm and 7-degree slope.