Design and Fabrication of Soil Sifting Machine for Value Added in The Black Ginger Herbal Production

The soil sifting machine was designed and built to remove soil out of harvested black ginger before processing or selling. The small and micro community enterprises are involved in the design and building procedure including resolve the problems and improvements of the soil sifting machine. As a result, the soil sifting machine was fully functioning and fulfills the needs of small and micro community enterprises. The machine consists of the two main important parts which were the power transmission and sifting part. The test run powered by a 1/4 horsepower motor, using 50 kilograms of black ginger each time with 16, 32 and 50 revolutions per minute. The result showed that the machine sifted the soil out of 750 kilograms of black ginger per hour at 16 revolutions per minute and its best performance. After sifting, the black ginger batch was not fractured but there was a little bit of soil stuck between their rootstocks and some of them their fibrous roots fell off. The soil sifting machine of the black ginger was worked 18.75 times better than human works. The specific power consumption ratio was 1.27 baht per hour that result to 90 percent of efficiency and a payback period was 20 days.