PURPOSE:To feed tea leaves constantly keeping the preset rate of flow, irrespective of the careless oscillation of the feeder, by measuring the real flow rate of the tea leaves with high accuracy, and correcting the running speed of the belt conveyor according to the measuring value. CONSTITUTION:Tea leaves are charged almost continuously to the hopper 14 of the metering conveyor 17 by driving the feeder 1, and at the same time, the conveyor 17 is driven to discharge the charged tea leaves from the end of the conveyor 17. When the weight of the whole conveyor reaches the upper limit, the motion of the feeder is stopped while continuing the motion of the conveyor until the weight of the conveyor reaches the lower limit, when the motion of the feeder is started again. During the period from the time when the weight of the whole conveyor reaches the upper limit to the time when it reaches the lower limit, the whole weight Yi (i=1-n) of the conveyor is measured at each check time Xi, and the obtained data (X1, Y1)-(Xn-Yn) are processed by the method of least squares. The constants A and B are calculated to approximate the trend of weight decrease by the formula Y=AX+B, and the value A is used as the flow rate of the tea leaves per unit time in the above period.
