Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Cotton Ginning Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #109013
Title: COTTON MOISTURE CONTENT SENSING FOR GINS USING RESISTANCE

Author
item Byler, Richard
item Anthony, William

Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/4/2000
Publication Date: 6/1/2000
Citation: Byler, R.K., Anthony, W.S. 2000. Cotton moisture content sensing for gins using resistance. National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference. Volume 2:1561-1563

Interpretive Summary: One of the more crucial tasks for a gin to perform is to properly dry the cotton. A problem, which has been seen in the past with automatic drying control, occurs when cotton has been harvested under dry conditions but the module in which it is stored is located in a low place during subsequent rainy periods. The bottom portion of the module becomes very wet. The drying control system needs to be able to sense this very wet cotton. A simple solution to this problem has been devised and installed for testing at one commercial gin. Dry weather during the 1999 harvest and ginning season resulted in no modules with naturally wet bottoms so two approaches were used to wet cotton module bottoms. Data were collected which show that the approach worked with the artificially wetted modules. This sensor should allow the drying control system to respond appropriately when wet bottomed modules are encountered, which will improve the quality of the cotton produced at the gin.

Technical Abstract: Proper control of seed cotton drying is a crucial task performed by modern gins. During testing of an automated cotton drying system a problem was encountered for a few modules because they had extremely wet bottoms but the majority of the module contained relatively dry cotton. The purpose of this study was to determine if a simple isolated roller in a module feeder bed could be used to detect wet-bottomed modules. Sensors were installed in a gin to measure the moisture content of cotton on the bottom of the module and of samples from the interior of the module while ginning. Good harvesting conditions at this location for the 1999 season precluded any modules with naturally wet bottoms. The bottoms of two modules were artificially wetted and the modules ginned. The resulting data verified the basic operation of the sensors as the wet bottom was detected while the lower moisture content of the module interior was also measured.