Milking Machine

Yepp. As per manual extraction which is a squeezing action the machine would have to copy this similar to massaging it out.

Dear, It looks very simple to develop a machine with squeezing operation. But till date to my knowledge nobody has developed it & I have been trying to make it but facing certain problems. With this engg discussion platform I need to know whether anyone knows about such machine. Pls confirm.

Any of the milking machines I've heard of all basically work the same, with a vacuum pump and various different setups for volume considerations....The vacuum milkers do occasionally squeeze the teat to keep the blood circulating otherwise the blood would accumulate in the end of the teat....they all have to do this...Now I guess you could program robotic hands to milk a cow, but it doesn't sound like an easy thing to do, nor do I see any advantage...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_milking

Totally agrees with your reply. Making it Robotic, firstly cow itself rejects to extract & secondly cost will reach 4 figures in $. With the discussion, it is clear that we need to think about machine considering same working principle as of Vacuum.

Oh, well.

4 figures? try $???,???.00

there is a reason why as I stated earlier for the high costs.

A neighbor of our just installed a robotic milk. he loves it. Cows decided when they need to be milk. Each cow has a RFID chip, which ID's the cow, and monitors the cows feed, temperature, milk productions as well as health.

His herd isn't that big less than 100 cow in his milking string.

Now.... look at the economics. World Milk prices are flat and will continue to be that way for a long time on the world market.

And I heard just this morning that the EU added about $800,000,000.00 in subsidies to the dairy farmer, so, supply will remain high.

You have some think to do here. But cheer up, you quest will not happen in a year., so there may be a money there for demand of new milking equipment.

Thanks for your more precise explanations & observations. Generally, milk has been extracted manually from Cow. Machines are not readily preferred as the users experiences are not favourable. Dairy Owners needs the machine but due to its limitations, machines are used when the operators are not available in Dairy Farms. Each operator extracts milk as per its convenience. They grips the teat & first lock the upper side with the thumb or index finger & then press the lower end of teat with pinky or baby finger. This method has been repeated each time, making it pulsating type. We had done certain trials by making a teat pressing machine duly considered that it should be battery operated. Now we feels that there should be a mechanism that should squeeze the teats, it should be gripped well over the teat, then only we can have milk extraction. We are trying to make an economical i.e., 3 figures price, battery operated, easy to mount, "acceptable" by cows, no damages of teats, works for all sizes & formation of teats. Thanks to all for valuable & needed support.

Yes. Explosives.

You are a very bad man...(wags finger and scowls)
Go and sit on the naughty step and think about what you've done.
Del (exit left tutting and shaking head)

What?

I only posted that 'cos I just had a cow land on my head!

Del

That sounds like urine extraction.

What were you inspecting? Is the cow healthy? did you find polyps? I hope you took precautions...

Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a!

if we get one more person, we'd have enough for a gang, then we can gang up on del..... wait.... del's a cat.... and as a cat, he'd still think he would out number us.

And he loves milk! Wonder why he thinks a cow flying on his head is bad. What if it has milk! But we do not know that!

Whatever!

well, you think its strange del wearing a cow as a hat is funny..... you should see him trying to wear it as a bow tie.

Yes, there's the conventional mechanism, which is manually done,..

Install diversion tubes in calves, so they get half and we get half. The term half-and-half is already familiar in the dairy industry.

Does that mean the milk comes out already semi-skimmed?

It already has that...., if a calve drinks too much. But its enough to gag a maggot from where it comes out.

Okay.

I'll bite at this bait for the obvious reply.

What's wrong with all of the conventional methods that you are not using them?

Instead of vacuum, why not consider stacked miniature air pressure actuators like the bigger cousin of Festo's elephant trunk?

You can type that into YouTube and see how it works.

Creating something that will mimic nature should be very rewarding. But I'm sure it will not be simple and not likely cheap. But what do I know?

you mean like creating a linear peristaltic pump...

Wait! There is a budget problem. It has to cost less than 5 (figures)!

That's basically the process that is being described in the previous posts...

The alternative, you can always hire 'Emanuel Labor' from Mexico.

There is a medical device, which uses sequential inflation of BP cuffs, which is used to 'milk' the fluid out of the extremities of those suffering from lymph-edema. While that device is much bigger and was not designed for the purpose, of which you have inquired, I am certain that the patent for that device covers the basic design you have described. And, you would need to pay a license fee to that patent holder. Unless, of course that patent has expired, then it is in the public domain, and you takes your chances, that someone might 'knock off' your product.

I'm not familiar with that.

I like to add to the OP's request that if one of the goals is to eliminate and replace the vacuum portion of the machine, one thing to keep in mind. The vacuum is used to also keep the milker unit in place. Removing that, you would need some other, more then likely a mechanical device to keep it in milking unit in place.

A calf. The bovine type, not the lower portion of the leg type.

Good Luck, Old Salt

The ten finger method that I learned to hate in the 40's, still works today.

Nope, I'm sure not.

Try a linear progressive applied force, but use the new robotic tactile sensors (basically a pressure sensor of a type and class). Use a cheap Arduino controller. I am not at all sure that battery power will suffice on a large herd. You might want to install a large hand crank generator for the operator to use. OR put the cow on a treadmill after milking, so she thinks she is about to reach an oat bucket.