AGROSTA®Winterwood
14Pages

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits The Agrosta®Wonderfast / Durofel version has been designed in 2020 in order to provide a top accurate machine for testing automatically Cherries, Blueberries, Tomatoes, Cranberries and Grapes Many thanks for having acquired an Agrosta instrument Your package contains : - The machine itself 2 turntables (According to your request, 2 identical or 2 different turntables) A manual with certificate of conformity A 110V / 220 V power supply A Usb stick with the software A Usb cable 13 Rue du Bastringue – 76440 SERQUEUX - FRANCE lak@agrosta.org - www.agro-technology.co.uk – Tel +33 689494

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits The Agrosta®Winterfast / durofel version is entirely designed and assembled in France. The motherboards come from USA, and the shield boards are made in Hong Kong and USA. The Agrosta®Winterfast / durofel version is not waterproof! It is a precision instrument; please take care to avoid dropping or knocking it. The Agrosta®Winterfast / durofel version comes with two years guarantee - Minimum Durofel : 7% Maximum Durofel : 100% (Shore A Scale) Resolution: +/- 1% Software compatible with Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10 The size...

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits Don’t connect your machine Insert USB stick in your computer Double click on “Agrosta_Driver” – Follow setup procedure 2/ Connect Usb cable between instrument and your computer 3/ Wait a few seconds till it is recognized (Driver linked to device) 4/ Install Software from USB Stick Double click on “Agrosta Winterwood” Follow Setup procedure 5/ Connect Power plug 6/ The software starts after setup 13 Rue du Bastringue – 76440 SERQUEUX - FRANCE lak@agrosta.org - www.agro-technology.co.uk – Tel

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits On the right/top of the window appears a list of COM ports Select the one corresponding to your machine Usually, the last COM port corresponds to your machine Click 2 times on “OK” 7/ Start a new Serie The software comes with a light version of Excel : You can open any Excel file Or use the blank sheet that appears when you start the soft Click on the cell where you want the data to start to be displayed Then click on “START NEW SERIE” : Date / time and column headers will be displayed You an click in any other cell in...

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits You can use a barcode reader, and select the cell where you want the barcode reference to appear Define the number of tests you want to perform (The number of fruits placed on the table, between 1 and 32), enter this value in the corresponding field For blueberries, if the table is full of fruits, this value is 32 If you want to make continuous testing (remove and replace berries during the cycle), you can put a value like 1000 – The machine will then test 1000 fruits / If you want to stop, remove the USB plug and the...

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits - Place the table : Switch between 2 cups as on photo hereafter / The machine will start with the cup on the right side : Click on “LAUNCH CYCLE” 9/ Adjust the size measurement - You need to enter the initial size in mm (Distance between the sensor head and the middle of the cup height of the turntable you are using) Enter this value in the field “Initial size” Make some tests with fruits for which you know the size, and adjust the initial value : Adding 1mm to initial size adds 1 mm to fruit size 13 Rue du Bastringue –...

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits Bottom of sensor to top of turntable is X mm 13 Rue du Bastringue – 76440 SERQUEUX - FRANCE lak@agrosta.org - www.agro-technology.co.uk – Tel +33 6894943

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits Different measurement values between handheld Agrosta 100 and Agrosta Winterfast / durofel version : This difference of measurements appears only on blueberries, this is due to the fact that, when measured with handheld devices, the Blueberries are maintained between 2 finger which apply an overpressure on the fruit. When placed inside the cups of the turntable machine, the blueberries are free, that’s the reason why the values are lower – The difference is around 16% according to our experience = Multiply the values...

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits - The solution in this case is to use a turntable with smaller cups When placing small berries in the cups, block each berry in order to avoid a movement down while measuring, which implies bad measurement and lower values - When placing blueberries in the cups of the turntable, take care to LOCK very carefully each berry !! - If a berry can move down during measurement, you will obtain very low values (Remember that 0.25mm represents 10% Durofel Index = if your berry moves down by 0.25mm, the value measured will be 10%...

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits Place the tip protection (Protection covering) : It shall not be too loose nor too much tightened, place it before starting the machine as shown on the photo (Absolutely required for Blueberries, recommended for others) – The sensor does not like the fruit juice at all – Either you use this glove (Standard finger cot that can be found in any country) or you unscrew the abutment and clean the tip, chamber and abutment each time a fruit is broken and juice flows (First solution with glove is recommended) / Take care to...

Agrosta®Winterwood Digital Firmness and size measurement of soft fruits PROCEDURE FOR CALIBRATION CHECK If you apply the following procedure for checking the calibration of Agrosta Winterwood machine, and obtain values between 96% and 100 % Durofel, you have the guarantee that your machine is well calibrated WHY ? The Winterwood machine measures according to the Durofel Standard. The Durofel Standard is based on the Shore A standard : In the Shore A standard, the tip (represented in green and blue) is linked to a calibrated spring. This spring applies the load, and the tip retracts more or...