Development and Preliminary Evaluation of an Automated Cleaning and Weighing System for American Elderberry

American elderberry (Sambucus nigra subsp. canadensis) is an emerging specialty crop with increasing demand for value-added products; however, postharvest cleaning, separation, and weighing remain highly labor-intensive. This study developed and preliminarily evaluated a prototype of a water-assisted cleaning and weighing system designed to assist post-destemming handling during preliminary prototype testing. The prototype consisted of a stainless-steel, water-based separation tank; a sieve-type funnel guide; a screw conveyor; a motor and coupling assembly; an electronic control unit; a touchscreen interface; and a digital weighing scale. Manually destemmed elderberries were introduced into the water-filled tank, where mature berries settled, and the floating debris was removed. The submerged berries were then transferred by screw conveyor to the weighing unit. Conveyor speed was evaluated from 300 to 650 revolutions per minute (rpm) with three replications per treatment. Machine throughput increased significantly with conveyor speed, from 40.50 ± 27.09 kg h−1 at 300 rpm to 368.18 ± 19.44 kg h−1 at 650 rpm. Visible external berry damage after processing decreased from 50.00 ± 2.50% at 300 rpm to 18.50 ± 2.20% at 650 rpm. However, because pre-processing damage, berry loss, quantitative cleaning efficiency, weighing accuracy, and labor savings were not measured, these results should be interpreted as a preliminary prototype evaluation rather than a complete commercial validation. Within the tested speed range, 650 rpm was the best tested endpoint, producing the highest measured throughput and the lowest visible post-process damage. Further work is needed to quantify cleaning efficiency, recovery yield, berry loss, sanitation performance, weighing-control accuracy, and comparison with conventional manual processing.