Meter for dispensing a granular product
AssigneeKinze Manufacturing, Inc.
InventorVaughan Stevenson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A chemical granule metering system, for use on a row crop planter, allows for control of chemical granule drop rate. The chemical granule metering system also includes a motor permitting control of chemical granule drop rate by adjusting the rotational speed of the motor. An impeller for a chemical granule meter system having a plurality of apertures is optimized to allow a broad range of chemical granule flow rates, reduce or mitigate clogging, and reduce pulsing characteristics of the metering system.
Claims20
A chemical granule meter for use with an agricultural planter, comprising:
- an assembly housing operatively connected to a row unit of the agricultural planter;
- an impeller mounted in said housing for rotation about an axis and having a plurality of apertures spaced radially about the axis for dispensing chemical granules;
- an electric motor with a dedicated drive for driving rotation of said impeller and to permit control of a chemical granule drop rate while accounting for varying speeds of the agricultural planter;
- a positive shut off mechanism to block a flow of the chemical granules between an inlet and an outlet of the chemical granule meter when the impeller is not rotating;
- a level sensor to sense the amount of a granule that is dispensed by the meter;
- and
- an intelligent control for synthesizing and analyzing data implemented within an open loop system, wherein the intelligent control is adapted to change a speed of rotation of the impeller based, in part, on the sensed amount of granule that is dispensed by the meter and a desired flow rate manually set by an operator.
An agricultural planter including a plurality of row units, said agricultural planter comprising:
- a chemical granule meter comprising an inlet, an outlet, an impeller with a plurality of apertures therein to allow for the passage of one or more types of granules to be dispensed via rotation of the impeller, and a positive shut off mechanism to block a flow of the one or more types of granules between the inlet and the outlet when the impeller is not rotating;
- an electric motor with a dedicated drive operatively connected to the impeller to provide an adjustable rotational speed to the impeller and to permit control of a chemical granule drop rate while accounting for varying speeds of the agricultural planter;
- a flow sensor to sense the amount of the one or more types of granules being dispensed based upon the rotational speed of the impeller;
- and
- an intelligent control for synthesizing and analyzing data implemented within an open loop system, wherein the intelligent control is adapted to change the rotational speed of the impeller based, in part, on the sensed amount of granule that is dispensed by the meter and a desired flow rate manually set by an operator.
A chemical granule metering device in combination with an agricultural planter, said combination comprising:
- said agricultural planter comprising a plurality of row units for planting seed, each of said row units comprising:
- an assembly housing and an impeller operatively connected to an electric motor with a dedicated drive to permit control of a chemical granule drop rate while accounting for varying speeds of the agricultural planter;
- said impeller having a plurality of apertures spaced radially about an axial axis for dispensing chemical granules;
- a positive shut off mechanism to block a flow of the chemical granules between an inlet and an outlet of the chemical granule meter when the impeller is not rotating;
- said assembly housing operatively attached to the agricultural planter;
- and
- an intelligent control for synthesizing and analyzing data implemented within an open loop system, wherein the intelligent control is configured to vary the flow of the chemical granules and the speed of rotation of the impeller based upon a sensed amount of granule being dispensed by the metering device and a desired flow rate manually set by an operator.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.