Mechanical knife drive for a header of an agricultural harvester
AssigneeCNH Industrial America LLC
InventorsStephen Todderud, Kevin Ward, Joel T. Cook
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A header for an agricultural harvester including a knife drive disposed at a forward end of a feeder conveyor. An infeed drive is disposed adjacent the feeder conveyor, the infeed drive having an input and an output. An input shaft is drivingly connected to the infeed drive input, and an output shaft has a first end connected to the infeed drive output and a second end drivingly connected to the knife drive. The knife drive can be a center knife drive and the infeed drive, the input shaft and the output shaft operate as a fully mechanical drive power supply for the center knife drive which overcomes the deficiencies of hydraulically-driven knife drives.
Claims18
A header for an agricultural harvester comprising:
- a knife drive disposed at a forward end of a feeder belt conveyor;
- an infeed drive disposed adjacent a lateral side of the feeder belt conveyor, the infeed drive having an input and an output;
- an input shaft drivingly connected to the infeed drive input;
- and
- an output shaft having a first end connected to the infeed drive output and a second end drivingly connected to the knife drive.
A header for an agricultural harvester comprising:
- a knife drive disposed at a forward end of a feeder conveyor;
- an infeed drive disposed adjacent the feeder conveyor, the infeed drive having an input, an output, an input pulley, an output pulley, a plurality of belts connecting the input pulley to the output pulley, a first intermediate pulley, and a second intermediate pulley affixed to a common shaft, wherein a first one of the plurality of belts connects the input pulley to the first intermediate pulley and a second one of the plurality of belts connects the second intermediate pulley to the output pulley;
- an input shaft drivingly connected to the infeed drive input;
- and
- an output shaft having a first end connected to the infeed drive output and a second end drivingly connected to the knife drive.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.