Agricultural vehicle with dual purpose conveyor
AssigneeCNH Industrial America LLC
InventorsJonathan E. Ricketts, Robert A. Matousek
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An agricultural vehicle includes: a chassis; at least one cleaning sieve carried by the chassis; a grain tank carried by the chassis; an unloader carried by the chassis and configured to unload crop material; and a crop material conveyor carried by the chassis and including a housing having a sieve inlet under the at least one cleaning sieve, a tank outlet coupled to the grain tank, an unloader outlet coupled to the unloader, and an endless conveyor within the housing, the crop material conveyor being configured to switch between a tank feed mode where crop material is conveyed by the endless conveyor out the tank outlet and an unload mode where crop material is conveyed by the endless conveyor out the unloader outlet.
Claims20
An agricultural vehicle, comprising:
- a chassis;
- at least one cleaning sieve carried by said chassis;
- a grain tank carried by said chassis;
- an unloader carried by said chassis and configured to unload crop material;
- and
- a crop material conveyor carried by said chassis and including a housing having a sieve inlet under said at least one cleaning sieve, a tank outlet coupled to said grain tank, an unloader outlet coupled to said unloader, and an endless conveyor within said housing, said crop material conveyor being configured to switch between a tank feed mode where crop material is conveyed by said endless conveyor out said tank outlet and an unload mode where crop material is conveyed by said endless conveyor out said unloader outlet.
A method of operating an agricultural vehicle including a chassis, at least one cleaning sieve carried by said chassis, a grain tank carried by said chassis, an unloader carried by said chassis, and a crop material conveyor configured to supply crop material to both said grain tank and said unloader with a single endless conveyor, said method comprising:
- supplying crop material from said at least one cleaning sieve to a sieve inlet of said crop material conveyor;
- conveying crop material out of a tank outlet to said grain tank with said endless conveyor when said crop material conveyor is in a tank feed mode;
- and
- switching said crop material conveyor from said tank feed mode to an unload mode so that said endless conveyor conveys crop material out of an unloader outlet to said unloader.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.