Position controlled gauge wheels on a harvesting machine header that move with a feeder house move command
AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorsAlex Brimeyer, Benjamin M. Lovett, Bryan R. Yanke, Duane M. Bomleny, David Barto, Daniel R. Marunde
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A header has a position controlled gauge wheel that is controlled using a position actuator. The position actuator is locked when the gauge wheel is in a selected position, relative to a mainframe of the header. An operator input, changing the position of the header, is detected and the position actuator is unlocked to accommodate movement of the header, based on the detected operator input signal.
Claims20
A control system for an agricultural harvester having a header connected to a feeder house, the control system comprising:
- a position input detector detecting that a positioner arm that drives position of a ground engaging element relative to the header, and that is movable relative to the header by actuating a position actuator, is in a first position;
- a feeder house move command detector that detects a feeder house down command commanding the feeder house to move downwardly relative to a frame of the agricultural harvester, and generates a feeder house down detected signal;
- and
- a position controller that generates a first control signal to control the position actuator to increase resistance to movement of the positioner arm in a first direction relative to the header and that generates a second control signal, in response to the feeder house down detected signal, that decreases the resistance to movement of the positioner arm in the first direction relative to the header.
An agricultural harvester, comprising:
- a crop processing mechanism;
- a header that severs crop and has a header mainframe;
- a feeder house that feeds the severed crop from the header to the crop processing mechanism;
- a ground engaging element movably coupled to the header;
- a position actuator that is actuated to change the position of the ground engaging element relative to the header mainframe;
- a position input detector detecting that the ground engaging element is in a first position;
- a feeder house move command detector that detects a feeder house down command commanding the feeder house to move downwardly relative to a frame of the agricultural harvester, and generates a feeder house down detected signal;
- and
- a position controller that generates a first control signal to control the position actuator to inhibit upward movement of the ground engaging element relative to the header and that generates a second control signal, in response to the feeder house down detected signal, to control the position actuator to reduce resistance to upward movement of the ground engaging element relative to the header.
A method of controlling an agricultural harvester having a header connected to a feeder house, the method comprising:
- detecting that a gauge wheel on the header, that is movable relative to the header by actuating a gauge wheel position cylinder, is in a first position;
- locking the gauge wheel position cylinder, inhibiting retraction of the gauge wheel position cylinder;
- detecting a feeder house down command commanding the feeder house to move downwardly relative to a frame of the agricultural harvester;
- generating a feeder house down detected signal;
- and
- generating a control signal to control the cylinder locking logic to unlock the gauge wheel position cylinder based on the feeder house down detected signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.