US 4,182,099 A · Impeller mower-conditioner rotor

Abstract

A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse cutter bar comprising a series of pairs of side-by-side contra-rotating cutting disks. An impeller rotor with free swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter bar. A hood over the rotor includes a confining forward conditioning plate conforming fairly closely to the rotor periphery to form a conditioning zone and a rearwardly extending deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter bar and carry it, inside the hood, up and over the rotor through the conditioning zone to be discharged rearwardly into a windrow. The flow of cut material from each pair of disks tends to be concentrated into a rearwardly directed stream by the bite or convergence of the contra-rotating disks. The distribution of flails on the rotor is locally concentrated so that a center of flail concentration is longitudinally aligned with each concentration of material flow so that all material received by the rotor gets approximately uniform treatment.

Claims7

Dependent claims

In a mobile impeller type mower-conditioner for cutting standing crop material, conditioning it and depositing it in a windrow, said mower-conditioner having a transversely extending cutting means having opposite ends and tending to concentrate cut material in a generally rearwardly directed stream, and a frame, an improved impeller rotor disposed to receive crop material from the cutting means comprising:

an elongated core rotatably mounted in the mower-conditioner frame and having a transversely disposed axis of rotation generally parallel to the cutting means;
and
an uninterrupted array of generally radially extending conditioning elements carried by the core, spaced axially and circumferentially and extending substantially from end to end of the cutting means for engaging the crop material delivered by the cutting means, the spacing between said conditioning elements being reduced on a portion of the core approximately aligned with the rearwardly directed stream of crop material so as to define a zone of high conditioning element concentration and adjacent zones of lower conditioning element concentration.

An impeller mower-conditioner for advancing over a field to cut, condition and windrow crop material comprising:

a frame having opposite sides;
a plurality of pairs of contra-rotating cutting elements for cutting the crop material and delivering it rearwardly as the mower-conditioner advances, said elements being carried in transverse array by the frame, said array having opposite ends and each pair of elements having a forwardly directed bite and said bites being transversely spaced;
an impeller transversely and rotatably mounted in the frame and disposed to intercept crop material delivered rearwardly by the cutting elements and including an uninterrupted array of conditioning elements spaced along and around the impeller and extending substantially from end to end of the cutting means, the number of elements per unit length of impeller being varied so as to define a plurality of axially contiguous zones of alternately greater and lesser concentration of conditioning elements, the spacing of said zones of greater concentration matching the transverse spacing of the bite of said pairs of rotary cutting elements;
a hood carried by the frame extending between the opposite sides and including a forward portion partially wrapping the impeller in a material controlling relationship and a rearward extending deflector portion;
drive means for rotating the cutting elements;
and
drive means for rotating the impeller so that crop material intercepted by the impeller is carried over the top of the impeller inside the hood and discharged rearwardly into the deflector portion of said hood.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Impeller mower-conditioner rotor

Life of this patent

Impeller mower-conditioner rotor

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims7