US 4,397,319 AGranted

Cleaning device for harvesting machines

AssigneeDeere & Company

InventorErnst Schuhmacher

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Abstract

In a cleaning device for threshed crop material, the material is introduced into the upstream end of a drum by a coaxial auger feeder. An air flow whirling around the inner wall of the drum is created by a tangentially connected blower. Heavier fractions of the crop material (grain) tend to be flung against the drum wall and leave through grates into a closed conveyor system, creating dynamic air pressure in the drum. Chaff and straw tend to be held in vortex towards the central core of the drum and are discharged axially through the downstream end of the drum. Various alternative embodiments with multiple blowers, multiple air inlets into the drum, recirculation of the cleaning air, finger rakes in various dispositions inside the drum, crop material fed through the blower delivery duct and adjustable baffles for controlling air flow entering the drum are described.

Claims23

Dependent claims

In a harvesting machine, a crop material cleaning device for processing threshed material comprising:

a fixed cleaning drum having an upstream threshed material inlet and a downstream outlet and a generally cylindrical wall including an air inlet including an air inlet portion adjacent and generally downstream of the threshed material inlet and a sieve-like outlet;
a feeder conveyor in a crop material delivery relationship with the upstream inlet for feeding threshed material into the drum;
a blower assembly connected to the air inlet for delivering a flow of air into the drum in a direction substantially tangential to the wall of the drum adjacent the air inlet for engaging the threshed material and propelling it circumferentially within the drum;
and
means urging the crop material downstream so that the harvested crops are separated from impurities and discharged through the sieve-like outlet and the impurities are discharged through the downstream outlet.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.