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US 5,395,058 AGranted
Conditioning fertilizer hopper
AssigneeDoyle Equipment Manufacturing Company
InventorMonty M. Doyle
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An agricultural hopper has conditioning structure therein including a mechanical agitator movably mounted within the hopper, and adapted for permitting flow-through of material which is of sufficiently small size to completely bypass the mechanical agitator and thereby greatly facilitate the rate of material flow-through.
Claims10
A hopper which conditions soft agricultural material placed therein prior to transfer of the material to a mixer, the hopper comprising,
- a bin into which material to be conditioned is placed, the bin having downwardly sloping walls having lower edges and upper edges and extending continuously between the corresponding lower and upper edges, the walls terminating at the lower edges thereof slightly apart so as to define an opening for material exit at the bottom of the bin,
- means for supporting the bin spacedly above a support surface therefor,
- means for churning material to be conditioned which is placed in the bin, the means for churning being movably mounted within the bin spacedly above the opening for material exit, and
- conditioning means mounted within the bin spacedly in relation to the churning means so as to cause conditioning of at least some of the material placed into the bin before the at least some of the material placed into the bin can contact the churning means, and permitting material placed into the bin which is of sufficiently small size to bypass the churning means,
- whereby the material placed into the hopper is conditioned prior to transfer to a mixer where it is mixed with other materials to enhance homogeneity of the resulting mixture.
2 more elements
For use in combination with an agricultural hopper, a fertilizer conditioner comprising,
- churning means and a plurality of screens each having an upper edge and a lower edge and being configured so that the periphery of each screen defines an area substantially corresponding in shape to a corresponding wall of the hopper and to which each of the screens is mounted in inwardly spaced, angled relationship thereto, the screens being mounted by being connected at the upper edges thereof to upper edges of the hopper walls, the lower edges of the screens being disposed spacedly upward from the bottom ends of the side walls and spacedly outwardly in relation to the churning means, to thereby permit fine particles of material placed into the hopper to filter through the screens and to fall onto the inner surface of the sloped walls therebeneath prior to exiting via gravity, outwardly through the opening in the bottom of the hopper, bypassing the churning means in the hopper and thus reducing the volume of material which must be churned thereby.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.