US 6,279,304 B1Granted

Crop pick-up having crop lifters incorporated in centering auger

AssigneeDeere & Company

InventorsHenry Dennis Anstey, Manfred Engel

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Abstract

A large round baler includes a crop pick-up assembly which is wider than the baling chamber and equipped with right- and left-hand stub augers for centering the crop for delivery through the inlet of the baling chamber. In order to prevent the augers from compressing crop against crop feeding tines located between the inner ends of the stub augers, crop lifters are mounted to inner end portions of each of the stub augers. The stub augers are each double flight augers with the flights being offset 180° from each other. The crop lifters each include first and second lifter plates respectively associated with the first and second flights, the lifter plates each having a first end fixed to the auger core and being curved outwardly from the core to the outer periphery of the associated flight.

Claims15

Dependent claims

In a large round baler including a bale-forming chamber having opposite side walls supporting bale-forming elements defining a crop inlet at a lower front location of the chamber, a crop pick-up located forwardly of said baling chamber for conveying crop rearwardly toward said inlet and having a working width greater than a distance between said side walls, and right- and left-hand stub augers located behind said pickup with each having flighting fixed to a central core and being pitched for conveying crop inwardly to a width commensurate with that of said baling chamber, the improvement comprising:

a crop lifter assembly associated with axial inner end portions of said flighting of each of said right- and left-hand augers;
and each crop lifter assembly including at least one lifter plate including a first end extending axially inwardly from a base location of a leading face of said flighting and being fixed to said core, with said lifter plate being curved radially outwardly from said core and terminating at an axial inner end of the associated auger.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.