Beater for a combine harvester
AssigneeAGCO Corporation
InventorsDouglas A. Voss, Robert Honas
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The rotary beater has a number of untwisted, flat, feeding plate segments angularly disposed about its periphery. The plates are arranged in a left-hand group and a right-hand group so oriented that they converge the crop material centrally as they feed and accelerate the crop material rearwardly toward and through the inlet of an axial flow threshing rotor assembly. The feeding segments of each group are arranged in diametrically opposed sets containing at least one segment each, and the sets of one group are offset circumferentially 90° from the sets of the other group. Each segment has a hardened crop-engaging face, and the segments are all detachably bolted to the drum of the beater to facilitate removal and replacement when worn or damaged.
Claims34
A rotatable crop-converging beater for combines comprising:
- a cylindrical body rotatable about its longitudinal axis and having a pair of axially aligned halves;
- a first group of left-hand, inwardly angled feed segments secured to said body within one of said halves;
- and
- a second group of right-hand, inwardly angled feed segments angled generally oppositely to the left-hand segments and secured to said body within the other of said halves,
- said one half of the body being devoid of right-hand segments and said other half of the body being devoid of left-hand segments,
- each of said groups including a set of segments containing at least one segment,
- the segments of both groups being provided with inwardly angled feeding faces directed generally toward the middle of the body such that each feeding face has an outboard leading end and an inboard trailing end with respect to the direction of rotation of the beater.
In an axial flow combine having a threshing chamber provided with an inlet adjacent a forward end thereof, a conveyor assembly spaced forwardly from said inlet for delivering crop materials toward the threshing chamber and having a discharge end that is laterally aligned with but wider than said inlet, and a transfer region between the discharge end of the conveyor assembly and the inlet, an improved crop-converging rotary beater supported within said transfer region for rotation about an axis transverse to the path of travel of crop materials from the conveyor assembly to the inlet, said beater comprising:
- a cylindrical body rotatable about its longitudinal axis and having a pair of axially aligned halves;
- a first group of left-hand, inwardly angled feed segments secured to said body within one of said halves;
- and
- a second group of right-hand, inwardly angled feed segments angled generally oppositely to the left-hand segments and secured to said body within the other of said halves,
- said one half of the body being devoid of right-hand segments and said other half of the body being devoid of left-hand segments,
- each of said groups including a set of segments containing at least one segment,
- the segments of both groups being provided with inwardly angled feeding faces directed generally toward the middle of the body such that each feeding face has an outboard leading end and an inboard trailing end with respect to the direction of rotation of the beater.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.