Shield for preventing the accumulation of crop particles on drive component housings of a self-propelled forage harvester
AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorHenrik Nieschulze
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A self-propelled forage harvester is equipped with a crop gathering device which transports crop material from the ground to feed rolls that position the crop for being chopped into small pieces by a chopper drum. To prevent pieces of crop material from accumulating on top of the housing structure for the feed rolls and the chopper drum, a flexible shield is mounted between the bottom of the operator's cab and the top of the crop gathering device. Various different access elements of the shield may be quickly opened to provide access to the feed rolls, chopper drum and other functioning elements provided for processing the crop.
Claims10
In combination with a self-propelled harvester including a main frame supported on front and rear pairs of wheels and having a cab located on the frame in an elevated location between the front pair of wheels, a crop gathering device mounted at the front of said frame for delivering crop material to a crop processing arrangement including functional elements mounted to said frame below said cab, a shield for preventing airborne crop particles thrown up by said crop gathering device from landing on and accumulating on housing surfaces covering said crop processing elements, comprising:
- said shield extending transversely across a zone extending between said cab and an upper rear location of said crop gathering device;
- and said shield being provided with at least one access element, movable between open and closed positions, at such a location that, when said access element is in its open position, it is possible to gain access to said functional elements without having to remove said shield.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.