Drive arrangement for ensilage harvester discharge spout
AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorsMarcus Hettiger, Peter Lipiceanu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A drive arrangement for selectively repositioning a discharge spout of an agricultural harvesting machine by rotating it about a substantially vertical axis includes a drive motor coupled to a driveline incorporating a slip clutch operable for interrupting power flow to the spout in response to the driving torque exceeding a predetermined threshold value so as to prevent damage to the spout and/or drive motor when the spout impacts or is driven against an obstacle. The overload clutch is constructed so as to resist spout movement after the clutch has interrupted the flow of power through the driveline and to automatically reestablish power flow once the cause for the overload no longer exists.
Claims4
In a combination including a discharge spout of a harvesting machine mounted for rotation about a substantially vertical axis, and a drive arrangement including a drive motor connected to said discharge spout over a driveline for selectively effecting said rotation, with said drive line including a drive gear carried by said drive motor, a driven gear fixed to said discharge spout and an overload clutch that interrupts said drive line in response to a torque exceeding a threshold value being transmitted to said discharge spout, the improvement comprising:
- said driveline including a first pear fixed to a first shaft and meshed with said drive gear;
- a second gear fixed to a second shaft and meshed with said driven gear;
- and said overload clutch including structure connected between said first and second shafts for automatically reestablishing the drive connection through said driveline when the torque is reduced below said threshold value.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.