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AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorsJoel M. Schreiner, Kevin J. Goering
Estimating the term…
A cotton harvester row unit includes belt drive and a variable transmission to reduce noise and optimize spindle and doffer speeds of rotation while permitting spindle drum structure rotational speed to change with changes in harvester speed. In one embodiment, a variable speed motor drives the ring gear of a planetary gear set to vary the ratio of spindle and doffer speed to drum speed. The planetary gear set may be enclosed to also help reduce noise and to decrease grease consumption. Nearly constant spindle and doffer speeds may be maintained over a wide range drum rotational speeds, and the upper speeds may be limited to avoid operation above critical speeds of components. The transmission may be configured to reduce or completely eliminates gear meshing off of the drum centerline to thereby reduce row unit manufacture precision, and a relatively low power motor may be used to adjust the ratio of spindle and doffer speed to drum speed.
A cotton harvester row unit drive for a row unit having spindle drum structure with rotatable spindles and rotatable doffing structure supported in a row unit housing for movement at a variable forward speed over a field of cotton, the drive comprising:
A cotton harvester row unit drive for a row unit having spindle drum structure with rotatable spindles and rotatable doffing structure supported in a row unit housing for movement at a variable forward speed over a field of cotton, the spindle drums including first and second spindle drums with drum rotational axes offset in a fore-and-aft direction from each other on one side only of a row receiving area, the spindle drums including spindles rotatable about generally horizontal axes, the doffing structure including first and second doffers adjacent the first and second spindle drums for rotation about upright doffer axes, the row unit drive comprising:
A method of operating cotton harvester row unit drive for a row unit having spindle drum structure with rotatable spindles and rotatable doffing structure supported in a row unit housing for movement at a variable forward speed over a field of cotton, the method of operating comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.