Flexible draper belt drive for an agricultural harvesting machine
AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorsChad A. Dow, William P. Conrad, Jeffrey A. Nelson, Benjamin M. Lovett, Amy C. Berg, Eric D. Taflinger
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An agricultural harvesting machine including a flexible cutterbar and associated draper belts for carrying cut agricultural material to a center location. The belts are guided by a drive rollers and idler rollers. The idler roller for each belt is pivotable about an axis generally at 90 degrees to the axis of the belt and the drive roller for each belt is translatable axially to minimize diagonal stresses caused by flexing of the elongated endless belt.
Claims14
A cutting platform for use with an agricultural harvesting machine comprising:
- at least one platform section including a frame, a plurality of float arms pivotally coupled with said frame,
- an endless belt carried by said plurality of float arms,
- a cutterbar assembly carried by said plurality of float arms,
- said endless belt and said cutterbar assembly being movable in a localized manner across said cutting platform in upwards and downwards direction, and
- an idler roller and a drive roller over which said endless belt extends, said idler roller and drive roller being carried by a float arm and, wherein one of said idler and drive roller is translatable along its axis to alleviate diagonal stresses on said endless belt wherein said drive roller translates axially relative to said float arm through a pivoting link connection.
An agricultural harvesting machine, comprising:
- a feeder housing,
- a cutting platform attached to said feeder housing, said cutting platform including at least one platform section having a frame,
- a plurality of float arms pivotally coupled with said frame,
- an endless belt carried by said plurality of float arms, and
- a cutterbar assembly carried by said plurality of float arms and movable in a localized manner across said cutting platform in upwards and downwards directions,
- an idler and driver rollers over which said belt is positioned, one of said idler and drive roller being movable in an axial direction to alleviate diagonal stresses on said belt, wherein said drive roller translates in an axial direction and wherein said drive roller is connected to said float arm with a pivoting link.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.