Back to results
US 9,084,394 B2Granted
Continuous crop accumulator for agricultural harvesters
AssigneeCNH Industrial Canada, Ltd.
InventorMartin J. Roberge
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A conveyor system that may be used with an agricultural harvester, such as a round baler, waste baler, combine, sugarcane harvester or cotton harvester. More particularly, the conveyor system utilizes at least a first and a second conveyor belt of which at least one of the conveyor belts is independently movable in the forward and backward directions. The speed and direction of the conveyor belts can be controlled to perform continuous baling of harvested crop in the agricultural baler.
Claims17
A crop collection device comprising
- at least a first conveyor,
- a second conveyor,
- a crop inlet positioned at a front end of the crop collection device, and a crop outlet positioned at a rear end of the crop collection device;
- wherein the first and second conveyors each comprise at least one conveyor belt rotatably mounted on a set of rolls;
- and
- a controller operably connected to a drive arrangement comprising at least one drive roll positioned for driving the at least one conveyer belts of the first and second conveyer, wherein the controller through the drive arrangement is configured to move at least one of the at least one conveyer belt of the first conveyer and the at least one conveyer belt of the second conveyer for movement of the contacting crop in a fore and aft direction independent of a direction of movement the drive system is driving the movement of the at least one conveyer belt of the other conveyer in a first direction conveying contacting crop rearward toward the outlet and a second direction away from the outlet accumulating contacting crop direction.
3 more elements
An agricultural harvester comprising:
- a bale chamber comprising a first sidewall and a second sidewall;
- an inlet at the front of the bale chamber
- an outlet at the rear of the bale chamber;
- and
- a crop collection device adapted for alignment with the inlet of the bale chamber;
- wherein the crop collection device comprises at least a first conveyor comprising at least one first conveyer belt mounted on a first set of rolls, a second conveyor comprising at least one second conveyer belt mounted on a second set of rolls, a crop inlet positioned at a front end of the crop collection device, and a crop outlet positioned at a rear end of the crop collection device;
- and
- a drive arrangement comprising at least one drive roll, wherein the at least one drive roll forms part of at least of the first set of rolls and the second set of rolls;
- a controller operably connected to the at least one drive roll, wherein at least one of the first conveyer belt and the at least one second conveyer belt is independently movable of the other at least one conveyer belt by the drive roll to convey contacting crop in a forward and aft direction, wherein the controller is configured to control the drive roll to move the at least one independently movable belt in a first direction to convey contacting crop toward the outlet for a crop conveying configuration and in a second direction for a crop accumulating configuration.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.