Hesston Corporation

Bobby D McWhirt

Melvin V Gaeddert

Bruce Lynn White

Raymond F Schmitt

The baler has a set of belts which bear against the surface of a cylindrical bale during formation thereof to compact the bale and to drive it rotatably about its longitudinal axis. Such belts are guided by shafts spanning the chamber of the baler, certain of which may be provided with annular expelling collars that rotate with the shaft and function to reject and expel stray crop material from the immediate vicinity of the shaft in order to prevent its accumulation and buildup. In the particular embodiment illustrated, the collars are attached to opposite ends of a shaft carried by the belt tensioning assembly whose shafts bear directly upon the top periphery of the bale during its formation and thus have a greater tendency than others to accumulate materials straying from the baling chamber. Preferably, the collars are used in connection with the shaft that rotates generally down and away from the area of normal accumulation such that the collars function to expel the stray material in the same downward and outward direction.

Stray crop buildup expeller for rotary balers

As the twine dispensing tube swingably approaches its home or standby position, the tube strikes one leg of an L-shaped, pivoting lever of the cutter to swing the opposite leg thereof up into edgewise engagement with the underside of the twine such that the latter is stretched between the raised leg and the end of the tube. A depending, swingable knife of the cutter which has been momentarily pushed by the tube out of its path of travel returns with its sharp edge engaging the twine stretch and depresses the latter out of a straight-line relationship between the tube and the raised leg of the lever such that, as the tension and stress in the moving twine stretch increase due to its deflected, serpentine condition around said knife edge and the lever and the opposite pulling forces exerted by the tube and the bale, the twine severs itself against the sharp edge of the knife.

Twine actuated cutter in a rotary crop baler

Forming belts and an overhead device within the chamber of the baler apply a compacting force to the bale during its formation, the belts also serving to drive the bale in a rolling motion so as to coil up new hay material continuously being presented to the chamber. The position of opposed, oppositely moving stretches of the belts essentially determines the variable horizontal dimensions of the chamber, while the position of the overhead device, which draws together and retains the belt stretches, essentially governs the vertical dimension of the chamber. Both the belt-retaining device and a slack-takeup roller for the belts are carried by a common support that progressively swings further and further from the bottom of the chamber under resistance during bale growth to pay out additional belt length and to continue compaction of the bale. The support has a special lever at its outer end which carries the retaining device on one side of the fulcrum point of the lever and the takeup roller on the opposite side of the fulcrum point such that, if necessary during the forming cycle, the lever can rock to the extent necessary about its fulcrum point under a light-spring resistance to accommodate the entry of sudden slugs into the baling chamber without the paying out of undesired amounts of slacks to the belts. Bale density may be adjusted via an arrangement which permits adjusting the effective length of a force-transmitting crank located between the springs that provide tension for the belts and the slack takeup for the belts themselves.

Bale tensioning apparatus in a rotary baler

The machine employs a vertically oriented bale-starting chamber and a crop pickup located immediately below such chamber so that materials lifted from the ground by the pickup as the machine advances are fed directly up into the starting chamber to be acted upon by front and rear sets of oppositely moving, vertically disposed belts. A throat area at the bottom of the starting chamber and above the pickup is devoid of compression rollers and other like structure that would squeeze and compress the upwardly fed materials into a mat so that unencumbered free flow of materials up into the starting chamber is assured. A special bale-positioning roll adjacent the bottom of the chamber keeps the bale from riding against belts wrapped around a forward roll so that materials are not wedged in a pinch point where the belts contact the forward roller, and special projections on the forward roller clean out the area just above the latter so as to avoid the accumulation of trash material therein. Specially mounted bearings on the exterior of the sidewalls of the machine prevent wrapping of crop material at the ends of the rolls and premature bearing failure.

Machine for coiling fibrous crop materials into large round bales

The bale is formed by rolling it between an arcuate retaining grid at the front of the bale and an upwardly moving, flexible belt at the rear of the bale while continuously adding additional crop material to the forming chamber. The grid and the belts yield away from one another under substantial resistance during growth of the bale in order to compact the latter to the desired density. Because the grid and the belts share a common spring tensioning mechanism, compacting force is applied uniformly around the bale by those members throughout the forming process, thereby rendering the bale more truly circular in cross-sectional configuration and of more nearly uniform density throughout.

Machine for forming high density round bales

A machine for producing large round bales passes over loose hay on the ground, picks up the hay adjacent the rear of the machine and coils the hay within a forming chamber as the bale is rolled along the ground to progressively grow in size until reaching its final dimensions, whereupon the bale is tied and the endgate of the machine raised to discharge the finished bale. Pickup mechanism at the rear of the machine includes tined lifters mounted on a continuously moving, upright, endless web in such a manner that the lifters lie flatly against the web until moving around their lower limits of travel, whereupon they are projected outwardly and downwardly to sweep loose hay forwardly from the ground and into the forming chamber. The height of the pickup mechanism relative to the ground surface may be varied by hydraulically raising the housing of the machine relative to its ground wheels, and elevation of the housing beyond a predetermined amount automatically releases the endgate latch and swings the endgate to its raised position for bale discharge. The expandable forming chamber within the housing can expand fore-and-aft, as well as vertically, by virtue of the fact that the front half of the arcuate top of the chamber is suspended by upright, swingable hangers from adjacent the top of the housing.

Machine for forming round bales

A machine for producing large round bales passes over loose hay on the ground, picks up the hay adjacent the rear of the machine and coils the hay within a forming chamber as the bale is rolled along the ground to progressively grow in size until reaching its final dimensions, whereupon the bale is tied and the endgate of the machine is raised to discharge the finished bale. The bale forming chamber of the machine is defined by a pair of upwardly concave, front and rear forming grates that swing upwardly in opposite directions under resistance as the bale grows in size so as to apply yieldable compacting pressure to the growing bale, the front forming grate being suspended by swingable hangers that also allow it to be displaced forwardly at the same time that it swings upwardly against the action of the growing bale. Another smaller rear forming grate, also upwardly concave, is located within the forming chamber below the other rear forming grate and serves to contain, compact and initiate rolling of the hay mass that accumulates below the smaller grate at the beginning of the formation process, such lower grate being particularly beneficial in conditions of light or short crop materials. The two rear grates are provided with a spring-loaded connection therebetween so that the lower, smaller grate can swing independently of the larger rear grate during initial stages of the bale formation, and yet both rear grates can be raised to their fullest extents in unison when the endgate of the housing is raised, thereby permitting the rear grates to be moved together into positions relieving pressure on the finished bale as it is discharged from the rear of the machine.

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Hesston, KS, United States of America

Bobby D McWhirt