Deere + Company

Bobby G Sawyer

Wilbur M Davis

John A Nichols

James L Vogt

John F Husman

Steven L Hoskins

Disclosed is a hay conditioner of basically typical construction in which the improvement lies in adjustable stop means for use in setting and varying the clearance between the upper and lower conditioning rolls. There is provided at each side of the machine a means including a lever arm disposed below a support for the upper roll and pivoted at one end on the adjacent side of the machine frame, the other end being connected to a screw-threaded adjustment link effective to elevate the lever for engagement with the upper roll support and thus to selectively limit downward movement of the upper roll under action of the usual biasing means. Thus, the upper roll is free to move upwardly in response to crops passing between the rolls, but its downward movement is limited to the stopped position selected by the adjustment link. The link extends upwardly to a free end that is easily accessible to receive a force-applying tool.

Method and means for adjusting hay conditioner rolls

A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse disk type cutter bar. An impeller rotor with free swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter bar. A transversely extending concave conditioning plate conforms closely to the forward upper quadrant of the rotor. A hood covers the rotor and conditioning plate and includes a forward portion which serves in part as safety shielding and a rearwardly extending crop deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter bar and carry it inside the hood up and over the rotor through the confined space or conditioning zone between the rotor flails and the conditioning plate and discharge it rearwardly. In its passage through the conditioning zone, the crop material is bruised or conditioned in such a way that its rate of drying in the window is accelerated. The conditioning plate is mounted so that radial clearance between it and the rotor flails can be adjusted to vary the degree of conditioning. Circumferential adjustment of the plate in relation to the rotor is also possible and particularly useful in setting the height above the ground of the leading or lower edge of the conditioning plate to suit the height of the crop being cut and conditioned.

Adjustable conditioning plate for an impeller mower-conditioner

A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse cutter bar comprising a series of pairs of side-by-side contra-rotating cutting disks. An impeller rotor with free swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter bar. A hood over the rotor includes a confining forward conditioning plate conforming fairly closely to the rotor periphery to form a conditioning zone and a rearwardly extending deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter bar and carry it, inside the hood, up and over the rotor through the conditioning zone to be discharged rearwardly into a windrow. The flow of cut material from each pair of disks tends to be concentrated into a rearwardly directed stream by the bite or convergence of the contra-rotating disks. The distribution of flails on the rotor is locally concentrated so that a center of flail concentration is longitudinally aligned with each concentration of material flow so that all material received by the rotor gets approximately uniform treatment.

Impeller mower-conditioner rotor

An agricultural harvesting machine, such as a mower-conditioner or the like, includes a pair of meshing crop conditioner rolls between which harvested crop material is passed to accelerate the drying of the crop in the field. The rolls are of identical construction, each roll being made of a tubular metal core with a molded body of elastomeric material molded onto the core. Each roll has a plurality of generally radially extending lugs that are disclosed in axially extending rows, with the lugs on one roll meshing with and extending into the space between the lugs on the opposite roll, each lug having an arcuate outer surface coaxial with the roll axis so that the outer surfaces of the lugs conjunctively form an interrupted and generally cylindrical outer roll periphery. The outer surface of each lug is in the shape of a parallelogram having two opposite sides parallel to the roll axis and the other opposite sides canted relative to the roll axis. A recess is provided in the outer surfaces of each lug, the recess having a depth less than the height of the lug so that the bottom of the recess is outwardly of the space between the lugs, each recess being elongated and having opposite sides parallel and adjacent to the canted opposite sides of the lug.

Growing community of inventors

Ottumwa, IA, United States of America

Bobby G Sawyer