American Trencher, Inc.

Other

Deere + Company

Bradley J Schnittjer

Michael J O'Neill

An apparatus for separating materials into different sized particles, especially difficult materials that may contain wet or sticky particles or lightweight foreign material. The material is separated by feeding it into a dish-shaped unit open at the top with screen material along its sides and bottom. The unit is rotated about an inclined axis so that the open top faces upwardly and toward the front. The material to be separated is placed into the unit, and the unit is rotated so that the material rolls on itself across the bottom and up the sides with the smaller particles moving downwardly where they pass through the screened sides and bottom as the unit rotates over a conveyor. The larger particles exit through the open top of the unit. The apparatus also includes a unique way of providing for the screen medium.

Apparatus for separating material

A compost windrow turner that uses an elevating conveyor to pick up, mix and aerate the composted material and then redeposit the material. The machine is moved by attachment to the loader bucket of a tractor which then moves and controls the operation of the machine. The machine is firmly held in place by a clamping mechanism that is hydraulically powered. The tractor can also be used to transport the machine or load it onto a transport carrier. The machine also has an attachment for separating plastic trash bags from their contents as they pass through the machine.

Compost windrow turner

An apparatus for turning, mixing and aerating windrows of compost to convert the waste material comprising the compost into a useable material, such as soil amendment. The apparatus includes multiple elevating conveyors that first elevate that material to mix and aerate it and then deposit the material onto secondary conveyors that move the material transversely to the windrow before it is re-deposited. In a preferred version, there are three elevating conveyors, two outside and one center conveyor with the outside conveyors depositing the material onto transverse conveyors that move the material inwardly where it is re-deposited on the ground while the center elevating conveyor deposits the material picked up from the center of the windrow on top of the material picked up by the elevating conveyors on the sides. In this manner, the material is not only mixed and aerated but completely inverted.

A tractor has a main frame with a fore and aft body portion and a transverse rear axle housing, and includes a pair of hydraulic outlets. A transverse upright U-shaped member depends from the body portion of the tractor and has a central fore and aft socket, and a pair of rearwardly open V-shaped latch elements are connected to the tractor axle housing. A separate backhoe has a forwardly extending frame portion having a probe at its forward end that is insertible into the socket and has a pair of transverse pins extending outwardly from opposite sides of the frame for engagement with the V-shaped latch elements. The backhoe is mounted on the tractor by backing the tractor toward the backhoe with the tractor wheels straddling the fore and aft backhoe frame portion. Backhoe control valves are then connected to the tractor hydraulic outlets, so that the backhoe frame can be adjusted to a height and attitude wherein the probe is aligned with the socket on the tractor and the pins are aligned with the latch element on the axle housing. The tractor is then backed until the probe enters the socket and the pins engage the latch elements, and the pins are then locked into the latches.

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Delhi, IA, United States of America

Bradley J Schnittjer