Blackwelders

Other

University of California

Darryl G Bettencourt

Thomas S Bettencourt

Charles F Dietz

George E Marshall, Jr

Lewis W Schmidt

Daniel L Freeman

Akos I Szoboszlay

A single-row tomato harvester. A tractor fully supported on its own wheels, has its wheels being spaced apart sufficiently to bridge a previously harvested bed and ride in its furrows. The tractor has its own hydraulic pump, a power take-off unit along the tractor's longitudinal centerline, and a rigid draw bar at its rear. A harvester assembly having no motive power is partially supported on wheels spaced apart widthwise at substantially the same distance as those of the tractor and has a series of hydraulically powered means. The harvester is offset by one bed from the tractor during harvesting. A tongue pivotally attached at one end to the harvester and the other end to said tractor, supports a hydraulic pump for operating the harvester's series of powered means. A longitudinally rigid drive line, swivel mounted to said pump's rotary shaft and to the tractor's power take-off unit, has telescoping means for automatically lengthening and shortening it. The drive line lies along the centerline of the tractor during the offset harvesting. A hydraulically powered generally horizontal cylinder-piston apparatus is pivotally attached at one end to said tongue and at the other end to the harvester for shifting the relative lateral position of the harvester assembly to the tractor.

Tomato harvester

A tomato harvester having a standard tractor pulling a non-self powered harvester assembly partially supported on wheels and partially supported by the tractor. The harvester assembly has a main frame made up of two parallel longitudinal beams joined together by three transverse cross members, all lying approximately on the same horizontal plane. Brackets secured to the beams and extending down below them support a pair of two-wheel truck assemblies, the wheels lying below the frame. The frame carries a pivotally attached pickup unit, with a cutter, a separator unit for separating the tomatoes from the plants, and a conveyor system for transporting the collected tomatoes and delivering them to bin-trailers. A tongue comprises the sole structural member tying together the harvester assembly and the tractor, and carries hydraulic conduits leading from said tractor power-take-off unit to operate the powered devices of the harvester assembly, including apparatus for automatically keeping the cutter at a constant depth below ground. The harvester carries a hydraulic fluid storage tank and a hydraulic fluid cooling device.

A tomato harvester of the type having a main frame and acting to sever the tomato plants below ground and to pick up and elevate them to a tomato separator for separating the tomatoes from the vines. A low elevator segment is separated from an upper elevator segment to provide a gap between them through which dirt clods and some loose tomatoes can fall. The length of the gap is adjustable by moving the upper segment relative to the lower one. The separator includes a walking bar type of shaker with vine retarding tines above the walking bars, and the tines are rotatable and ganged for movement up and down, to adjust dwell time in the separator. The crankshaft for the walking bars has crank pins alternating at 180.degree. and has at each end a pair of timing journals extending at 90.degree. to the crank pins to which the walking bars are secured. The outside journals are located 180.degree. out of phase with the two journals mounted inwardly thereof, to provide two force couples in balance. Balance is completed by a counterweight secured to the crankshaft at each end to provide a force couple equal to and opposite from the force couple resulting from the crank pins.

Tomato harvester with improved separation of tomatoes from other picked

Method and apparatus for keeping a machine member of an agricultural machine at a substantially constant height above a field during its movement through the field. A wheel-supported main frame supports, for vertical movement, an auxiliary frame carrying the machine member and also carrying an ultrasonic transducer spaced at a constant distance away from the machine member. The machine member is set at an initial position relative to the surface of said field. Thereafter the position of said machine member relative to said main frame is determined, and an electrical signal corresponding thereto generated. The height of said transducer above the field is determined ultrasonically and an electrical signal corresponding thereto generated. From these electrical signals the amount and direction of divergence of the actual position of the machine member relative to the field surface from its initial set position is determined, and an electrical correction signal corresponding thereto is produced, causing movement of the auxiliary frame relative to the main frame.

Height control for agricultural machine

Front dump refuse compactor

A lid unit for a portable refuse bin adapted to be engaged and inverted, by the lift mechanism of a refuse truck, to discharge a load of refuse from the bin and into the receiving body of the truck; the lid unit being hinged to the bin and normally but releasably latched in closed position, and a hinged loading lid is included in the lid unit and normally but releasably latched in closed position; the loading lid--when unlatched--being manually swingable, relative to the remainder of the lid unit, to open position to permit manual deposit of refuse in the bin, and the entire lid unit gravitationally swinging to open position when unlatched and upon such inversion of the bin, whereupon the load of refuse dumps from the bin and into the receiving body of the truck; the loading lid remaining in latched, closed position during said inversion of the bin.

Refuse bin lid unit

A load retraction preventing finger array for a unitary heavy-duty refuse compactor which includes a hopper from which pre-deposited refuse is forcefully thrust by a power-advanced packing blade through an intermediate throat and into a large, normally closed, box-like container which provides a packing chamber in which the load--as it progressively increases in volume upon recurrent operation of the packing blade--is thereby placed under compression; the load retraction preventing finger array embodying a plurality of initially depending, pivoted, dual finger units mounted in a horizontal transverse row extending across the top of such throat and operative in certain positions of engagement with the load of compressed refuse to substantially preclude such load from falling back (by reason of its tendency to expand) through the throat and into the hopper upon retraction of the packing blade.

Load retraction preventing finger array

An improved trash separation mechanism at the rear cross-conveyor assembly of a tomato harvester. A frame of the harvester supports a centrally located fruit collecting conveyor for delivering fruit rearwardly to the rear cross-conveyor assembly. A blower directs a strong rearward airstream from adjacently below the rear end of the collecting conveyor across the rear cross-conveyor assembly. A rearwardly rotating roller is mounted adjacently behind the cross-conveyor assembly and moves vegetative and mineral trash away from the cross-conveyor. A slide plate behind the roller may deflect the trash to the ground. A series of resilient fingers depending downwardly from above the roller move in circular vertical patterns to agitate the trash as it collects at the roller to prevent accumulation of the trash upon the roller and to enhance rearward movement thereof upon the roller and deposit of the trash on the ground.

Growing community of inventors

Lodi, CA, United States of America

Darryl G Bettencourt