Deere & Company

David T Allen

Keith R Baker

Robert N Behrens

Stanley Jerome Johnson

Myron L McCunn

Henry J Lange

Peter Jay Classen

Kenneth J Kolegraff

Martin Adolph Berk

A forage harvester includes four multiple-bladed rotary cutting segments positioned near a shearbar. Four proximity sensors are mounted in shearbar bores near each of the cutting segments, each including a permanent magnet and a sensing coil. Blade motion near the sensors produces an electrical signal in the sensing coils. The signals from each sensing coil are integrated, sampled and averaged. The largest average signal is conditioned and applied to an analog meter for display to a vehicle operator. Switch and logic circuits permit the operator to monitor only selected one or ones of the cutting segments.

Shearbar clearance detector

An automatic control system operates to control the spout position on a forage harvester as a function of the position of a crop-receiving wagon and as a function of the relative spout-wagon position. The system includes wagon and spout angle sensors and a variable gain error amplifier for generating an error signal representing the difference therebetween. The gain of the error amplifier is modified according to changes in the wagon position to provide a wagon position dependent amount of free play in the spout-wagon relative position.

Spout control system

A tractor-planter guidance aid system including a TV camera mounted on a servo motor at an end of the planter to view a mark in the terrain created by a marker mounted on the other end of the planter. Angle sensors send signals to a control circuit, these signals representing the angle between the tractor and the planter and between the camera and the planter. The control circuit cooperates with the servo motor to maintain the camera in parallel alignment with the tractor. A TV monitor displays the image detected by the camera to the operator of the tractor.

Video planter guidance aid

An electric motor-powered linkage is provided for raising and lowering an implement mounted on a lawn and garden tractor. The energization of the motor and preselection of the position to which it is desired that the motor move the implement is accomplished through means of a control system including a pair of side-by-side arms pivotally mounted for swinging movement about a common axis. On one arm is mounted first and second normally open control switches forming part of a control circuit connected to a motor-reversing power circuit, and on the other arm is mounted a cam forming part of a follow-up linkage. To selectively actuate the motor to drive in forward and reverse, the arm on which the control switches are mounted is selectively manually swung in opposite first and second directions to cause the first and second switches to be respectively actuated to closed positions by first and second arcuate surfaces of the cam. The follow-up linkage acts in response to motor actuation to return the cam to a position wherein the surfaces thereof permit whichever one of the switches is actuated to return to its normally open position to thus de-energize the motor. The cam surfaces are elongated in the direction of movement of the switches so that the distance through which the motor must move the implement in order to effect deenergization of the motor may be preselected by the amount that the switch carrying arm is manually displaced.

Implement position control system

A manually shiftable actuator-position input member and an actuator-operator feedback member cooperate as switch means for controlling the operation of an actuator including a rod connected to be reciprocably driven by a reversible electric motor. The input and feedback members normally occupy neutral positions relative to each other wherein electrical current is disconnected from the motor. Energization of the motor to cause it to drive in the forward and reverse directions may respectively be accomplished by moving the input member in opposite first and second directions from its neutral position. The distance through which the input member is moved preselects the distance through which the motor drives the rod, the motor driving the feedback member via the rod such as to restore the neutral positions of the input and feedback members when the rod has been driven to the preselected position.

Growing community of inventors

Waterloo, IA, United States of America

David T Allen