Deere + Company

Gust S Soteropulos

Gerald F Meiers

Henry Dennis Anstey

James L Vogt

Colin M Hudson

David L Rabe

A baler is comprised of a frame with a pair of opposed sidewalls, a plurality of side-by-side endless belts supported on a plurality of rollers and defining a bale forming chamber into which crop material is fed and rolled into a cylindrical bale. A bale discharge gate is constituted by rear sections of the sidewalls and by certain of the belt guide rollers extending therebetween. A span of the belts extends below the lower extremities of the rear sidewall sections and define openings through which crop material may be discharged from substantially enclosed volumes contiguous with the bale forming chamber.

Cylindrical baler with self-cleaning gate

A belt for large round baler has a roughly textured, crop-engaging surface formed by a plurality of continuous, uniform height walls defining a plurality of recesses therebetween. The walls may be arranged in a variety of polygonal shapes. The height of the walls is less than the maximum spacing between adjacent walls. The thickness of the walls decrease from the base toward the tip. The textured surface of the belt provides reduced levels of noise and dust, a self-cleaning action, lateral stiffness and longitudinal flexibility.

Belt for round baler

A round baler has a conventional pickup and an approximately horizontal, wide, lower conveyor for removing hay from a field and delivering it rearwardly in a transversely extending mat to a transversely extending bale chamber where it is rolled into a cylindrical bale. The upper run of the lower conveyor is approximately tangential to the lower side of the forming bale so that there is a 'pinch point' where the incoming mat of crop material converges on the periphery of the forming bale. A series of fluid dispensing nozzles spaced across the machine connected to a source of preservative carried on the baler is disposed so that preservative may be applied to the hay close to the pinch point across the lateral extent of the bale chamber. The incoming mat may vary in width and in lateral disposition relative to the baler conveyor system and sensors spaced across the machine and used to detect the presence or absence of hay and control fluid valves in the nozzle lines so that preservative is released only adjacent those portions of the bale where hay is being added. In a preferred embodiment, the nozzles are carried above the incoming mat and direct preservative downwardly and rearwardly adjacent the pinch point and the hay sensors are associated with compressor rods associated with the pickup assembly.

Preservative applicator for a round baler

In a mobile machine for forming cylindrical bales, a mat of crop material is picked up from the ground and fed to a baling chamber defined by the generally horizontal upper run of a lower endless belt conveyor and the internal envelope of a plurality of rollers carrying an upper conveyor and disposed immediately above it. The upper conveyor comprises a plurality of elastic endless belts stretched around the rollers and includes a lower run which, at the inception of bale formation, spans the baling chamber between a pair of lower rollers immediately above the chamber floor. The upper and lower conveyors are driven in opposite directions so that as the mat of crop material is fed into the baling chamber, it is rolled, spiral-like, into a cylindrical bale. As the bale increases in diameter, the belts of the upper conveyor, engaging the bale periphery, extend elastically to provide the increase of belt length required to accommodate the bale in the chamber.

Elastic bale-forming conveyor for cylindrical bales

A machine for forming cylindrical bales of crop material includes a mobile main frame and a novel combination of a material pickup and a bale forming belt conveyor in which a plurality of side by side belts are trained around a series of transverse rollers and an axially transverse rotary pickup element at the rear of the frame. The conveyor roller arrangement results in a substantial arc of contact between the conveyor belts and the bale, reaching about 180.degree. when the bale is fully formed. A stripper roller is located adjacent to but forward of and above the pickup element so that, after initiation of the formation of the bale, the pickup continues to feed material from the group into the growing bale but does not contact the bale and takes no part in propelling it along the ground.

Ground-rolled cylindrical baler

An agricultural tractor as a rearwardly extending drawbar and a rearward PTO output shaft connectible to an input drive shaft on a trailing PTO driven implement through a telescoping drive assembly, which includes front and rear universal joints. The drawbar is connected to the implement tongue through a hitch adapter which provides articulation between the tractor and the implement about a vertical axis that is equidistant from the two universal joints, so that the universal joints articulate at equal angles when the tractor is turned relative to the implement. The hitch adapter includes a housing having top and bottom walls, a vertical pin being insertable into vertically aligned bores in the top and bottom walls and into a vertical bore in the drawbar to connect the hitch adapter to the drawbar, the adapter having a vertical pivot element rearwardly of the pin for pivotal connection to the forward end of the implement tongue. A locking device is provided on the housing to releasably lock the pin in said bores to prevent inadvertent separation of the hitch adapter from the drawbar, and shim means are provided between a horizontal plate and the top wall of the housing to vary the clearance between the plate and a bottom wall of the housing to accommodate different vertical thicknesses of a tractor drawbar, the drawbar being disposed between and abutting the plate and the housing bottom wall.

Hitch adapter

A machine for forming large cylindrical bales of hay or the like has a mobile main frame with opposite upright sides defining a baling chamber therebetween. A windrow pickup unit removes the crop from the field and delivers it rearwardly between a pair of compressor rolls, which deliver the crop material in a mat to a baling zone between upper and lower endless conveyors, the lower conveyor having a generally horizontal upper run which supports the underside of the bale and the upper conveyor having an upwardly and forwardly moving lower run which engages the crop moving rearwardly on the lower conveyor to roll it into a bale. The upper conveyor envelops the bale as it is formed and a rear gate assembly is provided in association with the upper conveyor for permitting rearward discharge of the formed bale, the gate assembly including a pair of vertically swingable upper arms and vertically swingable lower arms carried by the upper arms, a linkage being provided between the lower arms and the frame to control the movement of an upper conveyor roller extending between the lower ends of the lower arms, which defines the rearward end of the baling chamber as the bale is being formed.

Growing community of inventors

Ottumwa, IA, United States of America

Gust S Soteropulos