Deere & Company

Harold E deBuhr

Henry W Suechting

Merlyn D Bass

David L Wolf

Steven L Schmid

Jerry L Krafka

Dale R Dolberg

Terry A Williams

Walter W Booker

Kenneth R Christopher

A sensing unit for a row crop harvester guidance system is simply attachable and retrofittable to commercially available headers. The header comprises first and second crop dividers, each having a pair of sidewalls. A crop receiving passageway is formed between the dividers. The sensing unit comprises a rotatably mounted crop engaging arm biased into a crop engaging position in which the arm is disposed in the passageway. For mounting the unit includes a frame member which is fixed to the divider sidewalls with either bolts or clamping plates. Forwardly converging edges of the frame member are received within a tip on the forward end of the divider. The unit may be alternately fixed to dividers having different sizes and corresponding to different row spacings.

Retrofittable sensing unit for row crop harvester guidance system

A forage harvester, otherwise of generally typical construction, is modified to include kernel-processing means in the form of a pair of cooperative compressor rolls situated in close proximity to the cutterhead and adapted to receive from the cutterhead fragmented crops and to further reduce the crops and especially to crack the kernels. The compressor rolls are of the type usually employed in a roller mill and have corrugated cylindrical outer surfaces particularly adapted to crack the kernels.

Forage harvester with kernel processing means

A multirow harvester header including a plurality of rearwardly converging crop dividers defining a plurality of crop receiving passageways therebetween. Each passageway has a corresponding pair of conveyors for conveying the crop through the passageway. As a means of conserving space in the area adjacent the crop receiving throat of the harvester, the crop engaging endless loop belt of one of the conveyors of a first and second pair of conveyors terminates substantially forward of the endless loop belt of the opposed conveyor with which it coacts to convey crop. A crop divider houses the short terminating conveyor and has a rear tip extending substantially beyond the rear end of the forward terminating endless loop belt. The tip provides enhanced positive feeding of the crop in the adjacent passageway by maintaining crop stalks in engagement with the opposed conveyor beyond the termination point of the forward terminating conveyor.

Harvester header with rearwardly extended crop divider

A multirow header for cutting and conveying standing row crops from a standing position in the field into the crop receiving throat of the attached harvester for crop processing. The header comprises a main frame comprised of mechanically attached, modular-type subframes. Included among the mechanically attached subframes are a rear attachment frame, a pair of sealed gear cases which form the basic central subframe of the header, and a plurality of row unit frames.

Harvester header with a main frame of modular subframes

A forage harvester has a rotary cylinder type cutterhead mounted in a housing with opposite side walls, crop material being fed into the cutterhead in a generally radial direction over a shear bar adjacent the cutterhead periphery. The shear bar is mounted for fore and aft adjustment toward and away from the cutterhead periphery to maintain the optimum clearance between the cutterhead and the shear bar by means of a mechanism that includes a pair of bell cranks respectively pivotally mounted to support members on the opposite walls, with one end of each bell crank being connected to the shear bar through a fore and aft link while the other end of the bell crank threadably receives the threaded portions of a vertically elongated rod that is rotatably supported adjacent the housing side wall and has an easily accessible head adjacent the top of the housing, whereby rotation of the rod causes the bell crank to rock on its pivot to cause linear fore and aft adjustment of the shear bar. The force exerted through the adjusting mechanism is sufficient to overcome a clamping force exerted by a bolt and nut that clamps the shear bar to the supporting structure at opposite ends of the shear bar without loosening the clamping bolt.

Growing community of inventors

Ottumwa, IA, United States of America

Harold E deBuhr