Control unit for agricultural harvesters

Details Control unit for agricultural harvesters Control unit for agricultural harvesters

1999-09-30

2001-09-18

Pezzuto, Robert E. (Department: 3671)

Crop threshing or separating

Threshing

With adjusting means for threshing cylinder

C460S109000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06290599

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to agricultural machines and, more particularly, to a control unit for use in an agricultural harvester having a feed path and for controlling machine elements which interact along the feed path.
The control unit being considered is for forage harvesters, combine harvesters and other agricultural harvesting machines. The mutually adjustable machine elements may be of various constructions or arrangements. For example, in the case of forage harvesters used for chopping corn, two so-called cracker rollers must be adjusted relative to one another to release the grains of corn. In the case of combine harvesters, the concave and threshing cylinder must be mutually adjusted. The machine elements or groups of elements under consideration are usually located within or along the feed path for the crop.
The harvesting machines discussed above are available in a wide variety. Consequently, two laterally disposed stops are needed for each machine element or for each group of elements. Historically, these stops have been in the form of bolts that can be screwed-in or out of a threaded member. Alternately, the stops have been wedge-shaped segments that were indirectly driven between a fixed and an adjustable machine element. The machine elements needed for the adjustment process are usually arranged on rocker arms, levers or the like. Adjustments made with bolts are laborious and imprecise because the adjustments are made without the assistance of calipers, measuring instruments or the like. Moreover, the levers or rocker arms that support the elements being adjusted are subject to wear so that adjustments become more imprecise in the course of time.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a control unit for an agricultural machine having feed means for feeding harvested crops along a feed path, a plurality of machine elements along the feed path, resilient means for moving one of the machine elements relative to an other, adjustable stops for limiting movement of the resilient means. Further, the control unit includes a plurality of hydraulic cylinders each having a moveable wall forming one of the adjustable stops, and means for supplying controlled amounts of hydraulic fluid to each of the hydraulic cylinders to move the respective moveable walls a controlled distance, and thereby moving said one and other machine elements relative to each other. For the purposes of altering the width of the feed path for crops, at least one of these machine elements is positioned by resilient members using adjustable stops, wherein the stops are plungers which are moveable in synchronism by means of an applied fluid.
The solution according to the preferred embodiment makes it possible to overcome one or more of the problems described above and facilitate precise adjustments in an efficient manner.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4425925 (1984-01-01), Kersting et al.
patent: 4802496 (1989-02-01), Bennett
patent: 5488817 (1996-02-01), Paquet et al.
patent: 5743795 (1998-04-01), Kersting
patent: 282 836 A5 (1990-09-01), None
patent: 43 08 084 A1 (1994-09-01), None
patent: 196 40 061 A1 (1998-04-01), None

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