WO2017009522A1

WO2017009522A1 - Auger conveyor

Info

Publication number: WO2017009522A1
Application number: PCT/FI2016/000019
Authority: WO
Inventors: Johan Löfbacka
Original assignee: ElHo Oy AB
Current assignee: ElHo Oy AB
Priority date: 2015-07-13
Filing date: 2016-07-06
Publication date: 2017-01-19
Anticipated expiration: 2018-01-13
Also published as: JP6781755B2; FI20150214A; EP3322281A1; JP2018529373A; EP3322281B1; EP3322281A4; EP3322281C0; FI20150214A7; PL3322281T3

Abstract

The present innovation relates to an auger conveyor (6) to transport straw-like or correspondent material (18) as for example grass or other crop from a within agriculture used mower and where the auger conveyor at least partly is enclosed in a housing (5, 15) and is equipped with an overload protection, where the overload protection comprise an openable hatch (15) whose axial extent is within the main transport area of the auger (19).

Description

Auger conveyor

The present innovation relates to an mainly within agriculture used auger conveyor to transport straw-like or correspondent material and where the auger conveyor at least partly is enclosed in an housing and where at least a part of the housing at incipient overcharge of the auger opens to avoid a blockage of the auger resulting in an overload.

Auger conveyors are very common as well in the industry as in the agriculture. Mainly they are used stationary to transport semi-liquid or granular material, grain, pellets, chopped wood and correspondent, but also a lot of mobile applications are known.

To prevent overload of auger conveyors a lot of solutions are known within technics. The most common ones can schematically be divided into three groups:

• Torque lim iters for the auger.

• Limitation of the feed to the conveyor auger.

· Regulating the speed ratio between the feed input and the auger conveyor.

Within the agriculture auger conveyors are used for example on the combine headers to transport the cut material from the wide knife section to the central threshing rotor feed. These augers are open to their construction and are covered by housing for hardly half of their periphery. When this type of auger conveyors do reach their capacity limit, they simply do not take in more, but the material starts to gather on the header directly within the vision of the driver and he will then reduce the speed.

If the auger is not within the vision of the driver or is covered by housing, the regulation of the capacity becomes more problematic. To bring grass from several cut traits together, mower conditioners of today (mowers equipped with treatment rotors behind the cutting beam) mainly use belt conveyors. The benefit of this type of conveyors is that they are relative non sensitive for overload. If such occur, the belt can slip under the grass without creating damage to the machine itself.

As the construction is open, it is possible to easily empty the conveyor by tilting it hydraulically up and let out the material. Such solution samples we can find inter alia in the patent documents: FI 20090199 (Oy El- Ho Ab), US 622364 (Deere & Company) and in the DE 3604691 (Claas Saulgau GmbH).

To get these belt conveyors to work satisfactory it thus is needed that the conditioner rotor throws the material up in a manner that the flow of material falls optimally on the transport belt. In even crops, it is possible to find an optimal adjustment, but if the crop on the field is uneven these belt conveyors needs continuous monitoring and adjustments to work satisfactory. In the patent documents FR2494547 (Hesston S A,) from 1980, and in EP 1 1 1 1985

(Maschinenfabrik Bernard Krone GmbH,) from 1999 solutions are presented, where auger conveyors are used in mower conditioners to bring cut grass from several cut traits together.

In the Japanese utility model JP S4311303 Yl from 1968 an auger conveyor for powdered material is presented. This auger conveyor is mainly intended to be used in conditions with high moisture (near hot process water supply) where the risks for disturbances thus are increased.

This auger conveyor has a conical shaped input opening (3) for the powdered material in its outermost end. In addition it is equipped with a likewise conical discharge opening (4) between drive unit (9) and the input opening. To register an incipient surging of the conveyor the cylindrical housing is in the drive end equipped with a small flap (7) who affects a switch (8). The opening angle of this flap is aware as small as possible to make it quickly to react on increased pressure in the drive end side of the auger conveyor.

The benefit with auger conveyors is that they at least mainly have a closed housing and are therefore less sensitive for how the material to be transported is thrown in to the conveyor. They are thus less sensitive for variations in the crop and at least theoretically it is therefore possible to reach reduction of waste with this type of conveyors.

The disadvantage with these auger conveyors is that if they are overloaded, it means, if their capacity temporarily is exceeded as for example when a mower is driven across an already cut swath, a major blockage of the auger itself easily occur. On the known solutions on the market, such blockages are very time consuming and even dangerous to clear up, as the clamped grass has to be pulled out by hand.

To overcome these disadvantages a conveyor according the present innovation has been developed based on solutions according the following patent claims.

The main benefit of the innovation is in the ability of the auger to keep the grass within the auger also in varying crop and at different driving speeds without need of readjustments related to the working conditions. If overload occur, the conveyor will be emptied automatically.

In the following, a preferred embodiment of the invention is described with the aid of the following principled drawings. Fig. 1 shows a section side view of the mower conditioner according the innovation.

Fig. 2 shows the outlet part of the conveyor seen obliquely from behind.

Fig. 3 shows a side view of the conveyor seen from the outlet with the hatch closed.

Fig. 4 shows a side view of the conveyor from the outlet with the hatch open.

Fig. 5 shows a side view of the conveyor from the outlet with the clear finger in two different positions.

The cutting unit in fig 1 shows a cutterbar 2 mainly perpendicular to the drive direction with associated cutting discs with knives 4, a rotating treatment unit 3, a transport auger 6 in a bottom tray 5, a hatch 15 and schematically grass 18.

The direction of rotation for the transport auger is given with the arrow 19. The transport auger is further equipped with a scraper edge 22.

Fig 2 shows a part of a transport auger unit seen from the outlet opening obliquely from behind. The bearing 7 supports the transport auger 6, who in its outer end shows clear finger 9. The bearing 7 for the transport auger is carried by a support arm 8, who in its lower part shows a cutting edge 17.

At the rear is further the hatch 15 of the transport auger seen with support 10 and to this attached hatch offloading spring 1 1. Beneath the transport auger is also the bottom tray 5 of the auger conveyor seen, to which a number of trigger units 16 are mounted. The trigger unit has in turn locking mechanism 13 loaded by the lock spring 12 and pivoted around the swivel point 20. The trigger units are interconnected to each other with the torsion bar 14.

Fig 3 shows a side view of the conveyor seen from the outlet with grass 18 who press against the hatch 15. The centreline of the lock spring 12 is shown by a broken line 21.

Fig 4 shows the same side view but with the lock mechanism 13 and the hatch 15 in open position. Fig 5 shows the same side view with the clear finger 9 in two different positions.

The transport auger according the present innovation operates in the following manner. During work the knives on the cutting disks 4 are cutting the grass, who after is caught by the rotating treatment unit 3 and is thrown backwards against the hatch 15 and is caught by the transport auger 6, who quickly transports the grass in the direction of the outlet opening. As long as the capacity of the transport auger is bigger than the from the treatment unit 3 thrown amount of grass, the pressure against the hatch 15 remain fairly small and the force from the lock springs 12 keeps the lock mechanism 13 and so also the hatch 15 closed. It the flow of grass 18 suddenly increase so that the transport auger do not manage to bring the material out through the outlet opening, grass starts to accumulate and due to the rotation direction of the transport auger and the friction between the grass and auger, grass is pressed more strongly against the hatch 15. As the lock springs 12 are not more able to keep the lock mechanism 13 in locked position, these swivels around their swivel points 20. The position of the hatch and the lock mechanism at incipient congestion is shown with broken lines. As soon as the centre line of the lock spring 12 mow on the other side of the swivel point 20 of the lock mechanism 13, all the lock mechanisms opens fully and takes the positions shown in fig 4, while they are interconnected with the torsion bar 14. The springs 1 1 do then open the hatch 15 fully and the grass can freely be thrown out of the machine and the transport auger 6 empties itself. As the hatch now is kept fully open, the rotating treatment unit 3 now throws the grass directly out to the rear.

If one likes to cut grass without mowing the material sideways it is easy to open the hatch manually by pulling the torsion bar 14 to the rear. To make the in its outer end supported transport auger working smoothly it is important that the support arm 8 for the transport auger bearing 7 is situated in such a position where the auger spiral already as completely as possible is emptied of its content.

In a solution as in the present figures, this is achieved if the main direction of the support arm is in the fourth quadrant of the rotation circle (corresponds to the area between 6 and 3 on a clock). As it by long straw material, in the praxis is impossible to get the transport auger fully emptied without risk of material to be clamped to the support arm 8, it is a benefit if the support arm in its external end is equipped with a clear finger 9. This clear finger is preferably equipped with an inclined arcuate front edge, which collects the rest material towards the bottom tray 5 to finally cut off the grass against the cutting edge 17 of the support arm 8. In this manner it is prohibited that a long rope of together twisted grass starts to hang on the support arm and disturb the flow of material.

Naturally, the innovation is not confined to the above described preferred embodiment but a plurality of variations thereof is feasible within the scope of the claims below.

Thus the transport auger does not need to be mounted on a mower but can be a transport auger also for other purpose where a need exists to easily prohibit an overload of the conveyor, and where the conveyor will be self-emptying after its transport capacity has been exceeded.

Referens number

1 Cutting unit

2 Cutterbar

3 Rotating treatment unit

4 Cutting disc with knives

5 The bottom tray of the auger conveyor

6 Transport auger

7 Bearing for transport auger

8 support arm for transport auger bearing

9 Clear finger

10 Hatchr support

11 Hatch off loading spring

12 Lock spring

13 Lock mechanism

14 Torsion bar

15 Hatch

16 Trigger unit

17 Cutting edge

18 Grass

19 Auger rotation direction

20 Swivel point of trigger unit

21 Centre line of lock spring

22 Scraper edge

Claims

1. The present innovation relates to an auger conveyor (6) to transport straw-like or correspondent material (18) as for example grass or other crop from a within agriculture used mower and where the auger conveyor at least partially is enclosed in a housing (5, 15) and is equipped with an overload protection, characterized in that the overload protection comprise an openable hatch (15) whose axial extent is within the main transport area of the auger (19).

2. An auger conveyor according claim 1, characterized in that the hatch (15) at overload of the conveyor (6) opens to allow the straw like material (18) to be thrown out of the auger and thus prevents clogging of the conveyor resulting in an overload.

3. An auger conveyor according claim 1, characterized in that the hatch ( 15) opening up for a free discharge of material (18) as soon as the pressure of the material (18) within the housing (5, 15) exceeds a given limit.

4. An auger conveyor according claim 1-2, characterized in that that a hinged hatch (15) is equipped with at least one with a resilient member biased lock mechanism (13) who release the hatch at overload.

5. An auger conveyor according to any one or any ones of the preceding claims,

characterized in that the action line (21) for the locking mechanism (13) resilient member (12) at overload pass the swivel point (20) of the lock mechanism.

6. An auger conveyor according to any one or any ones of the preceding claims,

characterized in that several lock mechanisms (13) are interconnected so that all of them opens simultaneous.

7. An auger conveyor according to any one or any ones of the preceding claims,

characterized in that the lock mechanisms (12) are interconnected with a torsion bar (14).

8. An auger conveyor according to any one or any ones of the preceding claims, characterized in that between the bottom tray (5) of the transport screw (6) and the cover (15) are parallel surfaces which prevents that the material (18) starts to leak out when the door springs outward before locking mechanism (13) is triggered.

9. An auger conveyor according to any one or any ones of the preceding claims, characterized in that one or more resilient members (11) after release of the locking mechanism or mechanisms (13) opens the hatch (15) for a free discharge of material (18).

10. An auger conveyor according to any one or any ones of the preceding claims, characterized in that the hatch (15) is put in an open position when one wants to cut without side moving the cut material.