Patent Application
20090183396
The present invention relates to digging equipment, and in particular, to equipment for trenching.
Trenchers are used in landscaping to define beds, dig ditches for the bases of walls, allow insertion of edging or irrigation tubing and the like. Landscapers often use trenchers to provide the edging around basic, simple gardens, such as ovals or rectangles. While it has long been known to provide highly elaborate garden plans, such as the formal gardens at Versailles, using a trencher to create these shapes has not been practical because of the difficult of keeping a manually operated trencher precisely on course while digging in a complicated design. Instead, the design has been manually laid out and marked, e.g., with lime, then dug in by hand with a shovel. In addition to landscape uses, trenchers are used by electricians and utilities to install cables or wiring in small trenches in the ground.
Trenchers come in a variety of wheel configurations, including two wheel, three wheel and four wheel. Two wheel trenchers, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,874,581 and 6,938,699 can be highly steerable in very tight curves, but depend entirely on manual brute force from the operator for steering. Four wheel trenchers such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,195,427 and 4,896,442 may reduce amount of much brute force required for steering, but the four wheel configuration prevents a very tight turning radius. Three wheel trenchers can have a tighter turning radius than four wheel trenchers, but most, such as those shown in shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,503,630 and 5,226,248, are steered from the back. This means the wheels must be off-center from the trenching arbor, since they would fall into the trench of they were in-line with the arbor, and this in turn affects their stability, particularly in very tight turns.
The trencher shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,049 (the first two figures of which are included herein as
The present invention improves upon these designs by providing a powered steering and drive mechanism and a control system for them. Preferably, the steering system is an electric motor mounted to a shaft extending upward from the pivot of the front wheel, and the drive mechanism is a hydraulic motor mounted to the front wheel. This configuration minimizes the total space required by the trencher, enabling its use in tight spaces.
The trencher also includes a control system to control the steering and drive mechanisms. This control system can take the form of a simple remote control with control knobs to allow an operator to manually regulate the power going to the different motors. Alternatively, this control system can incorporate a programmable computer, which can be programmed to steer the trencher along a specific path. In this configuration, the control system preferably is also provided with a position monitoring system to provide a feedback loop to the computer to ensure that the trencher is where expected.
A programmable trencher of such a design has the advantage that it can be used to cut shapes, such as logos, flowers, or any other design, into the earth. The pattern need not even be laid out and marked, just programmed into the computer. The computer then can use the position monitoring system to guide the trencher along the route needed for the design. The result is a trencher capable of doing types of digging that heretofore could only be done on a practical basis by hand.
The following drawings are illustrative of particular embodiments of the present invention and therefore do not limit the scope of the invention. The drawings are not to scale (unless so stated) and are intended for use in conjunction with the explanations in the following detailed description. Embodiments of the present invention will hereinafter be described in conjunction with the appended drawings, wherein like numerals denote like elements.
The following detailed description is exemplary in nature and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability, or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides practical illustrations for implementing exemplary embodiments of the present invention. Those skilled in the art will recognize that many of the examples provided have suitable alternatives that can be utilized.
The prior art trencher shown in
An arbor housing 20 is mounted on the main frame 10 towards the rear thereof and centered between the rear wheels 12. A deflector housing 22 is removably attached to the top of the arbor housing 20, and preferably is reversible to deflect dirt in either direction. A rubber flap 23 or the like preferably is provided on the discharge chute 24 of the deflector housing 22 to prevent objects from being thrown.
An arbor pivot bracket 30 is pivotally mounted to the main frame 10 at pivot points 25, e.g., by the use of bolts or pins. An arbor 32 is fixedly mounted to a shaft 34 which is rotatably mounted to the arbor pivot frame 30. A pulley 26 is fixed to the shaft 34. An engine 27 is mounted to the main frame 10, and drives the shaft 34 and arbor 32 through a belt drive 28 and clutch 29 to the pulley 26 in the usual manner.
Turning to
A mounting frame 106 is mounted to the main frame 10 in a position above the front wheel bushing 18. A gear reducer 107 is mounted to the top of the mounting frame 106, with an output shaft extending downward through the mounting frame 106. An electric motor 108 is mounted to the top of the gear reducer 107, with the shaft of the electric motor connected as the input to the gear reducer 107. The front wheel bracket 102 includes a shaft 109 which extends upwardly beyond the bushing 18. The output shaft of the gear reducer 107 engages the upwardly extending shaft 109 via a keyway 110.
An onboard control system 111 is mounted in any suitable location and is connected via wires (not shown for clarity of illustration) to control the electric steering motor 108 and the hydraulic valve box 105, which in turn controls flow to the hydraulic motors 101, 103. A potentiometer 112 is mounted below the keyway 110 to monitor the rotational position of the upwardly extending shaft 109, and therefore of the front wheel 14, and provide a signal representative thereof to the onboard control system 111 via a wire (not shown for clarity of illustration).
In this configuration, the onboard control system 111 can control the rotational speed of the arbor by controlling the output of the hydraulic motor 101 and the longitudinal motion of the trencher by controlling the output of the hydraulic motor 103. Preferably, the hydraulic valve box 105 includes separate valves for each of the hydraulic motors 101, 103, so that the onboard control system 111 can independently control the arbor speed and the speed at which the trencher moves. In addition, the hydraulic valve box 105 preferably includes valves to allow the drive motor to be driven both in forward and reverse. The onboard control system 111 can control the steering of the trencher by controlling the electric motor 108, using the output of the potentiometer to provide a feedback loop.
The onboard control system 111 preferably is itself controlled by a remote control 114, which may be in communication by wire to the onboard control system 111, but preferably communicates wirelessly. The remote control 114 can be a simple hand operated radio control, much like those used with a radio controlled toy car, with knobs or other controls to adjust the arbor speed, drive speed and steering direction.
Preferably, the remote control 114 is a programmable computer. The computer can be programmed to emulate the simple hand operated radio control for use in manually guided use of the trencher, but also can be pre-programmed to drive the trencher along a pre-selected path. To assist in this configuration, a position sensor 115 may be provided on the trencher which can determine the position of the trencher at any time. A global positioning system such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,954,999 would be sufficient for this purpose in some situations, but in most situation a more precise localized laser, optical or radio frequency triangulation position will be preferable, e.g., systems such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,999,131 and 6,965,344. The position information from the position sensor 115 then can be provided to the remote control 114 to use as feedback to ensure that the trencher is following the appropriate path and adjust the steering and motion appropriately to keep it on path.
All patents referenced herein are incorporated by reference.
In the foregoing detailed description, the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments, but various changes thereto will be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. For example, while specific types of motors have been described in particular locations, it will be understood that electric, hydraulic, pneumatic or other motors could be substituted for all of them, with corresponding changes to the onboard control system. Similarly the hydraulic motor 103 could be mounted to one of the rear wheels 12 instead of the front wheel 14. It may be appreciated that various other modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.
