Patent Application
20080256914
The present invention relates to the drive-train coupling of combine feeder interfaces and combine headers; and it particularly relates to automatically coupling the same via a stationary gearbox.
The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests, threshes, and cleans crops, especially grain plants. The combine was originally patented in 1834 by Hiram Moore, the same year as Cyrus McCormick was granted a patent on the mechanical reaper. Early combines, some of which were quite large, were drawn by horse and mule teams and used a bull wheel to provide mechanical power. Later, tractor-drawn, PTO-powered combines were used. Some combines used shakers to separate the grain from the chaff, and used straw-walkers to eject the straw while retaining the grain. Tractor-drawn combines evolved to have separate gas or diesel engines to power the grain separation. Today's combines are self-propelled and use diesel engines for power. Rotary designed combines were significant advancements in the art in the late 1970s. Today's combines are equipped with removal heads, or headers, designed for particular crops. There is the standard head or grain platform, which is used for many crops including grain, legumes and many seed crops. There are also wheat heads, dummy heads or pickup headers, specialized corn heads, row crop heads, etc. The headers or heads are generally interchangeable and made to fit combine feeder interfaces through which the crop enters the feeder housing and can advance into the combine.
Conventionally, combine feeder housings are equipped with quick-connect coupling mechanisms at the interface between the feeder and the header. The quick-connect mechanism enables an operator, standing outside of the combine, to manually exchange one header for another, and to manually latch the feeder to the header. For example, attached to the back of each header are two (left and right of center) quick-connect latches. Attaching the combine feeder housing to these header latches is accomplished by an operator driving the combine up to a header, hydraulically lowering the combine's feeder housing, and driving the combine forward until the feeder housing's interface, which is equipped with two quick-connect yokes, contacts the header latches. Then the combine's feeder housing is hydraulically lifted, allowing the quick-connect yokes, on the feeder interface, to slide up and against the quick-connect latches on the header, and thereafter the header can be raised in concert with raising the feeder. However, it is still necessary thereafter for the operator to leave the cab in order to latch and lock the drive train. That is, the operator must connect, by hand, various drive belts, chains, and hydraulic hoses in order to couple the header drives with the feeder drives.
In co-pending application Ser. No. 11/483,926, filed Jul. 10, 2006, there is disclosed an automatic header latching mechanism for connecting the feeder drive and header drive. However its operation requires that the gearbox slide back and forth along the feeder interface.
A new coupling device which negates manual intervention, during the feeder housings coupling to and uncoupling from the combine header drive mechanisms, using a stationary gearbox, would satisfy a longfelt need, and represent a surprising advancement in the art.
The present invention permits a combine operator to automatically connect the combine's feeder PTO shaft to the combine's header drive shafts without leaving the cab of the combine. This automatic coupling device comprises a stationary in-line gearbox having a telescopically extendible jack shaft, which jack shaft's telescopic action is initiated by a shift fork assembly having pneumatic, electronic and/or hydraulic actuators triggered from the cab of the combine. The telescopic jack shaft rotatably extends from the gearbox, in-line along either side of the feeder interface, so as to be in alignment with and engageable to an oversized receivable coupler element, which coupler transfers power from the feeder drive to the header drive. In alignment therewith, but extending from the opposite side of the feeder housing from where the gearbox is located, there may be a second but longer shaft extending from the gearbox to a point where it is insertable in a matching oversize receivable coupler element. Said second but longer shaft may also be telescopically actuated by a fork shift, as a first coupling, to extend into the oversized receivable or second coupling member.
The header can be lifted by driving a combine up to it and lifting its feeder. When the feeder is lifted, the header's interface tilts into the feeder adapter interface, is latched, and the drives can then be coupled from the instrument panel in the cab of the combine.
The telescopic jack shafts on the gearbox, when actuated by shift fork assemblies, will engage the oversized receivable header coupler members on both sides of the feeder. The shift fork assemblies can also activate a header latch pin locking and unlocking mechanism which cooperates along a line substantially parallel to but separate from the gearbox line. The couplings of the present invention can be spring-loaded to fully engage or disengage from the header drive shafts as a consequence of slowly rotating the combine feeder drive shaft in one direction or the other. Electronic initiation and modulation will safeguard against either premature engagement or premature disengagement of the latching and coupling system.
It should be understood that the detailed description below while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, is given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description. Embodiments of the invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
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Although the invention has been described in its preferred form with a certain degree of particularity, it is understood that the structure of the preferred form may be changed in the details of construction in that the combination and arrangement of parts may be modified without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as is hereinafter claimed. Additional concepts based upon this description may be employed in other embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the following claims are intended to protect the invention broadly as well as in the specific form shown.
