Patent Application
20100051729
This disclosure relates to a removable implement for a lawn and garden vehicle, and more specifically, to an interface for the connection and removal of different implements such as a bumper, a spreader, or any other lawn and agricultural equipment, and a method of exchanging rear implements.
In rural and urban environments, lawns and other outdoor surfaces often require care. Weather conditions and extraneous uses can compact, damage, or upturn surfaces; branches or thatch can accumulate over parts of the surface; rocks can resurface over time; and dead branches, twigs, or man-made debris can collect over parts of the surface. Lawns grow and require constant attention. Different tools exist in the marketplace to care for these surfaces.
Understandably, if a small surface requires care, and a great degree of precision in the work to be performed is required, handheld devices may be best suited for this task. For intermediately sized parcels, devices can be attached to small, portable frames moved over the ground by a walking operator by pushing or pulling a handlebar. In some cases, lawnmowers are attached to small frames to enable precise movement around obstacles. When even greater precision is needed but the surface cannot be cared for rapidly using manual means, vehicles such as zero-turn riders can be used. These riders are equipped with a degree of mobility that allows for the rotation of the front portion of the frame around a back wheel without the need for longitudinal movement (i.e., a zero-turn rider is a vehicle that rotates with zero advancement).
A user sits on a seat positioned above the center of gravity and holds two opposing handles. Intuitively, by pushing both handles the vehicle moves forward, by pulling both handles the vehicle moves backwards, by moving one hand forward the vehicle rotates around the static side, and by moving one hand forward and the other back the vehicle rotates in place.
Vehicles designed for residential use must be adapted to use equipment directed to typical residential lawn care. Zero-turn riders are compact, and because of their ability to rotate, require perfect 360 degree visibility during operation. In addition, the degree of maneuverability associated with zero-turn rotation is incompatible with all forms of known towing attachment to the rear of the zero-turn rider. For example, a male hitch generally in the shape of a ball can be attached to or behind the back bumper and can be made to pivot within a spherical female attachment. Such systems, when used on zero-turn riders, do not allow the attachment to be moved when the rider rotates in place, and these attachments impact the wheels as the rider moves. As a consequence, users can only operate zero-turn riders by avoiding use of the zero-turn capacity of the vehicles when an attachment is in tow.
What is needed is a method of manually attaching and exchanging a removable attachment to a zero-turn rider without hindering the maneuverability of the vehicle or the attachment.
This disclosure relates to a removable implement for a lawn and garden vehicle such as a residential zero-turn rider, and more specifically, to an implement adaptation system made with two parallel fixation plates with a two-point hook-up where one point is locked in position and the second is slideably connected in the plates before the first point is locked. The attachment interface allows for the connection and removal of different implements such as a bumper, a spreader, or any other lawn and garden equipment.
Certain embodiments are shown in the drawings. However, it is understood that the present disclosure is not limited to the arrangements and instrumentality shown in the attached drawings.
For the purposes of promoting and understanding the principles disclosed herein, reference is now made to the preferred embodiments illustrated in the drawings, and specific language is used to describe the same. It is nevertheless understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is hereby intended. Such alterations and further modifications in the illustrated devices and such further applications of the principles disclosed and illustrated herein are contemplated as would normally occur to one skilled in the art to which this disclosure relates.
As shown in
To facilitate the installation of the removable implement 100, as shown with greater particularity in
Two different types of fixation plates 82 are shown in
The bend in the plate 82 of the spreader 2 allows for the connection of the spreader 2 having a small body to the location on which it is attached. While flat plates are shown for both removable implements 100, any structural elements, such as bars, profiles, tubes, or molded parts, can be used. The plates 82 at their front end 5 include an edge 8 with a notch 9 in the edge 8, and the middle portion 7 includes an opening 31. The spreader as shown in
The removable attachment 100 also includes an agricultural implement 14 with a mounting frame 32 connected thereto, wherein the frame 32 includes a pair such as an L-shaped tube for the spreader 2 or two horizontal tubes 35 with a U-shaped bottom tube 16 for the bumper 3 as shown in
The frame 32, 35 is connected to the back ends 6 of the fixation plates 82. The fixation plates 82 are then secured at two different positions to the rear end of a vehicle. As shown in one embodiment, the vehicle 1 is not designed to receive the removable implement 100 and must be adapted. The simplest adaptation is to drill two sets of holes, each set to align with one of the two fixation means in the fixation plates 82. A vehicle 1 could also come with a fixation means, such as a protruding rod, a clip, a snap fit, or even a slide-in tab, to facilitate connection. In the embodiments shown in
The lock 9 includes a notch extending from the edge 8 and a locking assembly 150 including a lock pin 10 having a through bore at a first end and an enlarged portion at a second end or an end that can be secured using other means such as fillets, a pin, a tab, in opposition to the first end, such as in the case where a bolt or a head is used and a first securing element 11 such as a small metal pin for removably engaging the through bore in a selectively locking manner. The lock pins 10 can be portions of the vehicle 1 extruded from the surface or any other type of fixed pin.
The pivot 31 includes an opening and a pivot assembly 151 including a pivot pin 12 having a through bore at a first end, and an enlarged portion at a second end or an end that can be secured using other means such as fillets, a pin, a tab, or the like, in opposition to the first end, such as in the case where a bolt or a head is used and a second element for removably engaging the through bore in a selectively locking manner.
One of the advantages of this dual-point locking system is to simplify installation and exchange of two implements 100 while offering tolerances at the time of installation of the implements compatible with the large tolerances needed in the field of lawn, agricultural, and garden equipment. In one embodiment, the notch 9 is U-shaped to adapt with a cylindrical lock pin 10.
In another embodiment shown as
And in relation to a second 14 agricultural implement 205, attaching or joining 206 the second agricultural implement 14 as shown in
It is understood that the preceding is merely a detailed description of some examples and embodiments of the present invention and that numerous changes to the disclosed embodiments can be made in accordance with the disclosure made herein without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. The preceding description, therefore, is not meant to limit the scope of the invention but to provide sufficient disclosure to one of ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention without undue burden.
