Patent ID: 9426944
Filing Date: 2016-08-30
CPC Classification: A01F

Claim Text:
1. An agricultural square baler, comprising: a baling chamber, in which a plunger is movably received along longitudinal axis of the baling chamber; a feed inlet, through which crop material can be conveyed into the baling chamber to be compressed there by the plunger into bales, a duct connected to the feed inlet for collecting crop material before it is stuffed into the baling chamber; and a stuffer for stuffing the collected crop material from the duct through the feed inlet into the baling chamber, the stuffer, operably associated with the duct, comprising a rotatable drive shaft, at least one crank arm fixed to the drive shaft and a fork assembly comprising tines and at least one fork lever supporting the tines and being rotatably coupled to the at least one crank arm on the one hand and pivotably supported by at least one fulcrum of the stuffer on the other hand, allowing relative movement of the tines along at least a packer trajectory and a stuffer trajectory, the tines in the packer trajectory packing crop material in the duct and in the stuffer trajectory stuffing the collected crop material from the duct through the feed inlet into the baling chamber, the fulcrum fixed to at least one pivotable member of the stuffer pivotable around a pivot for displacing the fulcrum along a predetermined fulcrum path to selectively move the tines along the respective trajectories, wherein the at least one pivotable member is mechanically linked to the drive shaft by a linkage of the baler provided for mechanically pivoting the at least one pivotable member in relation to the rotation of the drive shaft and in that the linkage comprises at least a packer cam and a stuffer cam mounted to a cam shaft rotating together with the drive shaft, the cams comprising a predetermined respective circumferential surface surrounding the cam shaft, and a cam follower for following the circumferential surface of the cams for determining the distance of the circumferential surface of the respective cams with respect to the cam shaft and provided to mechanically transfer the determined distance of the circumferential surface of the cams with respect to the cam shaft based on the rotation of the drive shaft to a position of the fulcrum along the fulcrum path such that the tines move along the packer and the stuffer trajectory respectively.