Patent ID: 7958706
Filing Date: 2011-06-14
Classification: A01D

Abstract:
1. A swather comprising: a tractor having ground wheels and a drive system for transporting the tractor in a direction of operation across ground carrying a standing crop to be harvested; a header attached to the tractor so as to be moved thereby over the ground for harvesting the crop; the header having a cutting knife arranged to provide a cutting action across a width of the header for cutting the standing crop; the header having a reel mounted above the cutting knife for rotation about a reel axis generally parallel to the ground and at right angles to the direction of operation such that bats of the reel pass over the cutting knife to carry the crop rearwardly of the knife, the reel being driven by a reel drive system; a convergence system rearwardly of the cutting knife for converging the cut crop into a swath for discharge from the header onto the ground; a speed control manually operable by an operator of the tractor for controlling a ground speed of the tractor so as to control a forwarding speed of the cutting knife over the ground; a sensor for monitoring reel speed; and a header speed control system for controlling a speed of the reel; the header speed control system being operable for providing automatic control of the reel speed relative to the ground speed; the header speed control system including a manual control manually operable by an operator of the tractor for manually controlling the speed of the reel; the header speed control system including a manually operable switch operable to select between a manual control mode and an automatic control mode of the reel speed; the header speed control system being operable, when in the automatic control mode, to control the reel speed such that a difference obtained by subtracting the ground speed from the speed of the reel is maintained at an index value which is maintained by the automatic speed control system at a set value which is constant; and the header speed control including a manually operable control for setting the index value used by the automatic speed control system at different values.