MACHINE FOR FORMING CYLINDRICAL BALES OF CROP

Abstract: The baling chamber (54) of one type of round baler is de­ fined by belts (46) which are trained over rolls connected to a drive. Stones can enter the nip (90) formed between the belts (46) and some of the rolls, e.g. a lower front belt driving roll (20), and thereby cause poor tracking of the belts (46). To reduce the problem, a shield device (92) is snap-fit mounted on the roll (20). The device (92) includes a nip bridging plate an upright portion (96) of which abuts the belt run (48) advancing to the nip (90) and a downwardly sloping lower portion (98) of which bridges the nip (90). Thus the device (92) covers the nip (90) preventing access to it by the stones, and stones which fall upon it slide down the sloping portion (98) of the plate eventually to find their way harmlessly to the ground.

Description: This invention relates to a machine for forming cylindrical bales of crop having a baling chamber defined by belts which can move to roll the crop into a bale, rolls over which the belts are trained and with which the belts form nips as the belts move thereover. Machines, towed by a tractor, for forming large cylindrical bales of hay (so-called "round balers") are well known. As the machine advances, the crop is removed from a windrow by a pick-up mechanism and delivered rearwardly to a baling chamber where it is rolled round upon itself into a bale. In one form of such a machine the baling chamber is defined by runs of side-by-side belts which move outwardly to enlarge the chamber so as to accommodate the bale as it grows in size. The belts are trained over rolls connected to a drive. A pair of rolls is sited at the top of the chamber and these rolls are carried by a swingable tension arm on either side of the machine enabling the two rolls to swing upwardly as the girth of the bale increases. Foreign bodies, particularly stones, can find their way between the belts and their associated rolls and then become trapped causing the belts to deviate from their required path over the rolls. As the baling chamber grows in size with the bale being formed, the angle of the belts trained over a roll will change, and this makes the problem more difficult to solve. One roll particularly exposed to stones which can cause poor belt tracking is that located at the lower forward part of the baling chamber, i. e. the lower front belt driving roll which is vulnerable both to stones falling onto it after passing through gaps between neighbouring belts arid to stones thrown up by a crop pick-up which is disposed immediately under it in the type of machine which is fed from the underside. A machine for forming cylindrical bales is known from EP-A-0 150 630. This document discloses a plurality of fingers mounted with their rearward ends on a transverse member, extending above a belt drive roll and located with their forward ends in spaces between neighboring belts in close proximity to a second roll being a starter roll. The space between neighboring fingers corresponds to the width of the belts and the forward ends of the fingers prevent wrapping of crop round the starter roll. The finger portions above the belt drive roll are spaced such that stones can find their way between the fingers and become trapped between the belts and the associated roll. The invention reduces the tendency of stones and other foreign bodies to be trapped between belts and an associated roll in a round baler. According to the invention a shield device comprises a nip bridging plate having a portion being parallel to the surface of the belts and a portion mounted so as to bridge the nip between one of the rolls and associated belts against ingress into the nip of foreign bodies. Desirably, the shield device comprises a support at either end of the roll disposed outwardly of the belts and the nip bridging plate attached between the supports. An embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings in which: Fig. 1 is a view from the left side of a machine for forming large cylindrical bales of hay showing the configuration of rolls and their associated belts; Fig. 2 shows in end view a lower front belt driving roll and its shield device against stones at the start of baling; Fig. 3 is a similar view to Fig. 2 but at almost the completion of baling; and Fig. 4 is a perspective of the shield device in Figs. 2 and 3. In Fig. 1, the baler includes a main frame 10 mounted on a pair of wheels 12. The main frame has an upright fore-and-aft extending wall 14 on either side connected by transverse beams (not shown). A draft tongue 16 is connected to a transverse beam at the front of the frame 10 and extends forwardly for attaching the baler to a tractor (also not shown) which draws the machine. A pluralility of lateral rolls extends over the width of the machine. One set of rolls 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 is journalled in the side walls 14, whilst another set consisting of rolls 30, 32, 34 is journalled in a swingable gate 36. There are also a pair of chamber restricting rolls 38, 40 and two belt take-up rolls 42, 44. Six rubber belts 46 are trained side-by-side over the rolls, with the exception of the roll 18 which acts as a stripper roll, to provide the configuration shown and they move in the direction indicated by arrows 48, the stripper roll 18 being driven anti-clockwise as viewed in Fig. 1. However, alternate belts only are trained over the lower foremost roll 22, whilst the remaining belts by-pass this roll, to provide a staggered array which is described in our EP-B-0 070 537. Upwardly extending runs 50, 52 of the belts 46 define a bale-forming chamber 54 the ends of which are provided by the side walls 14 and gate 36 and which has an inlet 56 for crop received from a pick-up 58 beneath it. In order to accommodate the increasing diameter of a growing bale core in the bale-forming chamber 54, the size of the chamber must also increase and a belt take-up and tensioning mechanism is provided at either side of the machine. These mechanisms include: a pair of rearwardly extending tension arms which are mounted rigidly at the forward end of the main frame 10 on a horizontal transverse shaft 60, providing a pivot connection for the arms, and of which the right hand arm 62 only is shown; the belt take-up roll 42 which is supported at either end at an intermediate location on the arms 62; and the pair of chamber restricting rolls 38, 40 supported at the free ends of the arms. The arms are biased in an anti-clockwise direction (in Fig. 2) by a pair of springs, one on either side of the main frame 10, of which only the right hand spring 64 is shown and only its arrangement will be described, the other being similar. The spring 64 is connected at its lower end by a cable 66 which runs over a pulley 68 to a lever portion 70 of the arm 62, the portion 70 being rigid with the pivot shaft 60, and at its upper end by a cable 72 via a pulley 74 to one arm of a bell crank 76 the other arm of which bears one end of the take-up roll 44. The free end of the lever portion 70 is pivotally connected at a point 78 to the piston rod of a piston and cylinder unit 80, loading the arm 62 , of which the cylinder is in turn pivotally connected to the frame 10 at a point 82, a similar arrangement being provided also on the left hand side of the machine. A further piston and cylinder unit 84 (on either side of the machine) is connected between pivot points 86, 88 on the gate 36 and main frame 10 for opening and closing the gate. In operation, crop lying in a windrow is lifted and conveyed to the baling chamber 54 where the oppositely moving runs 50, 52 of the belts 46, aided by the stripper roll 18, cause the crop to turn clockwise (as viewed in Fig. 1) to form a bale core of increasing size which eventually overcomes the tension in the belts 46 brought about by the tensioning mechanisms, and the two tensioning arms (e.g. arm 62) swing upwardly and thus the chamber 54 increases in size to accommodate as necessary the bale core as its diameter grows. During this process the entrainment angle of the belts 46 over some of the rolls changes as can be seen, for example, when comparing the line taken by the belts at the start in Fig. 2 over the roll 20 which is the lower front belt driving roll with the line they take toward the end of baling in Fig. 3 where they hug the roll 20 more completely. The roll 20 is particularly exposed to stones or other foreign bodies which may be picked up with the crop and fall through the gaps between the belts 46 onto it or even may be thrown up from the ground by the pick-up 58 and then fall against it. In both instances the stones can sometimes move with the roll surface into nip 90 formed between the belt run 48 and the roll 20. The nip 90 changes, of course, as baling progresses. If the stones become sandwiched between the belts 46 and the roll 20 they can cause the belts to be diverted from their normal path round the roll, and this poor tracking can result in the belts 46 fouling other parts of the machine and in other problems. In order to reduce these difficulties a shield device 92 (Fig. 4) is provided to bridge the changing nip 90 against ingress of the stones into the nip. The device 92 has a support plate 94 of plastics material at either end and a nip bridging plate which consists of an upper upright portion 96 and a lower portion 98 angled thereto and which is bolted between the support plates 94. The support plates 94 are aligned in the fore-and-aft direction of the machine and the bridging plate is transverse thereto. The support plates 94 are mounted directly on the roll 20 at either end thereof outwardly of the belts 46 and ride on the roll. The riding surfaces 100 of the plates 94 follow the surface of the roll 20 and extend somewhat beyond the diameter of the cross section of the roll so that they can be snap fitted on it. The portion 96 then will lie in abutting contact with the surface of the belt run 48 advancing to the nip 90 whilst the portion 98 will bridge the nip 90. This is the natural position of the shield device 92 which it will tend to maintain due to the rotation of the roll 20. To ensure that the support plates 94 do not become detached from the roll 20 they are also each held on the roll by a cam in the form of a bearing 102 on a shaft 104 mounted on the side walls 14. The bearing 102 is spring loaded into contact with a radiused guide upper surface 106 of the associated plate 94, the guide surface being coaxial with the roll 20. It will readily be seen from Figs. 2 and 3 that the shield device 92 constantly accommodates the changing nip 90 because the belt run 48 pushes the shield device clockwise, as the bale chamber 54 expands, against the tendency of the rotating roll 20 to carry the shield device 92 with it in an anti-clockwise direction. It will also be noticed from Figs. 2 and 3 that the lower portion 98 of the nip bridging plate offers a forward running downhill slope to any stone appproaching the nip 90, whether at the beginning of baling when the slope is slight or at the end when the slope is significant. Thus any stone will slide down the portion 98 to the forward side of the roll 20 where it can find its way harmlessly between the belts 46 to drop to the ground.

Claims: A machine for forming cylindrical bales of crop having a baling chamber (54) defined by belts (46) which can move to roll the crop into a bale, rolls (20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34) over which the belts (46) are trained and with which the belts (46) form nips (90) as the belts (46) move thereover characterised in that a shield device (92) comprises a nip bridging plate (96,98) having a portion (96) being parallel to the surface of the belts (46) and a portion (98) mounted so as to bridge the nip (90) between one of the rolls (20) and associated belts (46) against ingress into the nip (90) of foreign bodies. A machine according to claim 1 characterised in that the shield device (92) comprises a support (94) at either end of the roll (20) disposed outwardly of the belts (46) and the nip bridging plate (96, 98) attached between the supports (94). A machine according to claim 2 characterised in that the supports (94) are mounted directly on the roll (20) to ride on it, the roll (20) being rotatable with respect to the supports (94), so that the plate (96, 98) tends to be maintained in contact with the belts (46) by the rotating roll (20). A machine according to claim 3 characterised in that the riding surfaces (100) of the supports (94) extend somewhat beyond the diameter of the cross section of the roll (20) so that they can be mounted thereon by snap fitting. A machine according to claim 3 or 4 characterised in that the supports are low friction wear resistant plates (94) of a plastics material or of oiled wood. A machine according to any of claims 3 to 5 characterised in that each support (94) has a radiused guide surface (106) outward of the roll (20) which surface (106) is coaxial with the roll (20), and a cam (102) is mounted on the associated side of the machine to bear against the guide surface (106) so as to maintain the support (94) on the roll (20). A machine according to claim 1 characterised in that the shield device (92) is mounted so as to accommodate change in size of the nip (90) during baling. A shield device for fitment to a machine for forming cylindrical bales of crop characterised in that the device (92) has the features of a shield device (92) comprising a nip bridging plate (96,98) having a portion (96) capable of being mounted parallel to the surface of the bale forming belts (46) of said machine and a portion (98) capable of being mounted so as to bridge the nip (90) between one of said rolls of said machine and associated belts (46) against ingress into the nip (90) of foreign bodies.

Inventors: ANSTEY, HENRY DENNIS, PFRIMMER, ERNEST, ROTH, ARSENE, VIAUD, JEAN, Roth, Arsène
Applicants: DEERE & COMPANY
Application year: 1990
Main classification: A01F15
IPC codes: A01F15