Patent GB-345852-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in machines for planting potatoes and the like
IPC: A01C9/02
Filed: 1930-04-24
Abstract: 345,852. Planting - machines. INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO. OF GREAT BRITAIN, Ltd., 259, City Road, London.-(International Harvester Co.; 606, South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, U.S.A.) April 24, 1930, No. 12663. [Class 6 (i).] In a machine for planting potatoes &c., of the type in which the potatoes &c. are conveyed from a hopper and deposited in a planting-shoot by cups, spikes, or like holders attached to a travelling band or chain, a testing-appliance travelling in a path at the side of the track of the cups or holders is brought into association with each cup, after it has left the hopper, to determine whether it is empty or not, and, if empty, to operate mechanism for effecting the delivery of a potato from a supplementary hopper and planting it in its proper sequence. The machine is mounted on wheels 2, 4 and carries a pivotally mounted furrow-opening share 5 and concave seed-covering discs 6. The share 5 and discs may be raised and lowered by means of a lever 8. The main hopper 11 slopes towards a funnel-like extension 21 and the planting- shoot 14 passes through it. The cup-carrying chain 19 passes round sprocket wheels 15, 16, the latter of which is driven from one of the wheels 2 through chain gearing and a clutch on a countershaft 26. The clutch is thrown in or out of action by the movement of the lifting-lever 8. The chain 19 passes upwards through the hopper 11 and its extension 21 and downwards through the shoot 14. The circular supplementary hopper 22 is supported from the top of the shoot 14 and has within it radial vanes carried by a ring 33 secured to a shaft 34. Ratchet mechanism turns this shaft 34 through part of a revolution when an empty cup 20 passes over the sprocket wheel 15. This movement causes one of the potatoes placed in the compartment between the vanes 32 to be delivered through a hole 35 in the hopper 22 into the planting-shoot 14. The ratchet mechanism is actuated by the engagement with a projection 58 of one end 52 of spring- controlled pivoted testing-fingers mounted on a bracket 49 secured on the shaft 48 of the sprocket wheel 15. The projection 58 is on a loosely mounted lever 46 connected by a rod 45 with a lever 36 carrying a spring pawl 43 engaging with recesses 38 in a ratchet wheel or plate 37, the number of recesses corresponding to the number of compartments in the hopper 22. A spring 57 returns the rod 45 and lever 46 to normal position when the finger end 52 leaves the projection 58, a pawl 40 limiting the backward movement of the lever 36. The pawl 40 also engages cam teeth on the face of the plate 37 and prevents backward movement of that plate. The long ends 51 of the testing fingers press on a curved cam bar 56 as they are carried round with the bracket 49. As a cup 20 arrives opposite the end of the cam bar 56 a finger 51 slides off the bar and moves under spring control towards the cup and then travels with it until engaged by the other end of the cam bar. If the cup 20 is empty the finger moves so that its end 52 engages the projection 58 and actuates the ratchet mechanism for discharging a potato from the subsidiary hopper 22. If there is a potato in the cup 20 it holds the finger in such a position that the end 52 misses the projection 58. A modification to the supplementary hopper may comprise a carrier or transporter arrangement operated by pawl and ratchet mechanism for conveying potatoes to the shoot.