AU608940B2 - Improvements in thresher concaves - Google Patents

Description

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1 COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Form Patents Act 1952-1969 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION

(ORIGINAL)

FOR OFFICE USE:0 Class Int. Class Application Number Lodged Complete Application No.

Specification Lodged Published 9 I S l~riority:

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00 elated art:

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5 S *5 S Oe *4 [Onit!; ILI rei- Is rn.de r sc.tion an:d is Cri c f1;r "Name of Applicant: o Address of Applicant: Actual Inventor: s Address for Service: TO BE COMPLETED BY APPLICANT HORWOOD BAGSH-AW IMhITED RECEIVERS AND MANAGERS APPOINTED 14 Adelaide Road, MANNUM, State of South Australia 5238 HEDLEY ALFRED BRETAG and JEFFREY ROBERT LAMBERT Care of COLLISON CO.

117 King William~ Street, ADELAIDE S.A. 5000 Complete Specification for the Invention entitled: IM1PROVEMENTS IN THRESHER~ CONCAVEJS The following statement Is a full description of this Invention, Including the best method of performing It known toTRL--us A001Oi11 Z/01 /8E9 DESIGNS SUB-OFFICE SOUTH AUSTRALiA To: THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS t w ,rATION ACCEPTED AND AMENDMENTS SSIXTY DOLLARS ALLO W ED tc 2 This invention relates to improvements in harvesting of crops by the use of combine harvesters and in particular to threshers included with such harvesters.

To maintain flexibility in agricultural production many farmers plant more than one type of grain or seed crop in a particular year and hence have a requirement for a harvesting machine which will harvest a wide range of crops. For this purpose harvesters are available with a variety of front assemblies which can be 1 0 easily interchanged but there has been little provision made for easy interchanging of internal features of the thresher portions in combine harvesters.

4 I It has been possible in the past to remove a thresher concave for instance and place a concave with a different size grating so that S. a harvester may be changed from a wheat harvester to a bean harvester or similar. Replacement of such concaves however has taken several hours or more and if several crops are to be harvested in a day, this is clearly impractical.

00.0 0 There has been proposed therefore grate strips to be positioned between the check bars on a thresher concave but the particular mounting proposed in the past for such grate strips has made replacement still a relatively slow business. Such an arrangement is shown in US Patent No. 2,159,664.

S 44 :6 Besides the range of seed sizes which a haivester may be required to harvest with different types of crops, a furtheproblem exists with the amount of trash which is harvested with the seed. For instance with wheat, seed makes up about 40% of the harvested material with trash making up the other 60%. With beans however only about 20% of the bulk of the harvested material is seeds and 80% is trash. This means that the power requirement to run the same thresher concave is very much greater with the bean seed and there is a greater probability of blocking of the thresher concave by the trash.

The present invention is therefore directed to improvements in _r of devI~rantI%) otlher wiIIsk req uIred TO: The Commissioner of Patents Now=~-- 3 thresher concaves which will enable easy changing from one type of grain harvesting to another to provide Optimum harvesting and also to changes in the effective length of the thresher concave to optimise harvesting for different types of crops.

In one form therefore the invention is said to reside in a thresher concave including a plurality of longitudinal check bars on a fixed concave and 1 0 removable grate strips between the check bars, characterised by the grate strips being supported between the check bars on shoulders on the sides of the check bars extending the full length of the check bars and retained by retaining means on the sides of the check bars above the level of the grate strips to prevent the grate strips from lifting up and jamming into a thresher 1 5 drum.

:Coo,: These shoulders provide a double advantage. First they provide very good o support for the grato strips so that a grate strip may be slid easily In from one 0 000 side of the concave and will be fully supported In the concave and therefore 0 "000o20 little more support Is required for the grate strips and secondly the problem of 000 11spearing" Is overcome.

00 0: Spearing Is the build up of stalks and other trash in any crack in a concave in a harvester or similar device. Such a crack In the past has existed between a 2 5 grate strip and the check bars and hence a mat of stalks can extend across the 006 00 0 o grate strips or the like destroying the efficiency of the thresher concave.

8000 0 00 0 0 0 By providing a full length shoulder upon which the grate strip rests, the problem of spearing is greatly reduced because a stalk of wheat for Instance 3 0 cannot lodge Into the crack because the shoulder prevents It travelling too far In. If by some means a stalk does extend In then the grate strip will co-act with 0000 6000 the shoulder against the stalk and cut the stalk and so that it will not stay In that 0 00 a: pos,"tion and not destroy the efficiency of the harvester.

In one preferred embodiment of the invention there may oe pins as the retaining means extending from the sides of the check bars above the level of the grate strips to prevent the grate strips from lifting up and jamming into the thresher drum.

4 The shoulders and retaining means may be alternatively provided by means of a groove down the full length of the sides of the check bars Into which groove the side edges of the grate strip may be slid to support it between the check bars.

To overcome the problem discussed earlier of overloading of the thresher concave there may be further provided a removable portion of the conave which may remove by perhaps 10, 20 or 30% the length of the conk e therefore reducing the power requirement of the concave to drive the thresher drum over the concave. As discussed earlier, such a reduction in power requirement may be useful where crops with a greater proportion trash are to be harvested.

0:40 Such a removable portion of the concave may have in the same manner as 00 0 discussed above, grate strips supported on full length shoulders on the sides 00 0 of check bars incorporated with the removable portion.

00 2000 Teresin mayio be furte proided meransee to olt the removable portion to 0 0 0 0 There may be provided some means of fastening the grate strips into the concave in both the fixed portion and the removable portion or by means of a 00000: door at the end of a thresher box in which the thresher concave is mounted, the grate strips may be prevented from moving laterally in their positions by 0 engagement with the door.

Alternatively the invention may comprise a combine harvester including a thresher concave as described above.

0000 0:006: This then generally describes the present invention but to assist with a understanding of the Invention reference will now be made to the accompany~ing drawings which show a preferred -1 i~L__ embodiment of the invention.

Now looking at the drawings:- FIG. 1 shows a side view of a thresher concave according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a removable portion of thresher concave suitable for use with the concave shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 shows a plane view of a portion of a thresher concave showing how the shoulders support the grate strip.

0 0 FIG. 4 shows a perspective part view of the thresher concave of 00 0 oo15 one embodiment of the invention.

o 0 S FIG. 5 shows a support arrangement for a removable portion of a thresher concave.

20 FIG. 6 shows an alternative method of supporting the removable grate strips, ana FIG. 7 shows various arrangements of grate strip for different crop harvesting.

0 0 Now looking more closely at the drawings and in particular FIGS.

1 to 4 it will be seen that the thresher concave includes an arcuate side rib 1 and a plurality of check bars 2 extending from the internal concave side of the rib 1. Each of the check bars 2 extends above the surface of the rib 1. The check bars act as 'the surfaces upon which t[hreshing of grain or seed from its surrounding vegetable matter occurs. Plates 3 are welded to each side of the ribs 1 to provide on an uLpper edge shoulders 4 upon which a grate strip 5 is supported. The grate strips 5 include a plurality of apertures 7 as can best be seen in Fig. 3 through threshed grain or seed can pass but through which the surrounding vegetable matter cannot pass. The sizing of the i, ~I~III~L LIP- lllli I apertures 7 will be discussed in more detail in reference to Fig.

7.

As can be particularly seen in FIG. 3 the shoulders 4 extend all the way along the length of the check bar 2. Pins 6 extend through the check bars 2 over the top of the grate strips 5 to prevent the grate strips 5 from coming out of between the check bars 2.

1 0 It will be particularly noted that by this invention because the grate strips can be easily removed as necessary optimal 0 harvesting for a crop can be done by easy interchanging of the 0 0 o grate strips and it is estimated that perhaps only 5 to a minutes may be required to change grate strips and hence o: -o-4 5 improve the efficiency of harvesting for a particular crop. This .0 0 may become necessary because crops dry out at different times 00 0 o :0 during the day and it may be desirable to start the day harvesting beans and continue later in the day with barley or wheat after the crop has dried sufficiently for this purpose.

'o"u 0000 %0 0 g 0 0 O 00 0 0 0 0 a 0,° Now looking back at FIGS. 1 2 and 5, it will be seen that the thresher concave 1 includes an extension portion 10 at a trailing extremity of the thresher concave in use. The extension portion includes a side plate 11 which is bolted to the end of the thresher concave rib 1 and which has on its inside edges bars 12 and 13 defining a groove 14 between them and into which a rail 15 on a removable portion of the concave 16 as shown in FIG. 2 may be slid.

This removable portion 16 includes ribs 17, check bars 18 and grate strips 19 as in the fixed concave portion. Roll pins 20 are provided to prevent the grate strips 19 from falling out of position.

The whole assembly 16 may be easily slid In and out depending upon the performance requirements for particular harvesting and it may be bolted in to ihe bracket 11 to change the power requirements of a thr0esher concave for different types of 7 harvesting. A shorter thresher concave is useful where there is a greater proportion of vegetable trash in the harvested material which may tend to clog up a longer concave.

Fig 6 shows an alternative embodiment of check bar construction.

In this embodiment the check bars 31 extending from the arcuate rib 30 have elongate channels or grooves 32 along their sides.

These grooves 32 receive the edges 33 of the grate strips 34.

The continuous grooves 33 or the shoulders 4 as in the last embodiment prevent the problem of spearing of stalks of vegetable matter being caught over the edge of the grate strips and forming a mat over the grate strips and thereby preventing efficient separation of grain and stalks. The working of the grate 4',1 5 strips in the grooves or on the shoulders will also serve to sever any stalks that do become engaged over the edge of the grate o0 strips.

In FIG. 7 there can be seen a variety of shapes of grate strips 0444 ~20 depending upon crops to be harvested.

FIG. 7A shows a grate strip having a very small aperture for wheat or clover or other small seed.

FIG. 7B shows a slightly larger aperture which may be used for o a bo harvesting such crops such as barley or oats.

FIG 7C shows a larger aperture in the grate strip which may be used for harvesting peas or lupins or other seed crops of about that size. The largest size FIG. 7D may be used for harvesting beans and other large seed crops such as sunflower.

In a preferred embodiment, aperture sizes for the thresher concave grate strips may be 7 millimetres, 10 millimetres, 14 millimetres and 25 millimetres, although other sizes may be used for optimisation of crop harvesting.

I

Claims (11)

1. A thresher concave including a plurality of longitudinal check bars on a fixed concave and removable grate strips between the check bars, characterised by the grate strips being supported between the check bars on shoulders on the sides of the check bars extending the full length of the check bars and retained by retaining means on the sides of the check bars above the 1 0 level of the grate strips to prevent the grate strips from lifting up and jamming into a thresher drum.

2. A thresher concave as in claim 1 wherein the retaining means comprise pins extending from the sides of the check bars. ":ooo

3. A thresher concave as in claim 1 wherein the retaining means and shoulders are provided by means of a groove down the full length of the sides "o of the check bars into which groove the side edges of the grate strips may be S°0o° slid to support and retain the grate strips between the check bars. 0 S:°o°o

4. A thresher concave as in claim 1 further including a removable portion 00°°o of the concave which may alter the arcuate length of the concave by between to 30% of the' length of the concave, t',erefore reducing the power requirement of the concave to drive the thresher drum over the concave.

5. A thresher concave as in claim 4 wherein the removable portion of the O0:°0 concave has grate strips supported on full length shoulders on the sides of check bars incorporated with the removable portion and retained by retaining 0"o means on the sides of the check bars. o

6. A thresher concave as in claim 4 or 5 wherein there is provided means eoeo O to bolt the removable portion onto the fixed portion. o

7. A thresher concave as in claim 4 or 5 wherein there is provided a slide arrangement to enable the removable portion to slide into a nradle on part of the fixed concave. ILU-I I I-c~ I

8. A thresher concave as in any one preceding claim further including means to hold the grate strips in the concave in both the fixed portion and the removable portion of the concave.

9. A thresher concave as in claim 8 wherein the means to hold the grate strips in the concave is a door at the end of a thresher box in which the thresher concave is mounted whereby the grate strips may be prevented from 1 0 moving laterally in their positions by engagement with the door.

A combine harvester including a thresher concave as defined in any one preceding claim. a o o 4 00 0 0 f 0 00 00 0 0 00 00 do

11. A thresher concave substantially as hereinbefore described wit:, reference to and as illustrated by the accompanying drawings. n DATED this 14th day of January 1991. 00 ~0 HORWOOD BAGSHAW LIMITED, By their Patent Attorneys, COLLISON CO. j 0. 11 a 0\ 0 I 809 4 4 iir t-> VI 1 1- -l9 00l0 1 11-