JP2808361B2 - Lawn mower - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION A. Object of the Invention (1) Industrial Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a lawn mower in which turf cut by a cutter deck is compressed and stored in a glass bag. The present invention relates to a lawn mower provided with a fullness detecting means for detecting the fullness of grass in a bag.

(2) Prior Art Conventionally, a lawn mower described in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 63-50531 is known. This lawn mower is provided with a spiral that is connected to an engine and is driven to rotate at the top of a glass bag that stores the cut grass, and increases the amount of storage by compressing the grass in the glass bag with this spiral. . When the grass in the glass bag becomes full and the reaction force received by the spiral from the grass exceeds a predetermined value, the fullness detecting means is activated to stop driving the spiral.

Also, the lawn mower described in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 61-188422 has a rotating member provided on the upper part of a glass bag and driven by a motor, and the rotating member receives the rotating member by a reaction force received from the turf. It is configured to detect a full state and issue an alarm.

(3) Problems to be Solved by the Invention In the former lawnmower, the rotation of the spiral is stopped when the grass in the glass bag becomes full, but the rotation of the spiral is stopped unless the engine for driving the cutter deck is stopped. Since the cutter deck continues to rotate, the cut grass is continuously supplied into the glass bag and overflows from the glass bag, or a problem such as clogging of the grass in the shooter from the cutter deck to the glass bag occurs. . In order to prevent such problems beforehand, in the former lawn mower, when the inside of the glass bag is filled with turf, a warning device such as an alarm buzzer or a lamp is used to warn the driver once. Depending on the driving noise and the amount of sunlight, it may be difficult for the operator to notice the warning, and if the notice is delayed, the above-described problem cannot be avoided. Furthermore, if the cutter deck is rotating when the bag is opened to discard the turf stored in the glass bag, a large amount of turf will jump out simultaneously with the opening of the bag. (Therefore, the operation of stopping and restarting the cutter deck one by one is required specially, which is troublesome.

On the other hand, when the operator does not notice the alarm or forgets to stop the cutter deck due to carelessness, the latter lawn mower similarly overflows the grass from the glass bag or goes from the cutter deck to the grass bag. There is a possibility that troubles such as clogging of grass in the shooter may occur.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and can reliably prevent the grass from overflowing from a full glass bag or clogging the inside of the shooter with grass, and take out the grass from the inside of the glass bag. Whenever the engine,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a lawn mower that can save the trouble of stopping and restarting.

B. Configuration of the Invention (1) Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a lawn mowing cutter deck driven by an engine, and a grass for storing grass cut with the cutter deck. A bag, a compression mechanism for compressing the grass stored in the glass bag,
A lawn mower provided with a fullness detecting means for detecting the fullness of the grass stored in the glass bag, provided in a transmission path between the engine and the cutter deck, usually connecting between them, and A first feature is that a clutch is provided which disconnects in response to detection of the fullness by the detection means, and a compression mechanism drive stop means for stopping the drive of the compression mechanism when the fullness detection means detects the fullness. And

Further, according to the present invention, in addition to the first feature, the compression mechanism is driven by an eccentric cam mechanism that converts the rotation of the axle into a reciprocating motion, and a Bowden wire that transmits an output of the eccentric cam mechanism. Is a second feature.

(2) Operation According to the first feature of the present invention having the above-described configuration, the grass cut by the cutter deck driven by the engine and supplied to the glass bag is stored in the glass bag. Is increased by the compression mechanism to increase the pressure. When the fullness detecting means detects that the grass in the glass bag is full, the clutch cuts off the transmission path between the engine and the cutter deck and stops driving the cutter deck, thereby causing the grass to the grass bag. Is automatically stopped, which ensures that the turf does not overflow from the glass bag or that the turf exit path between the cutter deck and the glass bag is jammed with turf. Also, since the cutter deck is stopped when removing grass from the glass bag, there is no danger that a large amount of grass will jump out when the bag is opened, so the engine must be stopped or restarted one by one. It is possible to save time and effort to perform the work quickly and accurately.

In addition, since the drive of the cutter deck is stopped by the operation of the full detection means and the supply of turf is stopped, the driving of the compression mechanism is stopped at the same time, so that excessive load is applied to the compression mechanism by the turf inside the glass bag. Is done.

Further, according to the second feature of the present invention, when the axle rotates due to the traveling of the lawn mower, the rotational motion of the axle is converted into reciprocating motion by the eccentric cam mechanism provided on the axle, and the reciprocating motion is performed via the Bowden wire. And transmitted to the pressure type mechanism. Thereby, the structure of the drive system of the compression mechanism can be simplified.

(3) Example Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

1 to 4 show an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view of the lawn mower, and FIG. 2 is II- in FIG.
FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along the line III-III of FIG. 1, FIG.
The figure is an electric circuit diagram of the cutter deck drive stopping means and the compression mechanism drive stopping means.

As shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the lawn mower is a four-wheel riding lawn mower, and includes left and right front wheels Wf driven by an engine E mounted on a front portion of a vehicle body and left and right driven wheels as driven wheels. And the rear wheel Wr. A cutter deck 1 driven by the engine E is provided at a lower center portion of the vehicle body, and a glass bag 2 for storing turf cut by the cutter deck 1 is provided at a rear portion of the vehicle body.

3, the cutter deck 1 includes a cutter housing 3 having a substantially elliptical plan view with an open lower surface, and the cutter housing 3 has a left side supported via a bearing 4. A rotating shaft 5 and a right rotating shaft 8 supported via bearings 6 and 7 are provided vertically, and a pair of right and left cutter blades 9 and 10 for cutting grass are fixed to lower ends of the rotating shafts 5 and 8, respectively. Is done. A PTO shaft 12 driven via a hydraulic clutch 11 is disposed at the rear of the lower surface of the engine E. An endless belt 18 is wound between a pulley 13 provided on the PTO shaft 12 and a pulley 17 at an upper end of an intermediate shaft 16 supported on bearings 14 and 15 on the upper surface of the cutter housing 3. Two idler pulleys 19 and 20 for changing directions come into contact with the intermediate portion. An electromagnetic clutch 21 serving as a clutch for opening and closing the transmission path between the engine E and the cutter deck 1 is provided at the center of the intermediate shaft 16, and is provided on the opposite side of the pulley 17 with the electromagnetic clutch 21 interposed therebetween. The pulley 22 is connected to a pulley 23 provided at an upper end of the left rotary shaft 5 and a pulley 24 provided at an upper end of the right rotary shaft 8 by an endless belt 26 via an idler pulley 25. Further, a fan 27 is fixed to an intermediate portion of the right rotation shaft 8 and covers a lower surface thereof.
The blower outlet 28 is formed on the shooter 31 side, which will be described later, and the cutter housing 3 facing the upper surface of the fan 27 has a suction opening 30 formed therein.

The right end of the cutter housing 3 and the glass bag 2
It is connected by a shooter 31 arranged along the right side of the vehicle body to transport the cut grass. The blower 32 provided at the base end of the shooter 31 includes an impeller 35 fixed to the front end of an impeller shaft 34 extending inside the blower housing 33, and a pulley 36 provided at the base end of the impeller shaft 34 and the right rotation shaft. The endless belt 40 is connected to a pulley 37 provided at the upper end of the belt 8 via idler pulleys 38 and 39.

The glass bag 2 includes a hopper top 41 fixed to a rear portion of the vehicle body and connected to an end of the shooter 31, and a glass bag body 42 detachably attached to a lower portion of the hopper top 41. A compression mechanism 43 for compressing the cut grass in the interior of the glass bag 2 includes a press member 45 fixed to a rocking shaft 44 disposed in the front side of the hopper top 41 in the left-right direction. Is shooter 31
Is formed in a comb-teeth shape so as to allow the turf supplied from the glass bag to fall and efficiently compress the turf that has fallen into the glass bag body 42. On the other hand, the base end of the press member 45 is connected to the axle 49 of the front wheel Wf via a Bowden wire 48 composed of an outer tube 46 and an inner cable 47. That is, the front wheel Wf
The axle 49 is provided with an eccentric cam mechanism 52 including an eccentric cam 50 and a ring-shaped cam follower 51 that engages with the outer periphery of the axle cam. A driving member 53 connected to the cam follower 51 includes an axle
It reciprocates up and down by the rotation of 49. The drive member 53 is connected to one end of an inner cable 47 of the Bowden wire 48 via an electromagnetic clutch 54 as a compression mechanism drive stop unit, and the other end of the inner cable 47 is connected via a drive spring 55 having a large spring constant. It is connected to the press member 45. A return spring 57 having a small spring constant is provided between the bracket 56 provided on the hopper top 41 and the press member 45 so as to oppose the drive spring 55. And, in the middle part of the Bowden wire 48, the inner cable 47
And a hydraulic clutch 59 for interrupting the transmission of driving force from the axle 49 to the compression mechanism 43 by manual operation.

As shown in FIG. 4, the electromagnetic clutch 21 for controlling the driving of the cutter deck 1 and the electromagnetic clutch 54 for controlling the driving of the compression mechanism 43 are connected to a DC power supply 61 via a relay 60. The self-holding relay 62 connected to the relay 60 is connected to a normally-closed switch 63 that is operated by the fullness detecting means 58 for detecting the load of the compression mechanism 43.

Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention having the above-described configuration will be described.

To perform the lawn mowing operation while the lawnmower is running, first, the manually operated hydraulic clutch 11 is engaged, and the rotation of the PTO shaft 12 is transmitted to the intermediate shaft 16 of the cutter deck 1 via the endless belt 18. At this time, since the electromagnetic clutch 21 provided on the intermediate shaft 16 is in the engaged state (that is, the connected state), the rotation of the intermediate shaft 16 is transmitted to the left and right rotating shafts 5 and 8 via the endless belt 26,
The left and right cutter blades 9, 10 are rotationally driven. The turf cut by the cutter blades 9 and 10 is conveyed toward the base of the shooter 31 by the air sucked from the inlet 30 by the fan 27 provided on one of the rotating shafts 8 and jetted from the outlet 29. . Then, the turf reaching the base of the shooter 31 is conveyed toward the class bag 2 by the wind generated by the impeller 35 of the blower 32 connected to the rotating shaft 8 via the endless belt 40.

The turf supplied to the inside of the glass bag 2 gradually accumulates from the bottom surface of the glass bag body 42, and the upper end thereof approaches the press member 45 of the compression mechanism 43 soon. At this time, the front wheel Wf
The output obtained by converting the rotation of the axle 49 into a reciprocating motion by the eccentric cam mechanism 52 is transmitted to the Bowden wire 48 via the hydraulic clutch 59 which is manually engaged during the lawn mowing operation. And
When the inner cable 47 in the outer tube 46 of the Bowden wire 48 is pulled toward the eccentric cam mechanism 52, the driving force is transmitted from the inner cable 47 to the press member 45 via the drive spring 55, and the press member 45 is The turf in the glass bag 2 is swung clockwise, that is, in a direction to compress the grass. When the inner cable 47 is loosened, the press member 45 swings counterclockwise by the action of the return spring 57 and returns to the original position. In this way, the reciprocating swing of the press member 45 with the rotation of the axle 49 causes the turf in the glass bag 2 to be compressed downward and compacted, thereby increasing the storage amount. When the amount of turf stored in the glass back 2 gradually increases, the load received from the turf increases, and the movement of the press member 45 is regulated. Load is prevented from being applied.

When the grass in the glass bag 2 becomes full, the tension acting on the inner cable 47 when the inner cable 47 of the Bowden wire 48 is pulled rises above a predetermined value. Then, the full state detecting means 58 for detecting the tension of the inner cable 47 is operated, and the normally closed switch 63 in FIG. 4 is opened. As a result, the coil of the self-holding relay 62 is demagnetized and the contact is opened, so that the coil of the relay 60 is also demagnetized and the contact is opened, and the electromagnetic clutch 21 and the compression mechanism 43 that control the driving of the cutter deck 1 are driven. The electromagnetic clutches 54 to be controlled are both in the disengaged state (that is, the disconnected state). As a result, the connection between the intermediate shaft 16 and the rotating shafts 5, 8 is released, the rotation of the cutter blades 9, 10 is stopped, and the connection between the eccentric cam mechanism 52 and the Bowden wire 48 is cut off, so that the driving of the compression mechanism 43 is stopped. Stop. Thus, the inconvenience of continuously supplying the cut grass to the inside of the filled glass bag 2 is avoided, and the compression mechanism 43 is prevented from continuing unnecessary operation.

As described above, the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail. However, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various small design changes can be made without departing from the present invention described in the claims. It is possible.

For example, the fullness detecting means 58 in the embodiment detects the tension of the inner cable 47 of the Bowden wire 48 with a strain gauge, but a spring is interposed in the middle part of the inner cable 47, and the amount of extension of the spring is determined. It is also possible to configure the tension for detection. It is also possible to abolish the hydraulic clutch 11 and substitute its function with the electromagnetic clutch 21. Further, in the embodiment, the power for driving the compression mechanism 43 is taken out from the axle 49 of the front wheel Wf, but the driving force may be taken out from the axle of the rear wheel Wr.

C. Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, when the grass in the glass bag is full and the full detection means is activated, the clutch operates the transmission path between the engine and the cutter deck. By shutting off the cutter deck and stopping the drive of the cutter deck, the supply of turf to the glass bag can be automatically stopped. It is possible to reliably prevent overflow or the lawn carrying path between the cutter deck and the glass bag from being clogged with grass. When the grass is taken out of the glass bag, the cutter deck is in a stopped state, so there is no danger that a large amount of grass will fly out when the bag is opened. Can be omitted, the operation can be performed quickly and accurately, and the lawn mowing operation can be continued immediately after the grass is taken out.

In addition, when the drive of the cutter deck is stopped by the operation of the full detection means and the supply of turf is stopped, the driving of the compression mechanism is automatically stopped at the same time, so that an unnecessary load is applied to the compression mechanism. Is avoided and its durability is improved.

According to the second feature of the present invention, the driving force of the compression mechanism is extracted from the axle of the lawn mower by the eccentric cam mechanism, and the transmission of the driving force is performed by the Bowden wire. The structure is simplified and the weight can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

1 to 4 show one embodiment of the present invention.
The figure is a schematic plan view of the lawn mower, and FIG. 2 is II-II in FIG.
FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along line III-III of FIG. 1, and FIG. 4 is an electric circuit diagram of cutter deck drive stopping means and compression mechanism drive stopping means. E ... Engine, 1 ... Cutter deck, 2 ... Glass bag, 21 ... Electromagnetic clutch as clutch, 43 ...
Compression mechanism, 48 ... Bowden wire, 49 ... axle, 52 ...
Eccentric cam mechanism, 54: electromagnetic clutch (compression mechanism drive stopping means), 58: full detection means

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A cutter deck (1) for mowing driven by an engine (E), a glass bag (2) for storing turf cut by the cutter deck (1), and an inside of the glass bag (2). A lawn mower provided with a compression mechanism (43) for compressing turf stored in the grass bag (2) and a full detecting means (58) for detecting fullness of the turf stored in the glass bag (2); And a clutch (21) provided in a transmission path between the first and second cutter decks (1) for normally connecting between them, and disconnecting in response to the fullness detection means (58) detecting the fullness; A lawn mower comprising: a compression mechanism drive stopping means (54) for stopping the driving of the compression mechanism (43) when the full detection means (58) detects the full state. 2. An eccentric cam mechanism (52) for converting the rotation of an axle (49) into reciprocating motion, and a Bowden wire (48) for transmitting the output of the eccentric cam mechanism (52).
The lawn mower according to claim 1, wherein the mower is driven by: