Abstract In a mobile machine for forming cylindrical bales, a mat of crop material is picked up from the ground and fed to a baling chamber defined by the generally horizontal upper run of a lower endless belt conveyor and the internal envelope of a plurality of rollers carrying an upper conveyor and disposed immediately above it. The upper conveyor comprises a plurality of elastic endless belts stretched around the rollers and includes a lower run which, at the inception of bale formation, spans the baling chamber between a pair of lower rollers immediately above the chamber floor. The upper and lower conveyors are driven in opposite directions so that as the mat of crop material is fed into the baling chamber, it is rolled, spiral-like, into a cylindrical bale. As the bale increases in diameter, the belts of the upper conveyor, engaging the bale periphery, extend elastically to provide the increase of belt length required to accommodate the bale in the chamber.
In a mobile machine for forming large cylindrical bales of crop material including means for delivering a mat of crop material to a baling zone, the combination therewith of an improved bale-forming endless conveyor trained around a plurality of rollers and having a yieldable moving bale-engaging run spanning the baling zone and engageable with the mat or crop material for rolling the crop material into a generally cylindrical bale, said bale-engaging run substantially engaging the bale periphery and yielding to accommodate a growing bale during its formation, said yielding requiring that the effective length of the conveyor when engaging a fully formed bale be at least ten percent greater than the effective length at the inception of the formation of the bale and said conveyor comprising at least one endless elastic belt stretchable in length to provide said yielding.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
139 words
In a mobile machine for forming large cylindrical bales of crop material including means for delivering a mat of crop material to a baling zone, the combination therewith of an improved bale-forming endless conveyor trained around a plurality of rollers and having a yieldable moving bale-engaging run spanning the baling zone and engageable with the mat or crop material for rolling the crop material into a generally cylindrical bale, said bale-engaging run substantially engaging the bale periphery and yielding to accommodate a growing bale during its formation, said yielding requiring that the effective length of the conveyor when engaging a fully formed bale be at least ten percent greater than the effective length at the inception of the formation of the bale and said conveyor comprising at least one endless elastic belt stretchable in length to provide said yielding.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
38 words
The invention defined in claim 1 wherein the machine includes a lower conveyor having a substantially horizontal upper run disposed below the bale-engaging run of the bale-forming conveyor so as to form a floor for the baling zone.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
17 words
The invention defined in claim 1 wherein the endless conveyor includes a plurality of side-by-side elastic belts.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
39 words
The invention defined in claim 1 wherein the stretched length of the elastic belt when engaging a fully formed bale in the baling zone is approximately twice that of the belt at the inception of formation of a bale.