Improvements to travelling irrigators for water and effluent applications

摘要

Linear traveling sprinkler systems usually consist of a wheeled cart with a large sprinkler, a winch drum and an irrigation hose. The traveling sprinkler system here is a self propelled irrigator (1) supplied with a flexible irrigation hose (7). It also has a winch drum (5) driven by a rotating spray boom (3) to wind up an anchored cable and draw the irrigator toward the anchor point. A gear train connecting the winch drum and boom includes a driven gear (14) fixed to the winch drum and a drive gear (12) fixed to the boom, both connected by an idler gear assembly (13). The winch drum is axially movable to disconnect it from the gear train at the end of its travel and for freewheeling. The winch drum may be in two sections having different diameters, preferably of conical section to provide increased torque as the hose drag increases.