WIDE CUT HARVESTER HAVING ROTARY CUTTER BED

摘要

A harvester (10) which uses a rotary style cutter bed (30) has a series of rotary cutters (32a-32j) extending across the path of travel of the machine and rotatable about individual upright axis. Part of the cutter bed (30) is a flat gear case (34) containing a train of intermeshed spur gears (35) that serve to distribute power between the cutters above the gear train. Each end of the gear case (34) has a hollow, gearless extension welded thereto which supports at least one additional outboard cutter that receives its driving power exteriorally of the gear case (34). One embodiment uses a mechanical drive to bring power to the upright shaft of the cutter having the first spur gear so that the cutters with gears receive all their power from the driven cutter. The outboard cutters not having gears are driven by exterior, over-the-top drive mechanism coupled with the shafts of the first and last geared cutters, such drive mechanism alternatively taking the form of timing belts (120).