Air seeder distributor

[54] AIR SEEDER DISTRIBUTOR

[76] Inventors: Albert K. Fuss, 1 Jellicoe St.; Eric W.

Fuss, 3 Heller St.; Jarvls R. Fuss, 143
Tourist Rd.; Roy M. Fuss, 21 Leslie
St., all of Toowoomba, Queensland,
Australia, 4350

[21] Appl. No.: 450,733

[22] Filed: Dec. 17,1982

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data

Nov. 9, 1982 [AU] Australia PF6709

[51] Int. CI.3 A01C 15/04

[52] U.S. CI 239/654; 239/689

[58] Field of Search 239/654, 655, 689;

406/70, 109, 155, 162, 181

[56] References Cited

FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

424836 2/1969 Australia .

Primary Examiner—John J. Love
Assistant Examiner—James R. Moon, Jr.
Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Wm. T. Wofford; James C.
Fails; Arthur F. Zobal

[57] ABSTRACT

For an agricultural implement a distributor for feeding seed and/or fertilizer from an air duct to a series of distributor tubes leading to planter units in which the air-entrained seed and/or fertilizer is separated in the distributor to pass some air continuously to the distributor tubes and the remaining air and the seed and/or fertilizer is directed by a rotating deflector to flow sequentially into the series of distributor tubes.

4 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures

AIR SEEDER DISTRIBUTOR

This invention relates to an air seeder distributor and in particular it relates to a distributor designed to give 5 uniform distribution of seed to a number of air seeder tubes leading to planting means.

It is already well known to distribute seed by blowing the seed from a distributor head through a number of tubes to the different distribution points on the seeder, 10 and with the growth of machines of this type it has become customary to use a number of distributor points on a wide span machine fed from a common metering device.

A method of distribution to the individual seed tubes, 15 commonly in use, is to have a cone or distributor which is designed to spread a stream of seed and/or fertiliser uniformly into a series of tubes leading from such a distributor head, but problems exist with this type of apparatus in that unequal distribution can take place if 20 the distributor deflector, which as said may be of conical form, is not correctly centred, or the machine operates on ground which is not horizontal, and this defect applies to most of the devices which depend purely on static means to either distribute the seed by deflection 25 from a cone or the like or by bounce from special surfaces. To overcome this problem we proposed a distributor head having mechanical deflection means driven to feed the seed sequentially to the various tubes, and reference may be had to our Australian Letters Patent 30 No. 239,965 which utilized a rotating distributor into which the seed and/or fertiliser was fed and which then sequentially directed the seed to the radially arranged distributor tubes leaving the head.

According to another Australian Letters Patent of 35 ours, No. 236,128, the device comprised a distributor head with the usual radial outlets thereto leading to the tubes and incorporating blower means rotating axially within the distributor, and the seed and/or fertiliser was fed to the blower means by an offset tube which was 40 designed to effect radial distribution around the axis of the distributor head to get as nearly as possible uniform distribution sequentially to the various outlets.

These distributors were successfully used and followed an earlier distributor of ours, which was Austra- 45 lian Letters Patent No. 424,836, and which also used a series of distributor outlet tubes radially arranged around the periphery of a distributor drum and seed and/or fertiliser, was fed to each of the outlets sequentially by a rotating member on a driven shaft coaxial 50 with the drum, this rotating member being designed to cause pulsing in the delivery tube by having wings on each side of its outlet to cover adjacent outlets as delivery of seed and/or fertiliser was taking place to any particular outlet, and that device also successfully dis- 55 tributed seed and/or fertiliser to a multiplicity of tubes around the periphery of the distributor.

The object of the present invention however is to provide yet further improvements to the distribution mechanism, and the invention can be summed up as a 60 seed and/or fertiliser distributor for air seeders of the type having an air duct carrying seed and/or fertiliser through the duct to discharge same on to a revolving distributor member coaxial within a distributor drum which has a series of radial outlets around its periphery 65 adapted to be joined to distributor tubes leading to planter units, but is characterised by means between the air duct and the distributor member to separate the seed

and/or the fertiliser and some of the air from the remaining air and to direct the separated air and the seed and/or fertiliser to the deflector member for sequential direction to the outlets but to direct the remaining air to each of the outlets to maintain a continuous air-flow through the outlets.

The invention preferably comprises a special arrangement of the air feed to the various peripheral outlets to the distributor tubes in association with a driven deflector member positioned on a shaft coaxial with the distributor drum and having the seed and/or fertiliser directed onto it by a truncated conical guide having its lower end of lesser diameter than its upper end, and itself arranged within a cylindrical housing which has a coaxial inlet adjacent to the larger diameter opening of the conical guide shaped to form a nozzle which directs seed and/or fertiliser into the conical guide to discharge it onto the rotating deflector member which is positioned to direct the seed towards the outlet tubes mainly to the outlet tube opposite to the inclined deflector member but spreading seed also somewhat into the part of the distributor member forward of the deflector member, the aforesaid nozzle terminating near and coaxially with the conical guide at its larger end so that air flow can take place through a space between the nozzle and the conical guide into and downwards in the cylindrical housing and to the distributor outlets of the nozzles surrounding the lower part of the cylindrical housing.

In this way seed and/or fertiliser is carried by the air to the top of the cylindrical housing and air is directed by the nozzle down into the conical guide but because the conical guide has a smaller restrictive lower end adjacent to the rotating deflector member, air is also forced through the space between the nozzle and the conical guide to flow downwardly in the cylindrical housing and thus to the outlet tubes which surround radially the distributor drum at the lower part of the cylindrical housing.

In order that the invention will be fully understood, an embodiment thereof will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a transverse section of the invention showing by arrows the air-flow direction and by circles the flow path of the seed and/or fertiliser,

FIG. 2 is a transverse section of same on line 2—2 of FIG. 1, and

FIG. 3 shows particularly a drive variation of that shown in FIG. 1.

The seed and/or fertiliser is fed through an air line from an air supply and seed and/or fertiliser supply to the duct 1 which as shown curves to join to the top of a cylindrical housing 3 which has at its lower end a distributor drum 4 having a series of peripheral outlets 5 which in use connect to distributor tubes each connected to a seeder unit of the implement in a wellknown manner.

The duct 1 terminates in a nozzle 6 coaxially disposed in the upper part of the cylindrical housing to discharge seed and/or fertiliser, carried by pressure air, generally axially down the cylindrical housing 3 as shown by the arrows and small circles.

Coaxial with the nozzle 6, disposed coaxially within the cylindrical housing 3 is a separator guide 7 of truncated conical form which has its upper end 8 larger than and spaced from the nozzle 3 so that a space 9 is formed through which air can flow to pass downwardly between the separator guide 7 and the cylindrical housing