The Geiger Lund Selective Asparagus Harvester
Custom built asparagus harvesters for sale.
PICKUP SYSTEM
The spear pickups consist of parallel counter-rotating shafts covered with small rubber fingers. Each shaft is supported by two sealed ball bearings. Spears that come into contact with the rotating fingers are guided into the space between the rollers where they are gripped by the fingers which gently pull up on the spears. Once cut, the spear is gently lifted and sent to the conveyors.
With the low rpm of the shafts and with virtually no load, the bearings should last for the life of the machine. The shafts are turned through gears that are mounted on the front of each shaft. The gears are hardened steel and have a ˝” wide face. Again, with no load and low rpm the gears should also easily last for the life of the machine. No lubrication is needed for any part of the pickup system.
CUTTING SYSTEM
The spears are cut slightly below ground level by a 2 inch wide blade mounted on the end of a pneumatic cylinder. The blade/cylinder assemblies are arranged across the bed on 1-3/4” centers.
Each of the cylinder assemblies is aligned with one of the optical detectors. When a spear is detected by the sensor, the control circuitry waits until the spear is being grasped by the pickup rollers, and then fires the correct cylinder, cutting the spear slightly below the ground.
The air cylinders are extremely fast, completing a 20 inch down stroke in about 75 thousandths of a second…or over 5 complete in and out cycles in one second.
If for any reason the cylinder does not retract, the forward motion of the machine will force the cylinder to pivot at the front head, causing the rear of the cylinder to break a photo-electric beam. This sounds an audible alarm to alert the driver, and raises the header to full up position quickly, where the extended cylinder will not reach the ground. Raising the header prevents damaging the cylinder and protects the asparagus bed. The reset button on the control panel must be pressed to lower the header after an alarm.
The air valves and cylinders are designed to run without lubrication, and there is no routine maintenance needed during the harvest season.
CONTROLS
When turning around at the end of the rows, the tractor driver needs to raise the header, and then when he is finished with his turn he needs to lower the header. For the tractor driver the machine has a toggle switch on a pendant.
With the switch in the up position the header raises, and with the switch in the bottom position the header lowers.
Located at the rear of the machine is the control panel. The control panel has a power switch to turn on the harvester electronics, a push button to reset the alarm, and a knob for adjusting the cut timing.
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