Self propelled mower binder is a machine which is used to harvest grain in Iran’s small farms as is done so in other countries.
Statistics show that 11400 units of such machines have been working on the Iran’s farms by 1993. If only 213 of the present 2209000 ha. of hand harvesting product is to be worked with this kind of machine a sum of 30000 mower binders including existing machines are needed.
If an economical life time of 6-year is assumed an annual production and /or import of 5000 will be required .For the first 6 years however, it amounts to 10000 annually.
Self propelled mower binders however have their own shortcommings , which in Iran is more pronounced due to the users knowledge defficiencies.
Relatively high price, transmission of machine vibration to the driver, lack of a safety clutch and higher probabillity of machine overturn on dryland farms are amongst the most important disadvantage of the self propelled mower binders.
A self propelled mower binder is constructed of two parts namely a header and the self propelled machine .About half of the price accounts for the latter part threfore ; if the header alone is connected to a tractor ;which is easily accessible in most farms; the following advantags are gained:
1 - Reducing the machine purchase cost to less than a half and thus cutting the farmers production cost.
2 - Lower foreign currency expenditure.
3 - Reduction in vibration transmitted to the driver and thus lower physical fatigues.
4 - Higher relative field capacity.
5 - Installing a safety clutch on the new machine.
6 - Reduced possible overturns.
The machine named “Tractor Mounted Binder” was designed and a prototype was constructed and tested. The various parts of the machine such as 3 point hitch linkages, header chassis, shafts ,drive system and a safety clutch were designed and technical calculations were performed.
The farm test of the present prototype showed the success and the completenss of the design. Small modifications or additions of some parts will improve the machine performance without altering the design. They are pinpointed in the discussion section.
)