Cotton Picker

Overview

A cotton picker is a self-propelled harvester that strips ripe seed cotton from open bolls without taking the rest of the plant, then forms it into a wrapped module on board. It is built around a high-clearance Main Chassis that carries the operator over the standing crop, and it carries its own Diesel Engine rather than relying on a tractor. A row of Spindle Picking Unit picking heads does the harvesting, one unit straddling each crop row.

Unlike a stripper, which pulls the whole boll, a spindle picker is selective: barbed spindles spin into each open boll and wind the lint out, leaving unopened bolls and the plant for a later pass. The picked cotton is floated up an air duct into a basket where it is rolled and wrapped, so the machine can keep working while full modules wait at the headland.

How it works

Each Spindle Picking Unit carries rotating drums studded with hundreds of tapered, barbed spindles. As the drum turns into the plant the spindles spin, catching the lint and twisting it off the boll. A moistener column keeps the spindles clean and slightly wet so the cotton releases, and a stack of doffer pads then wipes the lint off the spindles as the drum comes round.

The doffed cotton is light and easily carried in air. The Air Conveying System uses centrifugal fans built on a Stator Assembly and Rotor Assembly to generate a strong airflow that floats the cotton up the duct to the top of the machine. There it drops into the On-Board Module Builder, where powered compaction rollers roll the accumulating cotton into a dense cylinder and a film-wrap system binds it before the finished module is set down on the field.

Ground travel is independent of engine speed: a Hydrostatic Ground Drive drive uses a variable pump feeding wheel motors, so the operator can trim field speed precisely to crop density while holding the picking units and fans at constant rpm. The Operator Cab gives a sealed, filtered workplace with a Seat Assembly, a touch LCD Panel terminal and a multifunction armrest. Header lift, unit height and basket functions are all powered by the Hydraulic System system off an engine-driven pump.