Abstract
This study was carried out to develop a belt pick-up type one-row soybean cutter, using physical properties and production conditions of soybeans. The prototype soybean cutter consisted of 4 parts: cutting part, conveying part, collecting part, and travelling part. The prototype soybean cutter was designed to cut soybeans planted with a row spacing of 600 mm, and at a height of 30 mm from the bed bottom using a disk saw. Through various trials with different peripheral velocities of the disk saw and forward speed of the cutter, determined ranges of the peripheral velocity of the disk saw cutting soybeans stems were greater than 18.3 m/s. Spacing between pick-up belts (clearance) was in a range of 60~90 mm so that soybeans could be picked at heights greater than 25 cm, and the size and shape of the pick-up belt were determined the conventional manual harvesting method. The optimal ratio between the forward speed of cutter and the peripheral speed of pick-up belts were from 1 to 1.2 by theoretical analysis. the pick-up belts had a $35^{\circ}$ of tilted angle and $90^{\circ}$ of twisted angle to pick up soybeans safely from the plant input to the lower end of the belts and convey soybeans to the upper end of belts nearby a container. The soybeans at the rear container were dropped down on the soybean row with an interval. The effective field capacity of the prototype soybean cutter was 0.136 ha/h, reducing the working hour by 92% when compared with the manual cutting.
