Farmer-Inventor Sells His Spreader To Deere

Farmer-Inventor Sells His Spreader To Deere Dan O'Reilly is one of those lucky farmers who, dissatisfied with a piece of machinery, changed it to his liking and then sold his idea to a major manufacturer. Last month, John Deere put O'Reilly's fully hydraulic, apronless manure spreader on the North American market. O'Reilly and his "Orbilt" spreader were first introduced to FARM SHOW readers during the summer of 1977 (Vol. 1 No. 4). At that time, the Red Wing, Minn., native was building and selling the Orbilt himself for neighbors and other word-of-mouth customers. Since taking it over, Deere has "fine-tuned" the spreader, building at least 3 different prototypes and testing them under every conceivable manure-hauling condition. "We worked with Deere engineers in the final development. Despite some streamlining, this is essentially our machine," says O'Reilly, who along with his father and co-inventor Joseph O'Reilly, will receive a royalty (no word on how much) for each machine sold. In addition, O'Reilly will continue to build his original Orbilt version under a sub-licensing agreement with Deere. Here's how the new "apronless" Deere 450 spreader, invented by O'Reilly, works: A hydraulically-operated pusher ram moves all material in the loaded 225-bu. spreader to the beater at a uniform rate set by the operator. This pusher mechanism - replacing "at least 300 moving parts in a conventional apron spreader," according to O'Reilly - is powered by a two-stage hydraulic cylinder arrangement rather than the single ram on O'Reilly's original spreader. That means a shorter hitch and better maneuverability. "They key to the machine is the sliding false floor," says O'Reilly, explaining that when the spreader unloads, the front half of the floor slides with the hydraulic ram, carrying half the manure with it towards the beater. "This prevents compacting of manure at the rear and overloading the beater. When the false floor reaches the beater, the ram slides on over it up to the beaters." O'Reilly says that other hydraulic spreaders have been developed without the sliding floor. "They're suited only for sloppy or light manure, while this spreader will handle manure of any type." To make it even more versatile, the spreader is lined with a low density "stick-proof" fiberglass material that manure won't freeze and stick to during winter, and reduces friction year-round. There is also an optional hydraulic endgate. Only the 250-bu. model is now available but a Deere & Co. spokesman says the company is developing larger sizes.

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