Cotton Picker Spindle Design and Manufacturing Processes

Cotton production is a critical commodity forthe United States economy. This industry has been negatively impacted by input costs increasing at a much quickerrate than the sale price. This dynamic has farmers looking to use their land to grow a more profitable crop. This project aims to support the cotton industry by decreasing one of the major input costs, cotton picker spindle maintenance. The cotton picker spindle, or just "spindle",is a cone shaped part with teeth that grabs the cotton fiber and pulls it off the plant. The cotton is them removed from the spindle by a urethane doffer that slides the cotton off the cone shape in the opposite direction of the teeth. Spindle picking has been the most efficient way to harvest cotton for over 60 years. The problem is that the manufacturing process has also remained unchanged. There are now Powered Metal (PM) processes and materials that show promise for being an alternative way of manufacturing the spindle. The performance of a PM spindle will significantly outlast the current spindle which will decrease the overall input cost for the farmer. The reason this technology has not been used previously is that the current spindle is too large to be a viable PM part. The true value of this project is redesigning the spindle into a 3-component part. When the3-component spindle is assembled is will be interchangable and look identical to a standard spindle. However, each component will be made of the best material possible and using the best PM techniques available. The new design will also drastically reduce the maintenance time by allowing the "teeth" to be replaced without removing any other components.