Claims:
1. A control assembly for movement of a loader arm, a shovel or bucket and one or more attachments in an earthmoving or construction machine comprising :
? At least one single spool control valve or multi spool control valve mounted on a main frame of the earthmoving or construction machine to selectively direct hydraulic fluid to hydraulic cylinders;
? At least one hydraulic cylinder to elevate and lower a loader arm mounted for vertical swinging movement about at least one pivot point;
? At least one hydraulic cylinder to curl and dump a shovel or bucket of the earthmoving or construction machine ;
? At least one hydraulic cylinder to control high rise and lower the shovel or bucket in order to dump a material at higher heights ;
? At least one hydraulic cylinder to control an additional attachment to perform other operations ;
? At least one control lever to manually control the spool control valve ;
? At least one feed pipe to transfer and supply hydraulic fluid from a hydraulic fluid tank to the hydraulic cylinders ;
? At least one solenoid control valve mounted on a bulkhead plate along with a cover plate to protect the solenoid control valve from damaging due to movement of the earthmoving or construction machine;
? At least one dump switch provided on the control lever ;
? At least one an additional attachment attached with the shovel or bucket to perform other operations such as grabbing, handling and transportation of the material or combination of thereof.
2. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein the said dump switch is either toggle type switch or relay type switch or spring based switch or any other type of switch such as push based switch, selector switch, joystick switch, lever actuator limit switch or combination of thereof.
3. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein the said hydraulic cylinders are either single acting cylinders or double acting cylinders.
4. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein the said control levers controls the spools movement of the spool control valve.
5. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein forward and backward movement of the control lever (11) actuates the spool valve 1.1 in order to direct the hydraulic fluid to the hydraulic cylinder (3) to elevate and lower the loader arm (5).
6. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein right hand side and left hand side movement of the control lever (11) actuates the spool valve 1.2 in order to direct the hydraulic fluid to the hydraulic cylinder (4) to curl and dump the shovel or bucket (6)
7. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein forward and backward movement of the control lever (10) actuates the spool valve 1.3 in order to direct the hydraulic fluid to the hydraulic cylinder (7) to high rise and lower the shovel or bucket (6) in order to dump a material at higher heights.
8. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein forward and backward movement of the control lever (10) along with switched on or pressed the dump switch actuates the spool valve 1.3 in order to direct the hydraulic fluid to the hydraulic cylinder (9) to control the additional attachment to perform other operations such as opening, closing, handling and transportation or any other operations.
9. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein the said control lever characterized in that
? The control lever (10) moved either forward or backward direction, the solenoid control valve transfer or supply the hydraulic fluid to the hydraulic cylinder (7) to control high rise and lower of the shovel or bucket (6) through hoses (18) ; and
? The control lever (10) moved either forward or backward direction along with switched on or pressed the dump switch, the solenoid control valve transfer or supply the hydraulic fluid to the hydraulic cylinder (9) to control the additional attachment to perform other operations through hoses (19).
10. The control assembly claimed in claim 1, wherein the said the additional attachment either of grapple, auger, fork, bucket and shovel arrangement, clam shell or any other attachment.
, Description:FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is related generally to an off-road vehicle and/or construction, earthmoving equipment such as loader and particularly to an operator control assembly for movement of a loader arm, and one or more attachments.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An earthmoving or construction vehicles are generally used to excavate, handle and move material such as rock, soil or any other solid material. An earthmoving or construction vehicle includes various types of loaders, excavators, backhoe loaders, telehandlers and aerial lifts etc.
An earthmoving or construction vehicle such as a backhoe loader consisting of boom, arm, bucket or shovel for excavating and handling material. While an earthmoving or construction vehicle such as loader includes loader arm, hydraulic cylinders and shovel or bucket etc.. An additional attachment such as grappler may be attached with the bucket or shovel to perform various other operations like grabbing and handling material.
Generally a backhoe loader equipped with two spool or three spool loader valve block (LVB) to control two or three hydraulic cylinder respectively to perform various operations like such as lifting/ lowering arm and curling/dumping shovel or bucket or any other attachment.
In the backhoe vehicle at backward part, a swing frame either sliding type or pivotally attached rear part of vehicle, a boom structure of backhoe pivotally mounted on swing frame, an arm structure is pivotally connected the boom structure and backhoe bucket is attached pivotally to the arm structure of backhoe. The backhoe operator controls the movement of said arm, bucket and boom with respect to each other by using various hydraulic actuators. The operator can control movement of the bucket with respect to the arm, the movement of the arm structure with respect to boom structure, the movement of boom structure with respect to swing frame mounted in rear part of backhoe vehicle by using hydraulic valves and hydraulic actuators. The aforesaid hydraulic valves and hydraulic actuators comprise hydraulic circuits and hydraulic cylinders. While in the backhoe loader vehicle at forward part, the loader arm is connected to frame mounted on front part of the vehicle. The loading bucket or shovel is pivotally connected to the said loader arm. The loading bucket or shovel is connected to the loader arm and loader frame with the help of four bar linkages and hydraulic actuators. The aforesaid hydraulic actuators comprise hydraulic circuits and hydraulic cylinders.
Generally two standard hydraulic cylinders for rising/lowering the loader arm and curl/dump the shovel controlled by two spool control valves. The third spool control valve may be used to control high rise/lower the shovel in order to dump material at higher heights. It may be used to perform any other functions in other attachments.
Present modern machine provided with additional attachment such as grapple along with the shovel to perform other operations such as grabbing and handling and transportation of material. This additional attachment may be controlled by operator by using four spool control valve.
However, in order to accommodate four spool control valve in the current layout of machine may not be possible and also require major modification inside the cabin. In additional to that the four spool control valve assembly is very complex in construction and expensive in nature.
To overcome abovementioned shortcoming and problems associated with conventional system, it is more desirable to develop an operator control assembly that is more simple, fast and energy-efficient than previously known methods and solves or at least relieves some of the problems discussed above.
It is therefore an object of the present invention is to overcome one or more problems associated with the prior art.
Yet another object of the present invention is to develop a hydraulic schematic design with which we may operate four services with only three spool control valve.
One more object of present invention is to develop an operator control assembly which is user friendly and cost effective.

Further advantageous embodiments and further advantages of the invention emerge from the detailed description below.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to an operator control assembly for an earthmoving or construction machine to operate four services with only three spool loader valve.
An embodiment of the present invention is simple in construction, efficient, effective and robust in nature. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a shovel, a loader arm, hydraulic cylinders, an additional attachment such as grapple, control lever and a three spool control valve etc.
The said three spool loader valve which further controls four different services of the machine. The first spool of the three spool control valve controls the hydraulic cylinder used for rising/lowering the loader arm while the second spool of the three spool control valve controls the hydraulic cylinder used to curl/dump the shovel. The third spool of the three spool control valve controls the hydraulic cylinder used to control high rise/lower the shovel in order to dump material at higher heights.
Another preferred embodiment of the present invention incorporate a solenoid control valve inline with third spool control valve along with dump switch to divert the hydraulic fluid to desired hydraulic cylinder to perform concerned operation. The third spool of the three spool control valve along with pressed dump switch incorporated on the control lever controls the hydraulic cylinder used to control additional attachment such as grapple.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention explained with reference to the following drawings. A more detailed description of different exemplary embodiments of the invention will follow below.
In the drawings:
Figure 1 Illustrates forward part of a construction or earthmoving machine incorporating a control assembly for a backhoe loader according to the present invention;
Figure 2 Illustrates a schematic representation showing arrangement of a three spool control valve along with control levers according to the present invention;
an improved downstream flow hydraulic control system according to the present invention;
Figure 3 Illustrates a schematic representation showing mounting of solenoid control valve on a bulkhead plate according to the present invention;
and
Figure 4 Illustrates a schematic representation showing mounting of solenoid control valve along with hoses on bulkhead plate according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. The matters defined in the description, such as the detailed construction and elements, are nothing but specific details provided to assist those of ordinary skill in the art in a comprehensive understanding of the invention, and thus the present invention is not limited to thereto.
A control assembly for an earthmoving or construction to operate four services with only three spool loader valve according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described hereinunder with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4.
As shown in FIG. 1, forward parts of a construction or earthmoving machine such as backhoe loader.
The forward parts of the construction or earthmoving machine such as backhoe loader may be incorporating an operator control assembly to operate four services with only three spool control valve; however embodiments of present invention are not restricted to machine depicted in FIG.1. The concept and other embodiments of the present invention may be used in other types of machine and machine illustrated in FIG.1 is merely shown as example.
The forward parts of the construction or earthmoving machine such as backhoe loader consisting of a three spool control valve (1), a feed pipe assembly (2), hydraulic cylinders (3) for a loader arm (5), hydraulic cylinders (4) for a shovel (6), a loader arm (5), a shovel (6), high dump shovel hydraulic cylinders (7), an additional attachment such as grapple (8) and the grapple hydraulic cylinders (9).
The said three spool control valve (1) is mounted on a main frame of the construction or earthmoving machine. The three spool control valve (1) is operated with the help of control levers. The loader arm (5) is mounted for vertical swinging movement about pivot points. The loader arm (5) is mounted in main frame of the earthmoving or construction equipment which may be elevated and lowered with the help of hydraulic cylinders (3). The shovel (6) is further connected pivotally to the loader arm (5) as shown in FIG. 1.
The said shovel (6) attached to the said loader arm (5) with the help of four bar linkages (not shown in FIG.). The curl and dumping movement of the shovel (6) is controlled with the help of hydraulic cylinders (4) whose one end connected to shovel or bucket lever (6) while another end is connected to the loader arm (5).
The hydraulic cylinders (7) are used to control high rise/lower the shovel (6) in order to dump material at higher heights. The hydraulic cylinders (9) are used to control additional attachment such as grapple (8) along with the shovel to perform other operations. The feed pipe assembly (2) is used to transferring and supplying hydraulic oil from hydraulic oil tank (not shown in FIG.) to hereinabove mentioned hydraulic cylinders. Preferably the said hydraulic cylinders are hydraulically actuated double acting cylinders.
As shown in FIG. 2, the three spool control valve (1) is spring type valve manually controlled with the help of control levers (10 & 11).The three spool control valve (1) comprises of three spools 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3. The control lever (11) controls spool 1.1 and 1.2 while the control lever (10) controls spool 1.3.
In order to selectively direct hydraulic fluid under pressure to the hydraulic cylinder (3) to elevate and lower the loader arm (5), the spool valve 1.1 is provided which can be actuated by forward and backward movement of the control lever (11). While in order to selectively direct hydraulic fluid under pressure to the hydraulic cylinder (4) to curl and dumping movement of the shovel (6), the spool valve 1.2 is provided which can be actuated by right hand side and left hand side movement of the control lever (11).
In order to selectively direct hydraulic fluid under pressure to the hydraulic cylinder (7) to control high rise and lower the shovel (6) to dump material at higher heights, the spool valve 1.3 is provided which can be actuated by forward and backward movement of the control lever (10). While in order to selectively direct hydraulic fluid under pressure to the hydraulic cylinder (9) to control additional attachment such as grapple (8) to perform other operations such as opening and closing of grapple (8), the spool valve 1.3 is provided which can be actuated by forward and backward movement of the control lever (10) along with switching on or pressing a dump switch (12).
As illustrated in FIG.2, 3 and 4, the spool valve 1.3 is connected to a solenoid control valve (15) through feed pipes (13 & 14). The solenoid control valve (15) is mounted on bulkhead plate (16) with the help of adaptors (not shown in FIG.) These adaptors are connected to the feed pipes (13 & 14) through a set of hoses (17). On the spool valve 1.3 actuation, either of both feed pipes (13 & 14) become pressure line and while other becomes tank line. The hydraulic cylinders (7) are used to control high rise/lower the shovel (6). During such condition, the hydraulic cylinders (7) and the solenoid control valve (15) are connected through hoses (18). The hydraulic cylinder (9) to control additional attachment such as grapple (8). During such condition, the hydraulic cylinders (7) and the solenoid control valve (15) are connected through hoses (19). A cover plate (20) is provided to protect the solenoid control valve (15) from damaging due to handling the material while working of the machine. The dump switch (12) is plugged with connector in built in valve (15) housing.
The solenoid control valve (15) is six ways two position valve which is further connected to the hydraulic cylinders (7) used to control high rise/lower the shovel (6) through hoses (18) at normal or default position. The forward and backward movement of the control lever (10) actuate the spool valve 1.3 which selectively directs fluid under pressure to hydraulic cylinder (7) to control high rise and lower the shovel (6) to dump material at higher heights only.
When the dump switch (12) is pressed, cartridge inside solenoid control valve (15) moves and block a main gallery and connect the feed pipes (13 & 14) to the hoses (19). During such situation, the hydraulic services are connected to the additional attachment such as grapple (8). When the control lever (10) moves forward and backward direction along with the dump switch pressed or switching on, the hydraulic pressurized oil flow into either of set of the hoses (19) based on the control lever (10) movement.
Therefore when the control lever (10) moves in forward and backward direction, the hydraulic fluid transferred or supplied to the hydraulic cylinder (7) to control high rise and lower the shovel (6) to dump material at higher heights. While when the control lever (10) moves in forward and backward direction along with switching on or pressed the dump switch (12), the hydraulic fluid transferred or supplied to the hydraulic cylinder (9) to control additional attachment such as grapple (8) to perform other operations such as opening and closing of grapple (8).