When cultivating sugar beets, harvesting is one of the most labor-intensive operations. But in terms of quality and operational and technological performance, the machines used do not meet modern agrotechnical requirements, especially in conditions of high soil moisture (25 - 29%). With an increase in soil moisture, its adhesion to the working surfaces of the digging organs and the heap cleaner increases, reducing their separating ability. We propose to improve the cleaning technology by modernizing the design of the separating stars. This is achieved by using cylindrical brushes (in the amount of three pieces), which are mounted vertically to the horizontal plane of the star's rods. One end of the cylindrical brush is attached to one of the ends of the star bar, and the other end of the brushes is in the hollow bracket. All brushes are located at the same distance from each other along the periphery of the star. The second ends of the brushes, located in the hollow bracket, are fixed to each other and move freely in it. This improved design will allow the brushes to interact with the contaminated surface of the sprocket guard, improving their cleaning ability and eliminating cleaning breaks when working in harsh conditions.

Aspects of formation of a hobs cutting part for processing of gear wheels are considered. In the traditional manufacture of hobs for processing the rear surfaces of cutting teeth, the process of radial or oblique relieving is used, which due to its dynamic nature associated with reciprocating motions of a grinding head with a grinding wheel installed thereon, makes it difficult to ensure high accuracy of teeth pitch and profile, as well as main hob parameters. These shortcomings are effectively eliminated by using the process of screw relieving to process the lateral rear surfaces of the hob teeth. Execution of a hob teeth profi le in the form of a gear rack enables to obtain a hob for processing gear wheels. A number of formulas are given, by means of which it is reasonably proved that hobs made using the considered principle of formation of teeth back surfaces can have a high class of accuracy — AA or AAA. Calculations showed that the displacement of the hob teeth at two revolutions of the main worm screw with a probability of 0.9973 does not exceed 0.13 μm, which is signifi cantly higher than the requirements of GOST 10331-81 for hobs with AAA accuracy class (not more than 4 μm for hobs with a pitch over 0.5 to 0.9 mm). The considered method of forming the hob rear surfaces in the form of counter right and left multi-turn screw surfaces (screw relieving) allows to obtain hobs not only for machining involute gears, but also other types of cutters, e.g. for machining threads, ratchet wheels and other parts having a regular profile.