Combine operation

[sourgum]

Several of the famous y tube farmers are harvesting crops now and base their October videos around that. These are mostly newer big combines and younger operators. There seems a wide variation in ground speed that these fellas follow. I have heard them say you have to load a combine to get it to thresh properly. Then it seems there is always a plug up at the feeder throat at least once in the video. Like if a combine can thresh 2800 bu/hour these fellas want to run close to that capacity. So are they saying a combine won't work properly at 1400 bu / hour because it is not fully loading the cylinder or rotor with crop material. If a combine is designed for 2800 bu / hour maximum won't this same machine thresh as good at 1400 bu /hour ? Seems like they are plugging up the combine trying to reach maximum threshing capacity when they don't need to run that fast. Do you believe a combine rotor has to be fully loaded to thresh a crop properly ?

 

[jon f mn]

Its not just rotary combines that are that way, but they are more prone to that. I have so little crops that I frequently have to run below capacity even on my small combine. And when I do the bin sample is always lower quality. In small grains if I can get mine up close to full the bin sample is almost clean enough to go directly to seed. As the crop thins and I get further from that capacity the sample gets ever more dirty. There is also more loss at the cylinder unless you crank the concave down, and that leads to more damage and junk in the bin.

 

[jon f mn]

As to the plugging the machine, if you post a lot of videos you need drama ti get viewers. Who wants to watch multiple videos of a non-eventful day harvesting? Much like reality shows, as they get older they need to find more and more drama to keep viewers.

 

[Janicholson]

There is another consideration beyond the threshing efficiency. Every machine only makes money when operating. A farmer understands that the weather could change in 15 minutes and stop the harvest right then. Time is money of crop in the bin. If the farmer uses custom cutters they realize that more acres is more money, and that it costs nearly the same to run at 95% capacity as it does 70%. So wear and fuel use do not push for slowing down. Jim

 

[rustred]

that must be one heck of a combine. or i am in the dark. if i combine 200 bu. in an hr. i am doing good. and yes you must keep the combine full . you need the happy spot... go too slow and it will throw it out the back and the same as going too fast. these big new combines are all computer controlled so its basically go as required. and yes you will plug the feeder or header in swaths that have piles in them. the straw is not dry and grabs that wad and your plugged. i have mine set so it plugs at the header not the cylinder. th eanswer to your question is yes as with any combine new, old, small, big, rotary or conventional.

 

[flying belgian]

I kinda disagree with the other comments. You can run a combine at 50 percent capacity but you have to adjust everything for that amount of crop ie rotor speed, concave clearance,fan speed and sieves. Then you can get a clean sample in the grain tank. That being said its hard to tell if you are running at 50 percent capacity but much easier to tell if you are running full capacity. I always watched the tach on my combine. Under no load it would run 2400 rpm. at 25 percent capacity it would still run 2400. At 50 percent still 2400. So I would increase ground speed until it pulled engine down to 2200 and adjust the combine to accommodate that much crop. Going across the field if the rpm increased I would speed up ground travel if pulled below 2200 I would slow down thereby always running combine at the same capacity I had thrasher set for

 

[rustred]

what about m.p.h? thats what i go by. according to the swath size. the 354 perkins dont pull down 200 rpm. you would plug up first.

 

[sourgum]

I think these guys in the video were running an S 97 Gleaner ,a not very common model in eastern Corn Belt. The console screen readout would say 2800 /bu hr. The driver would say the feeder house was too small for the size of the header. He would plug material at the feeder housing on the video, running maybe 4 mph. It looked like all he had to do was slow his ground speed down then the combine would work like it was designed to. He would always say gotta keep this machine loaded. I think he was keeping the machine overloaded else he would not have plugging problems.

 

[rusty6]

(quoted from post at 12:09:48 10/23/23) Several of the famous y tube farmers are harvesting crops now and base their October videos around that. Like if a combine can thresh 2800 bu/hour these fellas want to run close to that capacity.

I guess I am so far behind the times or my crops are so poor that I can't even imagine doing 2800 bushels per hour with both of mine running. If I do 2000 bushels in a day with either of mine. I consider it a good one. Of course I don't have any machinery payments to worry about either.

 

[rustred]

Yes, u got that right. Days are short in the fall and the
weather dont cooperate most times.

 

[paul]

Consistency is best to get the combine to thrash the best through the cylinder part of the machine.

Headers can only take in so and so much material.

The separating area can only sort out so and so much material at a time.

You have to balance those three things for best results. You can do so by adjusting speed some.

If you mess up and get a big wad of crop through the cylinder part of the machine too fast you wad things up. I just spent an hour under my L3 with a reciprocating saw because I hit a patch of green rubbery soybeans I wasnt expecting.

If you mess up and over fill the separator you spill a few too many kernels out the back, no one will notice tho only your pocketbook.

If you mess up and overload the header you will plug up the mouth of the combine, the feeder house. This is usually a smaller plug up deal but some days its a mess too.

In the end a consistent even flow of the same amount of material going through the combine is most certainly the best to thrash out.

And time is money, crop needs to be harvested when it is ripe, so keeping the combine near full is also the goal, not puttering around half full. Tho you could set the machine to work pretty well in such conditions as well.

We do run on the edge, it is where we need to be with the combine.

Paul

 

[cjunrau]

If they plug often they are loosing time and money unless they can unplug in a hurry. Going faster and plugging and having 2/2 hour down time they lost all they gained and then some.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

They don't plug all that often. They just show the ones that do happen because drama gets views. If there's no drama, people get bored and stop watching.

"Full day of combining, everything went perfect, la de da de da..." How many times would you watch that? Just like you watch NASCAR for the wrecks, you watch these guys for the breakdowns.

Running the combine at anything less than full capacity when you have 1000's of acres to cover, unpredictable weather, and hundreds of thousands of dollars sunk into the machine, is wasteful.

I think the Deere X9 is $1,300,000...

 

[jddrawbar]

Exactly

 

[moresmoke]

While the Gleaners do have a narrower throat than the other makes, that operator needs to look at his header setup. If the crop is fit to harvest, feeding is not generally the limiting factor. If they were hitting patches of green bean vines, then you get to take your chances.

 

[moresmoke]

As others have stated, cylinder/walker combines are less particular about running at less than capacity. You can adjust them to do a decent job fairly easily.

Combines that use rotary separation need a certain amount of material in them to separate the grain effectively. If there is not enough material in the rotor, the crop mat just slides round and round until it goes out the back with the grain still in it. On most rotary combine designs the threshing and separating is done with the same cylinder so you have to balance the effectiveness and capacity of both. And sometimes the adjustments you need are opposite of each other.


Once the grain is separated we move onto the sieves for cleaning. I need a nice even mat of material across the sieve fo it to clean effectively. If I dont have enough material I end up with areas of the sieve that are covered and areas that are not. The areas that are not covered get too much airflow and some grain is blown out the back. The areas that have a deeper mat of material dont get enough airflow and result in a dirty sample and some grain being carried over the back.

As some of the other comments have mentioned, efficiency is also key. Todays largest combines cost over $500/hr to run. Gets expensive to dilly dally along.

 

[Leroy]

65 years ago when I first started running a combine and first thing I learned was you DO NOT croud a combine. Something is wrong if you have to croud one to get it to clean.

 

[moresmoke]

That was 65 years ago. Things have changed a little. IH Axial Flow came out in 77.