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| I built the same thing out of a great plains 24' drill (removed drill units, added a 4x7 bar and mounted IH800 planter units). It works, but I have some of the same problems that make the 5500's cheaper and cheaper each year. The IH unit is designed to be fed by a tube with seed blown through it. A drill wants to drop seeds straight down through the unit. The 5500 and my drill have some angle from the box to the unit and it's a place where seeds can clog up. Also, drill units are short, simple and pretty much sit right under the boxes. The planter units are longer and being staggered mean a longer distance from the box and increases the chances of something going wrong in the seed delivery. There are folks here that have made modifications, but I see many have had their drills for sale/sold them.
I raised my boxes up higher which has helped a lot from my first attempt. Next, if it will work I'd like to mount the seed boxes back and more over the unit seed tube. However, it would be putting some pretty good torque on the drill frame and I'm not sure it's up to it. What I need to do is replace the 2 runs of 3x3 of drill frame with the 4x7 I mounted below the 3x3 frame and locate the 3x3 frame that the boxes mount to back 6" from the 4x7 so the seed drops more straight down.
I guess I said a lot to say the seed needs to drop straight down for a drill to work right instead of trying to get seed to roll down an accordian hose at an angle.
I'm sure more of the guys can elaborate more on the 5500. Great idea, but not so great in practice.
Thanks,
Pat
PS: I added the SI meters to my drill and they work great for everything except large seed.
PPS: I also have a TL16 kinze that I could add 15 pusher units to and forget the drill modifications. If only I could adapt boxes, with meters and a drive system to the IH 800 units and use them (the drill is likely pretty worthless if I try to sell it). I'm pretty sure I could come up with a linkage and mounting parts to make them into pusher units. Also, it's hard to beat the spread out design of the kinze - others like the 1780/90, 1200, white work very well, but have units all very close to each other - not the best for trash flow and definitely not as fun to work on.
PPPS: The 955 soybean special is getting cheaper as well, but it holds less seed than the 5500 (45 bu vs at least 50bu on the 5500). It also has planting units pretty close to each other, needs a pto pump if you have an older tractor and is pretty heavy. More complexity, but feeds the IH planting units as they were designed to be fed. The price is still a little high for just a 30' bean planter only (they are arguably not the best corn planter).
Edited by Pat H 4/24/2010 13:16
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The best 15" row soybean planter is???
