Missouri | softtail - 11/24/2014 14:55
First mistake that people make is they dont do a very low flow and a very high flow. With out doing them you are only speculating on the flow according to the graph that the system makes in the background.
+1
For the best possible calibration, lowest flow cal needs to be as low as you can go, and the highest flow cal load needs to be pushed to the point of borderline overload. The absolute best thing you can do for a good calibration is to be sure you've covered the extremes.
I have guys run the low speed cal load at 1mph. That one load takes a half hour in beans. It is an excruciating cab experience to sit through it, but it's the best thing you can do for a good cal load.
When harvesting the high speed cal, if you're not nervous about slipping a feederhouse clutch (beans) or tripping the low engine speed alarm (corn) or maybe even on the verge of throwing grain out the back (both), you are not pushing it hard enough.
I would rather see guys put in the effort for the best possible calibration, and calibrate in alternate years, than to see them half ass it and do it every year, or multiple times per year.
This year we didn't calibrate our machine. A crop rent field went to town (whole thing). The yield monitor was off by 1.7%. We considered that outstanding for a year in which we did not calibrate. There's no doubt in my mind we would not have gotten away with that if we had put less effort into the calibration process last year.
It's also worth noting, comparing field totals is not the best way to verify accuracy anyway. A machine could theoretically be 10% under at low flow, 10% over at high flow, and 0% off on the total. Also too many people get obsessed about the totals. If you're using your yield monitor strictly as a totallizing device, you misunderstand it's purpose. It's purpose is to produce spatial map data that indicates where the yield came from. Even the map from an uncalibrated monitor can be useful data, as it still differentiates the areas of the field which yield more from the areas which yield less. Obviously, the more accurate it is, the better it is, but there is still commonly too much emphasis placed on totals when assessing overall system accuracy. |
Yield Monitor Calibration and Accuracy
