Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Wile e coyote - 1/22/2017 11:36
Planting with a Kinze 3500 (8-16 splitter), using Insight/Trimble RTK guidance and wanting to VR seed populations. What componets do I need ? Thinking a AL planter module, AL hydraulic seed rate control module and some type of hydraulic drive system. Any other componets or wiring harnesses ? Will a JD hydraulic drive system play with a system I am describing ? Is there any way you can make swath control work coming in and out of the headlands without gaps created with the front and back planting units? Thanks for any and all responses.
There are actually three different Ag Leader modules that might be involved with seed, possibly more considering down force. There is the Seed Tube Monitoring Module (STTM) which is used in place of a planter monitor. Wiring harnesses are available so this module can plug right into your existing monitor wiring so the Population monitor can be removed.
Another module is the Clutch Control Module which is used for section control on a planter. This module will allow the system (or the operator) to shut off sections of the planter. It needs clutches on the individual rows or sections. There are several choices for clutches.
Yet another class of module is the hydraulic seed control module or alternatively the Stepper control module (for use with a Rawson Drive) which controls the rate of planting.
Some planters utilize all the modules, others just some. For example on my previous planter, I had a Clutch control module that shut off sections via air clutches. I continue to use the Deere 250 monitor for population and the planter was ground driven. With the current planter, I moved the Clutch control module to it and installed Sure-Vac clutches. I also picked up the STTM module and use it for population monitoring. The planter is still ground drive.
With split-planter setups like yours, where there are front and rear units, Ag Leader ties the clutches together on adjacent front and rear units. So the front units don't shut off first and then the rear units a bit later. They cycle together within each section. This does produce some gaps as you mention. The general procedure is to set the hitch distance at a distance halfway between the front/rear offset. That way the front's plant into the headland a bit before they shut off and the rears shut off a bit early. This doesn't seem to cause much concern as here that is generally done only with soybeans where the lodging/saving of seed issue isn't quite as great as for corn.
For your planter on corn (8 rows), I would envision having 4-2 row sections. With soybeans, the front units would be tied in with a neighboring back unit so you might have 4-4 row sections. There are several other combinations that could work for you. The system has the capacity to do 8-1 row sections but this is sometimes counterproductive with a lower grade GPS. A single outside row might get shut off if there is GPS drift. With two row sections this is very unlikely. The savings in going from 2 row sections to 1 row sections is debatable.
Edited by tedbear 1/22/2017 13:57
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Kinze 3500, AL Insight and variable rate for beans
