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| Looking at a Big square baler--a new one. Obviously Hesston produced/Massey Ferguson is the first choice. How about CaseIH/New Holland for the price? Krone maybe? Specifically it would be a 3x3 with roto-cut and tandems. Bale everything from Straw to alfalfa baleage and corn stalk/bean straw. Currently round bale everything and thinking that it is time to get efficient. Square bales will haul easier, get more tons/hour done and fit in the commodity sheds with less monkeying around.
Any ideas of which way is best to go would be great.
I have good dealers for all brands in the area. I think I know which one to go with, but I have heard better things about NH/CaseIH more recently than years ago when the only baler to have was the Hesston.
Thanks in advance. Brrr. Its cold outside... |
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Northern CA | I bought a used Krone 1290 with roto cut and I can't be happier. It is a very well engineered machine. The camless pickup is great. I thought my Freeman big balers were heavy built, but the Krone out weighs those by around 5000 pounds. The Krone doesn't have a "made in China" stamp anywhere. We have changed some bearings and a few other parts in our winter maintenance and most parts are made in Germany. The baler is so smooth and quiet, if you don't look at it, many times you can't tell the pto is running.
The auto luber works great and makes servicing a breeze. The air compressor keeps the knotter are cleaner than my previous baler with fans. I baled around 65-72 bales per hour averaging 1250-1300 pounds this year with the baler set at 70% capacity.
If you have questions, ask away. My email is in my profile, too.
Edited by Fawazhay 12/6/2013 03:03
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| Just a thought you may want to keep the round baler for stalks. Dirt, cobs, and rocks are bruttle on square balers. Most with square balers wont do them. As for baler dealer service and parts availibility would be my first thing to look at. You will like square bales for everything else and wont ever want a round bale again.Good luck |
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Northwest iowa | The best choice for what you want to do is Krone. In addition to what was already mentioned, it is by far the most convenient to access and service the knives. It also will have the highest capacity, especially a new one. If you still believe that the MF/Hesston is tops, talk to Scott(OSU), he ran one side by side with the krone for a season.
You mentioned baleage...if you want to wrap individually I have a wrapper for sale. |
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Oxford County, ON | We are on our second Massey 2150. It is such a simple, smooth running machine. I put 9,000 bales on mine this year and can count on one hand the number of misties I had. I had one breakdown bad enough that I had to leave the field and go back the next day. I have heard good things about Krone as well, but something our baler mechanic said when his dealership took a Krone in on trade stayed with me: "I look at the Krone and I see a lot of extra parts."
A lot of Case/NH balers have been traded in on Massey red in our area the past few years. Dealer support is critical for balers because the window is usually small, as I'm sure you already know.
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| Here's Scott's comments from earlier this year:
http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=352938&mid=276...
I'm going to preface all of this by saying that I have no direct field experience with Krone balers and all knowledge I have on them is from reading their documentation and hearsay. Take it with a grain of salt. :) I do, however, have some years of experience with the Hesston/Massey balers.
I can't say whether Scott did this or not, but something to bear in mind is that the Hesston balers have an adjustable stuffer chute which allows you to control the shape as well as the size of the flake. From the factory the balers come set nearly wide open and this is the best setting for dry hay, but depending on the type of crop and how wet it is you'll see greatly improved feeding for wet hay and silage by closing the chute down (while maintaining a 1" taper that grows from the entrance of the chute to the exit). This will reduce the load on the packer and stuffer to reduce plugging, clutch slipping and shearbolt breakage.
Krone advertises that their balers don't use shearbolts and instead use ratchet clutches. I've heard this does work well for getting plugs to feed through, but I've also been told that it has a jack hammer effect on the drives and there have been some cases where the stuffer drive has been broken. Granted, this is 3 year old knowledge so they may have made changes since then.
Capacity wise the balers will be about equal. Amongst the 3x3 balers the Massey 2150 runs 47 plunger strokes per minute and the Krone 890 runs 50 (Krone does have High Speed balers now that run higher speeds than their predecessors, but the 3x3s appear to be unaffected by this change based on their literature). Assuming neither is limited by the pickup or stuffer and they're both running the same flakes per bale (and length), the Krone will have about 6% more capacity. However, it's been my experience with cutter balers that usually the cutter is the limiting factor; at least while the knives are engaged. Most guys I've talked to seem to prefer running around 40 flakes per bale on an 8ft bale as it makes the bale easier to bust apart and process as well as makes the heaviest bale. I know the Hesston balers can generally be pushed down to 30-35 flakes per bale to get the most baler capacity (throughput) while maintaining a stackable bale. I've heard of 20-25 flakes per bale, but I think that was on the larger 3x4 and 4x4 balers. I have my doubts that a 3x3 could choke that down.
I do think Krone has a better cutter in terms of capacity and as mentioned before, knife access is easier as well (a slide out drawer versus crawling under the baler for a Hesston). Krone uses a lot of shaft drives while Hesston uses chains. I haven't heard of many reliability problems on either. As far as the Hesston balers go, you have to keep in mind that most of the chains drives are pretty low speed so wear is minimal. Servicing the chain drives is cake.
For dry hay, I'd personally pick the Hesston, hands down. For silage, I'm not so sure. |
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WC Wisconsin | We have a Krone 890XC 2009 I think, and have been fairly happy with it. Main complaint is the augers that feed in from the pick up are too small and this leads to plugging of the pick up. Knife access is a sweet deal switching from alf baleage to dry hay to oatlage. New models have a large auger and optional power feed that I've been told will solve the problem. Its been our experience, along with everyone I've talked to that the NH knotters are the best on the market and due to patents they cannot be duplicated by other MFG's. We've replaced any knotters that break with NH parts and have had less misses on those specific knotters. |
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DV, NV | I bought a Krone this year and put 5000 bales through it. Ran along side our 4790 which managed only 4000 bales due to the Krone out baling it in every field. There is about a 1mph difference at same number of strokes. The Krone also takes a little less tractor to run hard than the Hesston.
The cam less pickup and rotary VFS packer/stuffer are light years ahead of the Hesston. There are lots of 2170s in my neighborhood and I ran along side a brand new tandem baler in heavy triticale and was impressed with bale shape and density as well as pickup efficiency vs the 2170. Speed is about the same but we wanted the best bale so we didn't push them to see who broke first. Next year...
I also spent a ton if money on the 4790 and was dissapointed in the cheap design of critical areas of the stuffer drive and pickup main shaft. These are supposedly updated on 2100 series. Overall the engineering is much more robust on almost every component on Krone vs MF
Krone lube system is much better. Baler runs much smoother in general. Way easier on the operator after a long day and as stated earlier you almost can't tell its running.
I also was lucky enough to tour the Krone factory in Germany. Quality of every component on the machine is amazing. All gearboxes are assembled in house. All parts are dip painted before assembly. All gears are cut at Krone and then heat treated nearby then shipped back for inspection and assembly. Overall build quality and attention to detail is impressive. The balers are all tested at full speed on the factory floor and aren't even hooked to a tractor they run so smooth. A small power unit that looks like a electric pallet jack runs the whole thing! Try that with a MF! Their small balers aren't even that smooth.
I'm a very satisfied Krone customer and the few minor teething issues I had were dealt with immediately and by dealer and Krone personel all the way up the chain to Germany. Customer appreciation is above and beyond any other company I have ever dealt with.
And just to show I'm unbiased against MF I have a new WR9770 ordered for next year and my MF dealer is much closer than Krone dealer |
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| Something to bear in mind is that there are a lot of changes between a 4790 and a 2170. They do share very similar designs, but they have few parts in common. Lots of bushings got replaced with bearings (packer crank, stuffer shaft, needle carriage, knotter stack, knotter and stuffer drive sprockets, pickup pivot), the drives all run faster (47 strokes per minute vs 43), the pickup went from a dual to a quad auger arrangement (on non-cutters), the flywheel got larger and the stuffer drive went from a clamped key way to a splined drive. Of course there's more, but that's some of the key areas.
You have to keep in mind that the 4790 came out in 1998 and stayed largely unchanged until it was replaced with the 2170 in 2006. That was a lot of time for Hesston to engineer a better faster baler. :) Even then, they've been continuously making tweaks and changes to the 2170 since it hit the fields.
I think the downfall to a lot of operators is that they don't know or don't bother to make adjustments to their stuffer and that has a huge effect on the baler. Things like setting the size of the stuffer chute and adjusting the trip linkage have massive effects on the baler performance and bale quality. I've ran across way too many balers with the stuffer trip set too loose and making rough looking bales or causing unsteady plunger load when the operator has to slow down or the windrow gets light. |
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Northwest iowa | Are you running a high speed? Do you have the active pickup? |
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Northeast CO | If you're going to buy brand new, hesston has come out with a 2200 series balers, instead of 2170 its now a 2270. They have made some changes to them |
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DV, NV | I spent a long time discussing the MF balers with the dealer mechanic while we were working on my 4790. He said the 2200 series was mostly convenience updates and really to compete head to head with Krone
They are getting a lot of interest in 2100 balers since the new ones are a bit more money and I do have to admit those are good balers and pretty much set the bar. I just think Krone makes a better baler for about the same money as a MF
My Krone is a 1290 HighSpeed std density. It's a '13 model so no active pickup. I saw the '14s come with it standard as well as a scale now. I know the Cali guys like the active pickup for Sudan and straw. It I'm not sure it will really help much in alfalfa but I guess it can't hurt |
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West Central,WI | I had a 2011 Krone 890xc but just traded it for a new 890xc high speed with the active pickup which will make a big difference on the feeding capabilities which has been my only complaint with the baler. Also the one thing my dealer does is puts in the case IH twine discs in the knotters which are bigger than krone twine disc it makes a big difference with the tying. I really like the features krone offers like the VFS which takes away the worrying about plugging the baler,and being able to tie off the last bale and eject it right from the tractor seat. Krone is a very good company to deal with. Also had good dealer support which is very important. |
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Northern CA | In response to the adjustability of the stuffer on the Hesston, the Krone VFS is adjustable, too. There is a spring that sets how much tension it takes to trip the feeder. I have the opposite thoughts on parts and moving parts with the Krone vs. Hesston than stated above. Looking at my neighbor's two year old 2170 XD, I thought it was more complicated than the Krone. The Krone is also very accessible the way the side shields and twine boxes swing up and out of the way. For winter service, in less than a half hour one can have the Krone ready for winter overhaul by removing the twine boxes and a few other shields and the baler is quite accessible. We don't have any dealer within 100 miles of us, and then all are available. Krone has a customer care / baler first aid kit as they call it. It was $1700 and I had them had some extra parts until I got to $2000. They told me that I should have all parts in stock that they could see me possibly needing in season. I broke two springs throughout the year. I believe both that broke were original because the new ones were a different style that will last longer. The chains on a Hesston might be low maintenance, but driveshafts and gear boxes are lower maintenance. In regards to the jackhammer effect on the slip clutches and breaking the shaft, that was a legitimate concern for operators that push the baler and plug it up all the time. They updated that shaft with a harder one. I heard the parts are around $1600. I was told it didn't usually break the shaft right of way, but wore the splines on it. Mine are still good and original, so the previous owner must not have pushed it. I don't think you would be disappointed with either, but I know you wouldn't be with the Krone.
The one area where I could see you being disappointed in the Hesston is Agco knew it was lighter built and provided a baler strengthening kit for those baling in tougher conditions. I can't see having to weld gussets on a new baler so that it won't break while baling. The Krone is just built heavy enough from the start.
Also, as above, I like Agco equipment. I run two Gleaner combines and two Hesston swathers.
Edited by Fawazhay 12/6/2013 22:27
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| Lots of good information!
Concerning the Agco gusset kit, that was only for the first couple years of production. By the third year some of those gussets came from the factory and other areas were redesigned to be stronger. There was another set of gussets for the hay dog mounts when the frame saw a different redesign, but those gussets got campaigned shortly after those frames saw retail.
For any baler built in the last five or so years, there are no gusset kits. |
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Best big Square baler and why
