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| What are your opinions and experiences of this vertical tillage machine? Thanks |
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Harlan, KY | I liked mine. Smoothest seedbed I've ever planted behind.
Worked great behind an NH3 pass if it had a little knife track to grab and move. Tool does not move much dirt at all. But will level what is there.
Definitely bought us time in the spring, we could run and be planting same day where not running would have had to wait a day or two to dry out.
9-10mph all day long, loved it. |
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Fulton County Ohio | It is one of the least aggressive options out there. It does a good job of sizing residue while mixing enough soil with it to help with residue breakdown. A downfall in corn stalks is it causes husks to loosen and blow in the wind creating drifts. On the plus side it does not pop root balls out like some tools. The resulting seedbed is smooth and mellow.
In soybean residue it eliminates the fine residue "chaff" that creates wet strips in the spring while leaving enough residue "stalk and root mass" to inhibit water and wind erosion.
I prefer to use it in the fall. We seldom have a dry spring to use it. Ideally I only want the planter and sprayer in the field in the spring. The stale seedbed it leaves is what I like. It will level the field over time. It will not fill in 6" harvest ruts.
180 PTO hp is a good match for a 20' Excelerator. More power would be good. Autoshift in an 8000 Deere will drop from 13 to 10th gear on a steep hill. Speed is your friend. 13th gear gets you in the high range of the transmission and will give a bump when you drop to 12th. It takes that gear to get above 10 mph. They suggest a slower speed in rocky conditions. They are built rugged, but do break. Newer models have heavier wing wheels. That is a weak point. Center frame wheels have not been an issue as they are a different design. The rock shaft failed. Never had a bearing fail and we wore the blades out. The flat bar roller has been beefed up. It needed to be. The star wheels handled rock better than expected. I think we only broke one tooth. They were worn out by the time the blades were shot. It would have done a fine job in soybean residue in the condition the blades were in. I felt it had lost it's aggressiveness in cornstalks. Blades remained sharp till the end of their life. None of them broke or bent. They were the heavier of the two options. 6 mm I believe. |
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| We have a 40 ft unit and it pulls hard in the aggressive blade setting but pulls easily in the 0 degree setting which we use to dry out a No-till field if it stays too wet sometimes to plant. We use ours both spring and fall. We use it in the fall on the agressive setting to cover more trash from blowing around. We like it very well except the price tag. It is a well built unit. No tire problems like the Case-Ih 330 it replaced. |
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W IL | They look alot like a not quite as beefy version of a Great Plains TurboMax. We like our Turbomax so if it works like it should be a good rig. Do those have hydraulic down pressure on the wings? I know that is a must on our GP.
And just going from out experience with our GP I would not want less that 10 hp per ft if those pull similar.
Edited by WIL RedMan 7/26/2018 09:17
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Fulton County Ohio | Yes, hydraulic down pressure on the wings and the star wheels. |
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Leesburg, Ohio | Makes a very smooth seedbed by running it in the fall on cornstalks. I agree with the other comment about not popping up rootballs...it just knocks the tops out and smooths over them. I do not agree with the other comment about blowing trash...we had that problem with a GP Turbo Till. The Excelerator moves more dirt, and throws just enough to nail down most of the trash, and will adjust from moving very little dirt to moving a fair bit of dirt...but not like a full-blown disc, and not as much as the Case 330. It will not take out big ruts, but if the field is fairly level, it leaves it very smooth so there is almost no planter unit bounce at all.
Yes, down pressure on wings and star wheels. Can get hydraulic adjust gang angle, but very spendy, and its not hard to adjust manually.
Ours is a 30', and it is all an 8530 Deere mfwd wants at 8 mph. And I would not want to run it slower. I think that tractor is rated at about 300 hp. |
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Oh | Have been running a 25ft with heavy brillion packer for 5yrs. Would not trade for any other brand. Using a Case Ih 340 @ 7.5 mph. |
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West of Mpls MN about 50 miles on Hwy 12 | The short version is I like mine for all the reasons already stated.
Mine was a demo unit when I bought it and had the hydraulic gang adjust, don't waste your money on that option if buying new. You have to pin, and unpin the gangs by hand to move them. So nothing is gained by moving them with hydraulics. All the option does is make a person jump in and out of the cab a couple more times when moving gangs. |
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| Thanks for all the replies. |
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Krause Kuhn Excelerator
