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| I have thought about uneven feeding with 3 rows, but I've dismissed the thought due to the fact that the crop all comes together between the 2 gathering chains and enters the feedrolls in a single giant mass. The worst shearbar wear is exactly centered behind the gap between the gathering chains, which doesn't really indicate uneven feeding from the drums to me. Plus, I usually run the tractor such that each drum grabs one row on the front-center and the third row pretty much feeds straight into the big converging area between the drums. If the 2 drums fed the crop in separately it would certainly be a valid concern, but with a single path to the feedrolls, it's all going in and through together. If one drum always fed one set of twin rows and the other always fed two sets of rows, the uneven wear you would expect to see would be the difference in the stretching of the gathering chains, but again I can't see it making a difference at the cutterhead.
The worst wear we saw by far was chopping 4R30 for a neighbor, taking his full planter pass each round. It was dryer than normal -- quite a bit dryer than he realized, until he tested the moisture -- and he wanted it chopped long, which is a good combination for high wear in the first place, especially with a half set of knives on the cutterhead, which generates a lot more pull-through on any chopper or head. Once we remounted those 6 knives (thereby shortening the chop length) it was drastically better. I can certainly live with it.
Incidentally I have read over all of your old topics from the past regarding the FP240, questions about the F41, and then when you eventually bought the Dion machines. That straight thru design looks like it would be a huge improvement, especially coupled with a faster cutterhead speed. But I would be a little concerned with chopper longevity if you ran the 8360R at full boost constantly!! We run all Deere tractors except for the one New Holland, which I bought only because for the given spec that I was looking for, it was about $30-50k less money, and we have excellent NH dealer support. New Holland isn't entirely honest with their FP240 info: they claim it's rated for 300 PTO hp, but if you read the fine print, it's rated for "250 continuous" and "300 intermittent." Well. Chopping is all about continuous power delivery, so it isn't really a true 300hp capable machine, even if it will take it. That being said, I push the tractor to a little less than rated power when processing to avoid overdoing the processor. Otherwise I'll run it in the boost and the chopper seems to handle it well, but we aren't currently chopping any alfalfa, which is probably the hardest thing to move through a pull type? As for the Dion F41, I gave them a long hard look but ultimately passed only because the closest dealer is so far away, and the machines are rare enough that I would be a little concerned about parts -- basically the exact opposite scenario as NH for us. I bought the head from Gibbsville Implements, and they claim to have a warehouse full of Dion parts, but... they're 14 hrs away! And as with the SPFHs, the F41 or newer Scorpions would have more capacity than we could reliably haul away without making big changes elsewhere. So for us the FP240 is a trade-off, better in some areas like parts & sevice, not quite as good in all out performance, but certainly a capable machine.
A 970 Jaguar must be a beast -- 750 hp or so? Chopping your own corn too with that? | |
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Pros and Cons of Dion rotary corn heads on pull-type choppers
