|
Alton, Ia | Maybe you already did a forum search, but in case you missed this thread from earlier this fall.
https://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=809885&mid=703...
I'll add that now that we're finished, the head worked really well. I've heard guys say they can start earlier and go later, but after running this head, I think a guy could combine beans around the clock, if you're willing to listen to the tough stems rumble and burn a bunch of fuel. The head will simply feed in whatever is in front of it. I went thru flooded beans, no problem with the tough stems, dirty stems, piles of cornstalks, etc. It just fed them in. The problem was getting that stuff to slide up the feederhouse.
Likes:
It flexes pretty well, standard design is manually adjustable torsion spring pressure for the sickle bar support, there is an in-cab hydraulic adjustment option. They can run either 2 or 4 sensor height controls. Belts fed well, had a couple issues with the center belts slipping on the drive rollers if I hit a dirt mound like a foxhole, dirt would build up under the center belts and a pan and stop the belt. don't like dirt in the combine anyway, so I would stop and clear the dirt off whenever it happened. They all have hyd head tilt built in. The center knife drive makes for a very thin end panel, I think it's 4", so if you are going cross row, you don't knock much down. Reed feeds nice, ours was missing some steel fingers that go in the end plate, once those got added back in, it did a much better job clearing the sickle bar ends off. Easy to maintain, 4 zerks in morning IIRC, check the oil levels, etc. Transition points on belts could be tighter, we've heard comments they have a "seed saver" kit, we may investigate that off-season. Ours has the SCH cutterbar, which we had on our old head, dealer said they are recommending that for all the heads since it drives easier. Same head as a CIH 3162, but if looking used, they seem to run a little cheaper than the red ones. Only ran this fall so can't comment on belt life.
Dislikes:
It's heavy. Only 500# heavier than our old auger, but the weight is farther out, so harder to lift. Had to upsize our lift cylinders to 70 mm, we found a NOS set of 75's so that's what we did. With the wet fall we had, I had to be very careful where I went. The center knife drive gearbox can be an issue, make sure yours has updates to it. I believe those consist of better seals and plastic wiper arms to sweep the dirt away. We were advised to blow that are out every day, 4 bolts and a panel comes off, air tank with blow gun, panel back on, 5 minutes maybe while fueling up. Whoever designed the area around the center auger needs to get a kick. It is a pain to clean out those pockets, even a small hole would allow one to blow the crap down, but it's solid and blind. Hydraulic tubes are strategically placed to make it impossible to get your hands in there. You can't see much of the center belt and any of the auger from the seat in a NH CR.
Good head, does it save BPA like some claim? We didn't really have much loss before so hard to say. And it's hard to say whether we went faster, unless you have two identical machines in the same field I'm not sure you can make that claim, but it seemed like we were able to run faster. Maybe next year, with a dryer fall, it will be more evident. Our main objective wa better flexibility, which this had.
| |
|