Angus Cowman":1mq7rjnm said:
1982vett":1mq7rjnm said:
I agree with bale uniformity of mismatched belts. I'm just wondering if it actually effects tension a huge amount? Now I can agree that if they start to go slack before the gate latches tension would be reduced at the beginning of a bale making a loose core. but as long as the springs are taught when the door latches I just don't know for sure if tension would be reduced enough to make a big difference. I've been wrong once this evening already, might as well go for twice. :lol2:
Lets say when the gate is shut and the factory specs say you should have a 100lb of pressure on the belts and the belts have stretched and you now only have 80 lbs pressure then your bale will not be as tight as it would be at 100lb of pressure on the belts
the #s are just hypothetical
on my NH I have hydraulic tension on my bales so it is easily to adjust only takes turning a valve and the seting on it are from 900psi to 2200psi with mine set at 1650psi I can make a 4x5 bale that weighs 1100lbs fresh out of the field actually the bale is 62" tall
AC, I just want to be clear. I'm not trying to be argumentative while putting forth my questions, they are real questions on a thought process.
Looked up belt lenghts for a 510 John Deere (I'd use Heston numbers if I had access to some). They are supposed to be 484 inches or 40.33 feet. Is 3 - 5 inches really going to make a big difference in bale tightness or starting tension on the springs?
Lets talk about the springs, this may be where my theory fails. Once tension is applied (home position with the door locked) as core is formed and the bale grows the spring is stretched as the bale grows. Is their more pounds of tension extracted if the spring is stretched say 12" as opposed to being stretched only 11 1/2"? Remembering that taking 3 - 5" of belt off a 40 ft. belt isn't very much. Spring fatigue may be more of a factor than belt lengths.
Looking thru the Operators Manual for my 410 JD Baler- says the belts may be shortend several times without effecting baler operation. Just states a full size bale might not be able to be formed if they are shortened to much. Resize all belts if one has been shortened more that 2 inches. Ok, if all the belts start out at the same length and one has been shortend for whatever reason greater than 2 inches, its circumference is smaller, probably is under greater tension and stress because all the other belts are larger. (Picture a trailer with 3 tires the same size and one smaller tire. The smaller tire will be making more rpm's than the other 3 but in this situation it is unhindered by the others because it is working independent so no problem.) Now if a single belt on the baler that is shorter than the rest squeezes that portion of the bale a little tighter (making the bale less uniform or out of shape). It is trying to make more rpm's but is restricted by the other belts because they are larger (more apt to pull the lacings on the shorter belt in my opinion). So you could say that shorting the belt applies more tension but is it really because this one belt is trying to work independently but it can't. Let's go back to our trailer. Hypothetical if their were a mechanism that limited each tire to rotate only rate of the larger tires number of rpm's, that smaller tire will be under greater stresses and will have to slide along the ground a bit for every rpm the other tires make freely simply because it has to make more rpm's to travel the same distance. Resize the tires to match and these stresses go away. Seems simple and I believe everyone can grasp this example. I think resizing all the belts to match does much the same, relieves all the forces exerted by having mismatched belts so we are back to; Can an old belt be stretched long enough to put a tension spring out of it's operating range to a significant degree?
I'm still in the: not to a great degree camp. Will accept the fact that I might be wrong. Not to proud to say that.