Need a new round baler

[JRM]

If you can bale about 1/3 more hay with a netwrap, will your baler last about 1/3 longer since it not having to make that many revolutions to tie string vs a couple turns on a netwrap one. Just curious as to what wear and tear on a baler would be between net and twine. Seems to be a 30, 000 bale baler using twine would equal to a 40,000 bale baler using net.
Do not have netwrap but looking to get a baler with it hopefully in next year or two.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Seems to be a 30, 000 bale baler using twine would equal to a 40,000 bale baler using net.

Your addition is off a bit, I think. It takes 25 or 27 revolutions to put twine on a bale. I dunno for sure how many revolutions the baler would make to make a bale, but 1000 or so wouldn't be out of the question (lol, never really tried to count and I don't honestly know what the gear reduction is on my 664). So the difference between netwrap would be 1002 revolutions to 1027 revolutions, or
2.5% difference. We're talking 750 bales on a 30,000 bale baler.

Rod

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

lol, serves me right for doing quick math. Correction:

It takes 14 revolutions of the bale to put 28 twines on (dual twine arms). In 3 ton/acre hay this year, I was rolling a bale every 4 minutes. It takes 20 seconds to tie a bale on a 688 (from a custom baler who had no radio and had to amuse himself somehow). Its going to take 5 seconds or so to dump, so that works out to about 1 revolution per second on his baler. My 664 is a little faster due to 1:1 gearing on my sledge versus 1.3 to 1 on a 688 (just learned this, this year as I was looking for a replacement sledge after mine broke in half). So I'm 1.3 revolutions per second, or 312 revolutions per bale.

So that means 326 revolutions versus 314 revolutions for netwrap or 3.8% difference. On 30,000 bales, thats 1140 bales.

Give or take a few ;-) :lol2: Fewer if your hay is lighter than 3 tons.

And yes, I really can't sleep tonight.

Rod

 

[Florida cattle]

guys you've got to remember not everyone puts the same anmount of twine or net on a bale, but one would have to say that it does take less revolutions to apply the net.

The biggest thing for me is time saved, time may not matter for everyone. I know when I bought my new baler I got the net wrap and bale ramp on it and have not regreted it at all. I call it stop and go, no backing up and waiting for it to tie. just stop drop and go.

The only problem I have with the net wrap is what to do with it when I cut it off in the pasture when I'm feeding, it takes up more room than the string does.

I know I've seen it posted before but Vermeer has a net wrap calculator on thier web site.
http://www.vermeerag.com/compare/

One thing I have noticed is that you could save 10 Hrs of time for every 1000 bales, and I see that as 10 hrs I can spend with my family.

 

[ChrisB]

I use sisal twine and don't cut it off the bales when I feed. I always figured I could save 30 seconds per bale while baling with net but have to spend an extra 3 minutes taking it off while feeding. Seems I come out ahead in the time department with twine.

 

[Florida cattle]

Tried the sisal but if I have to store any outside it will usually leave part of the roll on the ground when I pick it up to feed it. I gues the heat, humidity, and sunshine here in Florida weaken it too fast for my taste.
oh and I can usually take the net off faster than the twine on my bales.

Also on a side note; what little bit of custom work I do I'm starting to see them request the net more.

 

[1982vett]

lol, serves me right for doing quick math. Correction:

It takes 14 revolutions of the bale to put 28 twines on (dual twine arms). In 3 ton/acre hay this year, I was rolling a bale every 4 minutes. It takes 20 seconds to tie a bale on a 688 (from a custom baler who had no radio and had to amuse himself somehow). Its going to take 5 seconds or so to dump, so that works out to about 1 revolution per second on his baler. My 664 is a little faster due to 1:1 gearing on my sledge versus 1.3 to 1 on a 688 (just learned this, this year as I was looking for a replacement sledge after mine broke in half). So I'm 1.3 revolutions per second, or 312 revolutions per bale.

So that means 326 revolutions versus 314 revolutions for netwrap or 3.8% difference. On 30,000 bales, thats 1140 bales.

Give or take a few ;-) :lol2: Fewer if your hay is lighter than 3 tons.

And yes, I really can't sleep tonight.


Rod

Kind of track the numbers game also, course I used to use a 410 John Deere baler and had to manualy control the twine arm (never could get the flow control to work). 20-21 seconds to tie a 4x5. And no, constant flow does not tie a properly with a single arm. You have to start out slow and speed up as the arm comes across.

I might not understand exactlly which revolutions you are counting. Tractor pto rpms are probably constant ratio (pto turn one revolution, chains belts and everything on the bale moves X distance, reguardless of engine speed. You mention 4 minutes to bale a bale and 20 seconds to tie. We all know volume of hay can change the 4 minutes but for argument sake and easy calculations lets use 4 minutes to roll to tieing size as an average on your 30,000 bales and lets use 24 seconds to tie the bale. 4x60=240 seconds, now you know why I want to use 24 seconds to tie. it equals 10% of your rpms. 10% of 30,000 bales is 3000 bales not 1140.

More numbers to think about. 3000 bales @ $25 a bale is 2 haybalers.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Hmmmm, you completely lost me on 24 seconds being 10% of tractor RPMs. And I'm not sure why you'd calculate cost of hay into it. Anyway, my point is that netwrap isn't going to significantly extend baler life. Whether its 30,000, 31,000 or 33,000 bales, makes no real difference for a custom guy who will run off 30,000 bales and then sell the baler. And no rancher (1000 bales or less per year) is going to keep a baler for 30,000 bales or 30 years. You'd be crazy to.

Rod

 

[1982vett]

Hmmmm, you completely lost me on 24 seconds being 10% of tractor RPMs. And I'm not sure why you'd calculate cost of hay into it. Anyway, my point is that netwrap isn't going to significantly extend baler life. Whether its 30,000, 31,000 or 33,000 bales, makes no real difference for a custom guy who will run off 30,000 bales and then sell the baler. And no rancher (1000 bales or less per year) is going to keep a baler for 30,000 bales or 30 years. You'd be crazy to.

Rod

I'm saying it is going to extend the life by 10%. 240 seconds (4 minutes) to bale a bale 24 seconds to tie a bale. 24 divided by 240 is .10 or 10%. 10% of your time, baling rpm's, fuel consumption.... extended out, is used just to tie the bales. If you baled 30,000 actual bales with the baler you spent the time, baling rpm's, fuel consumption.... (while tieing the 30,000 bales) to bale an additional 3000 bales @ $25/bale for baling (going rate around here) would gross approximatly 2 new haybalers. Ok I'll give one back if the cost of netwrap is really that much more expensive and brecause the baler doesn't earn the whole $25. I thought we were just crunching numbers and I thought yours were a bit low for extra wear.

And no rancher (1000 bales or less per year) is going to keep a baler for 30,000 bales or 30 years. You'd be crazy to.

Agree, he should be the one that buys the one traded in every year by the custom baler for a third of the cost of a new one, or there abouts. Don't think I want the one that had 30,000 run thru it. :secret:

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Ah, I see where your 10% comes from. My percentage figure was the difference in time between netwrap and twine, not just the percentage of time spent tying. So using your method with my 664:

20 seconds tying and dumping with 4 minutes total per bale = 8.3% of time
Netwrap - 2 seconds tying, 5 dumping, 7 seconds total = 3.1%

On 30,000 bales thats 2400 versus 930 or 1470 bales differential, so we're back to approximately where I was. Either way, its just not significant for 99% of people.

As a side note, you guys pay $25 bale for custom baling? Egads, I know where I'm going to do custom work next year. We're sitting at 9 bucks around here.

Rod

 

[1982vett]

$25 is for cut, rake, and whatever it takes to get it baled, not just baling.

 

[bigbull338]

the $25 a bale is cutting raking an baling.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Ah, not so much different than here then. Up here, $12/acre for mower/conditioner, $9 bale (or $9/acre if less than 1 bale per acre) baling. No raking needed if your deflectors are set tight on the conditioner.

Rod

 

[JRM]

I guess the way I was looking at it if it took me an hour to bale 20 bales using twine and with netwrap I could bale 30 in an hour. On 30,000 bales that would be 1500 hours of baling vs 1000 hours baling. I am assuming that there would be the same wear and tear on a baler for each hour running. Also what would be the impact of les hours on a tractor
here is a good tread I found on it
http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/th...et+wrap&highlightmode=1&action=search#M418875
By the way in our area we are getting 22 to 30 dollars a bale for cutting, raking and baling. Most of us 25 a bale. I did some round baling for a guy where it was cut and raked for me for 12 dollars a roll (twine).
Good ideas and imput on this tread

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

I guess the way I was looking at it if it took me an hour to bale 20 bales using twine and with netwrap I could bale 30 in an hour.

Yep, I understood what you were getting at, but you won't. 30 bales vs 20 would be 50% more output and I just illustrated that on a 3 ton field you'd only have around 3% better output. Using twine doesn't decrease your baling speed, just lengthens the tie time by about 14 seconds or so. To bale 50% more hay, that means you'd have to be cracking out a bale every 30 seconds or so.

I wouldn't mind a hay field that yielded like that

Rod

 

[cre10]

I have a Vermeer 555xl. I get about 100 bales per roll of netwrap and netwrap right now is on sale for 279 a roll. I have two layers of netwrap on my bales.

 

[cre10]

The Vermeer 604's are supposed to tip pretty easily but I guess the 504 bales aren't as bad. The benefit is being able to haul them and not be overwidth.