question for hay balers

[johndeerefarmer]

I have never heard of a baler where you couldn't adjust the bale pressure or tension

Here's what I learned from experience (frustrating and expensive) with JD balers and the belt tension. The belt tension has a setting but it can;t be set correctly if either of the tension cylinders or either of the gate cylinders leak. It will make a mushy soft bale that you can stick a fist half way through (further if you have longer arms)

Dun which one do you have? I had the 335 4x4 for 10 years and didn't have any trouble with leaking cylinders, and the 457 which is 8 years old hasn't given me any trouble.

Now if you are talking about a 20 year old baler then I guess you should expect seals to start failing just from old age. Matter of fact I just had to replace the front seal on the cylinder on my hay rake and we bought it in 1992.

BTW I was having trouble with my tree shear and I wasn't sure if it was the cylinder leaking so I made a pressure tester. It is made of two 4" long 3/4" pipe nipples. Has a tee in the middle where the 4000 psi gauge is mounted and on one end has a ISO male and on the other an ISO female coupler. I can just put it in line with the hose either going to or coming from the cylinder. I just plug it into the ISO port on the back of the tractor. Of course for your baler you would need adapters for the smaller hoses and different fittings if you wanted to test one individually.

 

[dun]

I have never heard of a baler where you couldn't adjust the bale pressure or tension

Here's what I learned from experience (frustrating and expensive) with JD balers and the belt tension. The belt tension has a setting but it can;t be set correctly if either of the tension cylinders or either of the gate cylinders leak. It will make a mushy soft bale that you can stick a fist half way through (further if you have longer arms)

Dun which one do you have? I had the 335 4x4 for 10 years and didn't have any trouble with leaking cylinders, and the 457 which is 8 years old hasn't given me any trouble.

Now if you are talking about a 20 year old baler then I guess you should expect seals to start failing just from old age. Matter of fact I just had to replace the front seal on the cylinder on my hay rake and we bought it in 1992.

BTW I was having trouble with my tree shear and I wasn't sure if it was the cylinder leaking so I made a pressure tester. It is made of two 4" long 3/4" pipe nipples. Has a tee in the middle where the 4000 psi gauge is mounted and on one end has a ISO male and on the other an ISO female coupler. I can just put it in line with the hose either going to or coming from the cylinder. I just plug it into the ISO port on the back of the tractor. Of course for your baler you would need adapters for the smaller hoses and different fittings if you wanted to test one individually.

535

 

[bandit80]

John Deere had a problem a few years ago with the netwrap getting tore from the building up of loose hay in the back gate of the baler. They advised us to shift up a gear and slow down rpms to 1500-1800. First question I asked was, won't the bale be less dense? I was told "no" by three different JD folks and two were factory reps.
To me it just makes common sense that if you lower rpms, you lower hydraulic pressure so bales should be less dense. I guess I need to weigh some and find out (the baler doesn't have an adjustment for density ,it is fixed - 457 baler) The only way lowering rpms wouldn't matter would be if the baler has a pressure regulator which is set for a pressure equal to or less than what the tractor produces at 1500 rpm.

Oh, I forgot JD says that the density of the bale is mainly due to the sides of the bale rubbing against the sides of the baler. :shock:

My JD guy says the same thing. Think of it this way, the less revolutions a bales makes while being formed, the tighter, more dense bale it will make. Thus, the slower the rpm's and the faster you drive, the better the bale. You want to feed the hay in as fast as possible. Our JD guy said to bale between 15-1800 rpms, and whatever speed you desire. I try to bale at least 7 mph, but will go faster if the terrain allows. I have been known to bale over 11 on a nice alfalfa field.

 

[Angus Cowman]

My JD guy says the same thing. Think of it this way, the less revolutions a bales makes while being formed, the tighter, more dense bale it will make. Thus, the slower the rpm's and the faster you drive, the better the bale. You want to feed the hay in as fast as possible. Our JD guy said to bale between 15-1800 rpms, and whatever speed you desire. I try to bale at least 7 mph, but will go faster if the terrain allows. I have been known to bale over 11 on a nice alfalfa field.

sorry I don't buy that
it takes pressure to make the bale tighter has nothing do with less revolutions
with that teory if I pile a windrow up as big as I can get and slow my rpms down then my bales will turn less and make tighter bales

it don't work and as for the tractor running at 15-1800 rpms that all depends on what your PTO speed is
you need to maintain the pto around 520 RPMs for a baler to operate the way it was intended
some tractors that might be 1800 and some that might be at 2100 engine RPMS
I think your JD guys are just trying to make an excuse either because don't know or they don't want to fix the problem

also if your belts aren't re cut to length it will make your bales looser that is one reason I went away from a JD is having to resize the belts every yr

 

[johndeerefarmer]

My JD guy says the same thing. Think of it this way, the less revolutions a bales makes while being formed, the tighter, more dense bale it will make. Thus, the slower the rpm's and the faster you drive, the better the bale. You want to feed the hay in as fast as possible. Our JD guy said to bale between 15-1800 rpms, and whatever speed you desire. I try to bale at least 7 mph, but will go faster if the terrain allows. I have been known to bale over 11 on a nice alfalfa field.

sorry I don't buy that
it takes pressure to make the bale tighter has nothing do with less revolutions
with that teory if I pile a windrow up as big as I can get and slow my rpms down then my bales will turn less and make tighter bales

it don't work and as for the tractor running at 15-1800 rpms that all depends on what your PTO speed is
you need to maintain the pto around 520 RPMs for a baler to operate the way it was intended
some tractors that might be 1800 and some that might be at 2100 engine RPMS
I think your JD guys are just trying to make an excuse either because don't know or they don't want to fix the problem

also if your belts aren't re cut to length it will make your bales looser that is one reason I went away from a JD is having to resize the belts every yr

I only have JD stuff but I agree. It's gotta be pressure that makes a tight bale. I think that JD just says use lower rpm to avoid farmers complaining about tearing the net. I guess someday I should take two trailer load and weigh them and compare the difference.

I don't know how many bales you roll per year but I so far haven't had to resize mine ( I only make around 500-600 per year)

 

[Angus Cowman]

I only have JD stuff but I agree. It's gotta be pressure that makes a tight bale. I think that JD just says use lower rpm to avoid farmers complaining about tearing the net. I guess someday I should take two trailer load and weigh them and compare the difference.

I don't know how many bales you roll per year but I so far haven't had to resize mine ( I only make around 500-600 per year)

try to do about 3000 a yr running a little short this yr little over 2300 so far but with the rain we have gotten this week and then going to Arkansas to bale cornstalks for Jed I might hit the 3k mark after all

that is one thing I like about the NH balers they don't carry the weight of the bales on the belts so you have less stretch and also less belt wear

 

[bandit80]

My JD guy says the same thing. Think of it this way, the less revolutions a bales makes while being formed, the tighter, more dense bale it will make. Thus, the slower the rpm's and the faster you drive, the better the bale. You want to feed the hay in as fast as possible. Our JD guy said to bale between 15-1800 rpms, and whatever speed you desire. I try to bale at least 7 mph, but will go faster if the terrain allows. I have been known to bale over 11 on a nice alfalfa field.

sorry I don't buy that
it takes pressure to make the bale tighter has nothing do with less revolutions
with that teory if I pile a windrow up as big as I can get and slow my rpms down then my bales will turn less and make tighter bales

it don't work and as for the tractor running at 15-1800 rpms that all depends on what your PTO speed is
you need to maintain the pto around 520 RPMs for a baler to operate the way it was intended
some tractors that might be 1800 and some that might be at 2100 engine RPMS
I think your JD guys are just trying to make an excuse either because don't know or they don't want to fix the problem

also if your belts aren't re cut to length it will make your bales looser that is one reason I went away from a JD is having to resize the belts every yr

I agree with you it takes pressure to make the bales tight, and the pressure must be high to achieve tight bales. Guess the best way to explain my point is this, the longer it takes to make a bale, the more revolutions the bale makes, and the more time the bale has to expand in the bale chamber. Even with high pressure, a bale will expand and make looser bales the longer it is in the bale chamber. The eaisest way to see this is to bale a 50 inch or so bale and let the tractor and baler sit with the pto runing. Wait 5 minutes, and I bet your bale is bigger than 50 inches.

I guess I am basing all of this off of what was explained to me by my John Deere guy. I guess in the end, my JD 567 makes very good tight bales and sucks the hay up like a vacumn, so that is all that matters, however it works.

 

[Angus Cowman]

I agree with you it takes pressure to make the bales tight, and the pressure must be high to achieve tight bales. Guess the best way to explain my point is this, the longer it takes to make a bale, the more revolutions the bale makes, and the more time the bale has to expand in the bale chamber. Even with high pressure, a bale will expand and make looser bales the longer it is in the bale chamber. The eaisest way to see this is to bale a 50 inch or so bale and let the tractor and baler sit with the pto runing. Wait 5 minutes, and I bet your bale is bigger than 50 inches.

I guess I am basing all of this off of what was explained to me by my John Deere guy. I guess in the end, my JD 567 makes very good tight bales and sucks the hay up like a vacumn, so that is all that matters, however it works.

after the core of your bale is formed the bale in the baler will have the same amount of pressure continually no matter what size or how long it is in the baler

on the NH you have a pressure gauge as soon as the core is formed that gauge will go to the set amount and stay there until you kick the bale out if I am in thick hay I will actually speed my baler(pto speed) up so it makes more revolutions so the layers of hay going in aren't as thick inside the bale

if a bale did what you are talking about the bigger your bale got the looser it would be

I think someone is blowing smoke up you know where when they explained this to you

 

[bbirder]

Update to this thread. The hay was baled this week and the bales are much tighter than last year. The baler is a NH. The farmer told me that he was using a tractor with less HP last year and he was able to up the pressure on the baler this year. Thanks for all the comments.