Combines 485 is slugged

[tobaboy]

last year we plugged our 480 real bad in tough winter wheat. We pulled wheat out through some side inspection covers and climbed down through a door on top of the rotors near the engine I believe, from here we were able to dislodge some more wheat. May want to try lifting the header all the way up and pulling the large inspection door off from under the feederhouse, this I think will provide you with good access to the cylinder area. To tell you the truth its been nearly a year since I looked at any of this so I'm beginning to forget, we get our new machine in a couple of weeks, so I will have to refresh myself then. What speed were you running the cylinder atIJ Where was the concave setIJ One thing to maybe check is how tight your feeder house slip clutch is, we tightened ours last year after plugging it in barley, it was only after doing this that we began to plug the cylinder, which is something we had never done in the two years previous to last. Hope you were able to clear things up.

 

[big_rig]

i think the cylinder was pretty low, like 510 rpm, and the concave was pretty tight, we were trying many different combinations to try to make it save the seed. the aps cylinder and the main cylinder are free, just that back one is stuck, and seems like you can only get at very little of the cylinder from the inside of the machine. maybe i will have to get longer arms and do it from the front! our dealer still seems to think we don't need any filler plates, and i tend to disagree, because there is quite a bit of area for sticks to grind up and end up in the tank, a little more testing should tell i guess. b.t.w. i am the one from northern mn, i just changed my name to be "courteous" to sensitive people.

 

[CATMAN]

Heres a question. Do you think the aps opens automaticly when the slug puts pressure on the concaveIJ I think it does which leads to a giant slug because the concave is all the way open and slugged. I never saw the merit in that system. I ran a fencpost thru mine and bent everything all to heII. So it didnt work with a foriegn object and it makes bigger slugs. Any thoughtsIJ

 

[willymakeit]

What helped us on our 470 when we plugged it was to pull out the bolts on the 2 speed cylinder. This put all the power to the rotors only. This will clean out the rotors and right behind the impeller. Then we installed the bolts and cleaned out the rest.Worked good for us. Maby it will help.

 

[Rooster]

Your assumption is incorrect. The APS concave only opens, automatically, when a spike load of 1300 psi (relief) or greater occurs. Only dense objects of stone, metal or wood can activate the overload protection system - operator warned by alarms. Once the alarms go off, it is the responsibility of the operator to react quick enough to switch off the system, as with any combine, to prevent further intake and damage (there is no failsafe system to protect any combine from dense foreign objcts, everyone knows that). Crop and plant material haven't the density properties capable of causing such a spike load (crop and plant material become displaced). Therefore, the problem here "lies" with the operator. Anyone familiar with harvesting swathed crops (no matter the combine),especially grass seed, understands the necessity for cylinder and rotor speed to achieve velocity and resulting torque to prevent system slugging and ultimately plugging. If the system is running too slow, and the material is high in moisture, the lack of cylinder torque when operating at too slow a speed, especially when not locked into the low range will cause any combine, conventional or rotary to plug. The owner of this combine has obviously never tried to harvest this type of crop before because they would have never started to harvest at such a low cylinder speed, no matter if trying preserve grain quality or not (you must learn your limitations first, starting off with speeds and tolerances that will allow material to flow through the machine first and then concentrate on grain quality). Hopefully by now they have realized that grass seed is only to be harvested during the heat of the day too. Anyone who injests a fence post is most likely going to cause extreme damage, to any combine, which isn't the combine's problem either. The kick I really get out of this posting is the fact that the owner actually got on a public forum and announced that he plugged his combine. I am sure all of the NW grass seed growers are getting a kick out of this.

 

[tobaboy]

When we combine crested wheatgrass the cylinder is wide open, we never found that we could damage the seed, in fact I always wished that we could thresh it even harder, we always had to run the return right full (bottom sieve at 1),in order to get it threshed properly. Do you have the wind reduction kitIJ

 

[big_rig]

Actually we have harvested grasses for many years. You were talking about knowing your limitations for speeds, well obcviously i learned (the hard way). The crappy part is that it was actually the salesman and mechanic who came up with this brilliant idea to slow it down some more to prevent putting sticks into the sample, and he was the one operating it when it happened. Needless to say, he isn't one bit familiar with bluegrass, but knew more about the basic operation of the machine than I. That same salesguy and mechanic said that they knew of no access door from the hopper, and that is what the point of my post was, to see if anyone else knew of one. And tobaboy was able to lead me in that direction.

 

[big_rig]

yes we put that fan blast reduction kit on. That in itself was quite a dilimma, because our dealer couldn't tell us if we were right to cut the rods, to slide them in, because the tracks are right in line with them. They also said they had never heard of any filler plates. i guess more cylinder rpm's must be the key, but it still concerns me how it destroyed that front rotor grate the first night, and slugged it so tight the next night. i guess time will tell. thanks for the help.

 

[tobaboy]

We push the wind reduction kit in until there is about 1" between the round cover and the side of the machine. Use the bottom sieve to clean up your sample, but keep an eye on your returns, it may involve slowing down. Did you ever get the thing unpluggedIJ

 

[FarmBuddy]

I would have to disagree with Rooster's comment: "Crop and plant material haven't the density properties capable of causing such a spike load (crop and plant material become displaced)." I've operated several lexion combines since their introduction, and had "Concave Overload" warnings when feeding dense mats of weeds, morning glories, grass infestation, etc. Also the APS and main concave linkage is tied together up front, so both the APS and front concave open during excessive slug overloading. (The rear pivot point of the concave is in a fixed position but far enough back to also allow the rear of the concave to open some also.) Rocks, post and other hard foreign objects tend to create such a concentrated load in one area, that there tends to be localized damage to APS paddles and _ or concave rasp bars, even when the relief pressure is reached. I have yet to see any operator who could react fast enough to noise from a rock or sweep ingestion as far up as the APS or concave. Even if you see a foreign object up at the header, you'd have to be darn quick to get it shut down while still coming up the feederhouse or front of the treshing area. Hopefully the rock trap has been cleaned recently so it is not packed too tight to accept the deflection from the APS. Hydraulic relief works good, if not best in a poor _ matted windrow or weedy field. It also usually helps prevent catastophic damage when dense rock or steel shovel get up that far. My 2 cents for today. Was the machine shined up well, or still new or rusty from last yearIJ Be patient during that first field or when the crops are still a little green, no matter what the make is.