Combines BiRotor

I have talked to farmbuddy. The company who "tested" the birotor for CAT was NewHolland and it was a joke. Or do really expect that NH would have tested the XBR2 and told CAT to built it to create competition for themselvesIJ Of course the XBR2 had some trouble that summer in California. The machine needed to be refined and that is what CAT should have done. Deere has not put the slidest bit of the XBR2 in any of their combines.

Thanks. I didn't know any of that info about this machine in the last paragraph. Very interesting. It seems as if this would be the ultimate combine, that was within reach to build. leave it to Deere to scrap a good idea in favor of the STS contraption. With some field research and more RandD dollars, this thing could have been a hit. Oh well........................

I'd like to reply about the birotor combine, I saw a video with it running, and it was impressive! It's been a long time ago,and I don't remember what size head was on it I do believe it was running Cat tracks. like a post down below, it looked like a very simple concept, that worked very well. When I heard Jolly Green bought the patent rights, I knew it would never see the light of day again, to bad, we're all losers because of it. The man that gave me the tape was a died in the wool Gleaner man who had seen it run, he was hoping Gleaner would buy it, Dale SCMI.

Dakota, I appreciate your CEO comments, but if I were to speculate (and this is the forum for doing that) I would bet that the Bi-Rotor was killed by the bean-counters and the CEO never even knew about it. Chuck

Bean counters or what ever you want to call them. CEO's are the ones who make the decesions and sign the papers. CAT sponsored the building of the XBR2 and then walked away from it. JD ended up buying the patents just do get it off the market. And we are the ones who loose out on it, because we have to put up with all these high priced ineffecient, poor performing pieces of iron. JD is even hiding their CTS, a far better performing combine than the STS. But the STS had to be made to go after CASE's market share. Then CAT markets the lexion here, a combine that is designed for the European market. Unfortunately it doesn't perform in America and not even in Europe, as I hear from friends over there.

You hit the nail right on the head with the CTS comment. We run a CTS II and we will trade for a 9650 CTS when the time comes, not for a STS. The post about about the single rotor 470 make me wonder why they would ever attempt such a thing.

Dakota, From very personal experiences you and I will disagree on the CEO thing. You would be amazed at the decisions that are made in accounting under the realm of "risk management". I would venture a strong bet that this is where the Bi-Rotor decision was made. They put a value to the Bi-Rotor risk, (CAT or someone else getting the patents),bought and killed them. All neatly tucked beneath the $$$$ threshold of what they need BOD involvement in. Yes, we are untimately the ones that lose. Now, back to the farming aspects of all this, you and I do agree completely on the CTS. Dad bought an Axial Flow last year and we wanted so desparately to look (and demo) a CTS. We couldn't find one within a reasonable drive to even demo one. Chuck

It does seem like a "slight" conflict in interest to have your potential competitor "test" your prototype, but the decision-makers at CAT are all smart enough to know this! Why then, do you suppose, did CAT have New Holland test the prototype on thier (CAT's) behalf. In addition, Deere was well on its way with the STS combine when this purchase was made. Although Deere has yet to utilize any of the XBR2 technology in thier CURRENT machines, let's be hopeful that thier FUTURE machines might utilize some of the XBR2's features.

The only reason I see in Claas trying a single rotor is, because everybody else has rotor threshing. But at the same time that shows you how little they actually understand about combines. It just shocks me again. The problem with any rotor is that you can run corn out of the back so easy. The birotor inventor explained that to me and he called it the rifle effect. We have experienced that with our lexions and STS. Most everybody I talked to has seen it on his lexion or STS, too. With a single rotor you just lower your chance to win this battle.

I was thinking that is one of the main reasons why they are going to try a single rotor. Because everybody else has one. I also thought that is why JD went to the offset design of the 7700. Because Massey who was their biggest competitor had that design. I may be wrong on that.