Combines Bison rotor

[NowGleaner7]

For my money I would buy the new CDF rotor from Agco. If you are looking at an enclosed rotor it does all they say and worked well in my (hard thresh) spring wheat. I have no experience with Sunnybrook so I won't comment there. Dave

 

[NDDan]

Very first Bison which was 1_2 Gleaner rasp (eight rows of all forward bars over concave area) and 1_2 Bison (twisted spikes over separator side) worked wonderful all last season with basically no loss. It only run in spring wheat. No eight bar all rasp cylinder could run with it but never ran and didn't have any six bar rotors to test out. Gleaners standard eight bar with all forward bars and basic set of sweeps got closer as well as the Sunnybrook Gen 2 with sweeps. Alot of different combos run together in same fields but no time to drop spreaders to count kernals. No excess loss from any machines. About four of the second design of Bison were built (Beater paddles in place of rasp bars over concave). These run in wheat and soybeans with great capacity and near zero loss. Two of them run in corn in different parts of the country and they had trouble saving all the corn. A few of the old tricks to save corn were tried but still not satisfied. No corn was left to harvest thus the rotor modification thought to be needed couldn't be done until last winter. The third design (we'll realy only second full Bison design was completed last winter) It went out this spring to harvest some corn that got traped in deep snow last fall. I know that wasn't the best test but the machine had little to no loss until it was up to some great capacity. It was able to over run the clean grain elevator system. I know that wasn't a very good test and it will have to prove itself this fall when corn gets going again. This third design ran the wheat run up from Texas to North Dakota with great results. Fuel savings substantial with great capacity. It was running with six bar rotors but I don't know who's and or how many reverse bars on them. They are moving out of the proto stage to production stage shortly and can't wait to see how they will do in all conditions of corn. If we ever can get a CDF up hear we'll put them head to head. Take care.

 

[venturis40]

thanks dan i'm producing seed quality soys and grain corn i have 3 N7s, (one is a spare) with gen 1 sunnybrookes with all forward bars, double stacked flat helicals w_green stem kit, and every other wire out of the concaves we run approx 3_8 gap on concave at approx 400-450rpm running approx 2.5% cleanout the only problem i have is plugging the right side of the chafferandseive with straw in beans and sticks in corn returning many unthreshed pods to cylinder will concave fillers helpIJ thanks august wieser rosholt, sd

 

[NDDan]

Where are you returning tailingIJ You make it sound like to cylinder. I can't help but think a couple filler bars won't hurt you if you have heavy return of unthreshed pods. I would check a few things: Number one is check fan to see it has no evident twist, Number two is check cut off above fan (it is the piece just ahead of fan choke that has cut aways to clear fan hubs. It should measure the same distance from fan all the way across. let me know if more than 1_2". Third I would check out fan splitter under fan. Measure threw inspection doors under fan and see that it is the same all the way across. 1 1_4" would be max. Number four would be remove chaffer and place straight edge on bottom flat area of spliter. line from straight edge should run just under and paralel to tin under grain pan area. Number five would be put a straight edge on first few inches just ahead of accelerator rolls. Straight edge should run paralel to floor under engine all the way across. I can't help but think you find something with air system. See what you come up with. Good luck

 

[NDDan]

Best I can tell you so far is that it is close to or as good as proto's in wheat and soybeans. You know how well it worked in beans. Real world corn test is only days away. It would be fun to get one in some green milo to see how it does. What stage of harvest are you in down thereIJ Have a good one.

 

[Marshaltown_Farms]

Bean harvest coming along good am 2_3 to 3_4 done and then will move to corn. Hope it will be dry. If dry weather holds beans will take 4 to 5 days.

 

[Marshaltown_farms]

I run a earlier prototype of one two years ago and it worked great in soybeans but more rotor loss than I liked in corn. This year Dan brought one out to try in corn late in the harvest year and it worked great. I have purchased it since then because I know it will work in both beans and corn the best of any setup I have had so far. The cost is the same as a new CDF with all new chrome bars. Not hard for me to decide which one to choose. Dan has went to alot of work improving the concept and I thank him for that. I believe they make it for IH to.

 

[Rolf]

ROM and I had a chance to look at one in a R75 only a couple of weeks ago in a 6 ton_Ha barley crop and I can say that it was very impressive! Stanley the guys that developed the idea in South Africa used to run a number of Case 2388's and earlier as a custom cutter in SA, so he should know his stuff about them. I "think" they have some sort of deal were you can try it for a week and see how it goes!! (You would need to check with him on that) as it would take a bit of time to change one over in a Case, so I suppose you could work out some sort of deal. We are looking at doing a poor mans version (Due to last few low production years!!!) in our R62 Gleaner using the same current rotor with some mod's on the sep end of the rotor. I can only see better performance and grain quality coming out the machine. Grain loss would be able to be controlled with the spikes on the rotor and some other ideas if needed. Also the smooooth running of the machine will add life and reliability to as well! (And I would think you could kiss the breaking of the main Rotor belt a couple of times every year, good by as well!!!!) I dont think you would want to take the Bison rotor out after its in! Talked to the guys in the know and see how you go. Rolf PS: let us know when you have run one and give some feed back please!

 

[R_O_M]

South eastern Australia. We had the opportunity to have a good look at a Bison rotor operating in a R75 in close to 7 tonnes _ Ha [ 125 bus_ ac_ ] barley crop. Header was a modified 36 ft AGCO draper. Operating speed around the 8 kph [ 5 mph ] Barley straw was probably too green to bale immediately but the grain was fully ripe at about 12 or 13 % moisture. The crop was being cut around a foot high so a lot of straw was going through. Estimated rotor losses in the windrow were at the most, around the bushel an acre or less which, considering the straw conditions was an excellent result. Sample was excellent and grain damage was almost non existent, an important consideration when trying to achieve malting grade for barley. Stanley Gribbin from South Africa, the designer of the Bison had rotors for the Gleaner and Case on show. He told me that some Case combines are now being ordered and coming into S.A. without rotors as the Bisons are installed before the machines even hit the field. The auger like separator section on the Bison apparently allows the material to fluff up into a loose mass which allows grain to be centrifuged through it with the agitators stirring things up. This is in contrast to a standard rotor which holds a thin compressed mat of material against the cage wall. The price being suggested in Australia is very attractive compared to standard rotor prices and when a few are proven in the field it will probably be adopted on fairly wide scale by a lot of the different colour owners down here in Australia. Dan's contribution to the development of this rotor has also been very important particularly in the North American context. No doubt there are further improvements that will be made as the concept is quite radical compared to what we have seen in the past. Overall, a very interesting development with every promise of enabling a big lift in combine performance and separation for a very modest outlay. The only real way of measuring combine performance is to calculate bushels or tonnes per hour against horse power. When measured this way think the Bison will probably prove to be one of the most efficient rotors around. [ No! I don't own shares, sell them or have any links with Bison whatsoever! ] Cheers!

 

[NDDan]

I would check out bisonrotor.com. I could not get on the site tonight but you should be able to find dealer for the CIH there. I got involved with Stanley (the patent holder) when he was in my area a few years ago and wondered if I would be interested in sizeing a Bison into Gleaner. I said sure because I'd heard of some Bisons with all pegs going into some CIHs for edible beans and they were doing a good job. I didn't want to sit back and watch the CIHs get all the beans so we got started. We were all ready running sweeps on our old eight bar rotors with good luck and hadn't heard of Gleaner working on the CDF yet so we gave the first proto Bison a try. Things went good right off the bat and after a few alterations over a couple years we had it about right. I wanted to be sure it worked in a great variety of crops and for other reasons I'd rather not get into I held off till mid summer before I would sell one. Now that we have done everything from grass to milo and a bunch of crops inbetween we can see if set up properly it can do a very fine job. Radical looking it is but I feel there is a good future for it.