Combines enclosed rotors and various crops

On the enclosed rotor which we provide, either P1 or P3 bars or a combo of both can be installed. Don't know this for sure since we've only tried it in one machine, but the combo setup may be the best of both worlds. The P3 bars agitate and carry thru larger components while the P1 bars carry fines. The skin of an enclosed rotor holds trash against the concave and cage much better since material can't escape into the center of the rotor. Appears to work well in all crops, except that we may be able to roll bean vines thru a little more cleanly with a full complement of P3 bars and some agitator sweeps which we've installed on couple of rotors.

Thank tj, Guess I saw it before - but did not understand what I was looking at. Still not 100% on these pictures. Is there any cage changeIJ best, bill koob

Apologies for the photos -- the gray colored rotor has both types of bars installed, but it's kind of hard to see detail. Main reason it's on there is to show how we extend the bars across the discharge area. A few months ago, we also discovered a simple way to extend the bars out across the discharge on an OEM rotor and completely eliminate paddles. This appears to keep trash spread more evenly as it is moved out.

Guess I should read questions before answering. We haven't seen any changes to the cage which would be required, but have been able to eliminate some of the helicals in P1 cages to avoid damage in edible beans while feeding and separation in other crops still seems to remain at a good level. This is with a full complement of P3 bars.

Im afraid there is no definitive answer to your question. The obvious advantages of an enclosed rotor_cylinder are reduced vibration and increased moment of inertia. After that, the advantages_disadvantages are dependent on too many factors to make generalized claims. For example, we had two John Deere conventional combine owners call about corn harvesting experiences. Both operators were in same crop, same conditions, same equipment. Customer A states this cylinder is extremely speed sensitive, I have a sweet spot of +_- 20 rpm that I have to work in to remove the kernel from the cob without damage. Customer B states this cylinder is very forgiving, I can run it as a slow or fast as needed (+_- 200 rpm) and always get a great sample in the tank. The Hyper guys rightfully advocate numerous small, yet compounding improvements to the processor of Gleaner combines to best suit the specific crops and conditions for a genre of combine owners. More than selling steel, we think they promote a philosophy. Unlike some other make owners, Gleaner people are seldom subjected to the O.E.M drivel that altering your harvester is blasphemous. Sunnybrook sells more steel than philosophy. We say thanks to everyone that post on this site, if only because we are rarely criticized and often praised as a company. Merry Christmas to everyone, from all of us at Sunnybrook.

Just a problem with my thinking - I've been around threshing machines of various types for years and years. Just had my nearly 90 year old father here and asked him what he thought of an enclosed cylinder. Having gone through a variety of stationary machines that where all closed grate and pull type that were closed grate on to the gleaner machines that were closed grate and all with open cylinders - In grain there never was any build up problem within the cylinder itself. We did have bars installed in the gleaners for corn - seemed to get rid of some ground cobs from the shoe and tank. The earlier machines were primarily Case and primarily spike tooth. 4 concaves for oat and flax - 2 for barly. You just set the cylinder and concaves closer for flax - but not too close to create to much load for the cleaning shoe. Seems that centrifical force kepted all material out of the inside of the cylinder. Never had any problems with flow on the spiked tooth machines - a small case pull type combine with spike tooth would take a 12 foot windrow of 20-30 bushel flax with little problem - when much larger machines would be grinding away and having a much more difficult time in all phases-cleaning and getting the material through. The gleaners with the filler bars installed did seem to allow for a wider cylinder to concave setting with better shelling results in corn. I cannot remember what it did for beans - we took them out for small grain. Seems that AC did not recommend filler bars for small grain. Sorry for my rambling (Just tying to understand the effect of a closed cylinder). Something in my feeble brain says "put the helical on the rotor cylinder and more disrupters between the cylinder bars". Maybe double the mounting locations for the bars and stagger them with disrupters and helical bars. 16 nodes - stagger bars - disputers and helical bars. Sorry if I cannot see an advantage to a enclosed cylinder. I do see a problem occurring because of air flow with a closed cylinder - I could see some advantage with the cylinder being made into a fan internally - but then you would need to provide air to the inner part of the cylinder as with a fan. Maybe pressurize it with an external fan. Sorry for the long thoughts: As the lord said to Ahaz through Isaiah - "Is it not enough that you weary men must you also weary my the lord" Could not get the diety by the censor so subsituted "the lord" and in the spirit of the season - "The lord himself will give you a sign the virgin shall be with child, an bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel". Merry Christmas, best wishes, bill koob

First off thank you for your response. This may be the wrong church on combine talk but is the cylinder shown on your site at http:__www.sunnybrookwelding.com_whtnew.htmlnBack%20Beater for an STS deereIJ best wishes and thank you, bill koob

Bill; Advantages to an enclosed cylinder are not necessarily the inertial weight, nor the fact that it doesn't go out of balance. The skin of the cylinder prevents material from passing between the bars and holds it against the concave, cage surface and helicals. Sloped mounts carry material to the bars which, at least on our cylinder, are mounted more upright vertically than on OEM. This provides a tumbling effect on trash, rather than a pinching effect required by OEM, etal. Easier separation without requirement for chewing up MOG is the end effect, and cage helicals will carry larger components of trash to the discharge more easily than they will carry small ones. Inertia only enters the picture when loading is uneven and material is heavy or tending to slug the rotor. The inertial mass maintains rotor speed and prevents shock loads to the mounting splines and gearbox. Hope this is reasonably understandable. Also, best of the season to all. Terry Welch

Oh my gosh Terry. Remember when I called you last fall and you were tied up so you couldn't talk. I was looking for something exactly like your Agitator_pusher bar. I ended up having a bunch of bars just like that made and I fastened on a standard P3 rotor. I did it for edible beans and found ourselves threshing in foggy wet conditions with only 200 cylinder RPM. I then put it in sunflowers where the heads were soaking wet and they come out discharge mostly whole but completely threshed. I then put it in corn just to see what it would do. Worked fine in the low yeilding dry corn. We went way overboard with agitator_pusher bars but were just seeing what it would do. We thought we would maybe see rotor loss but no. Seems like helicals will prevent material from flowing to fast just like they help to keep things moving. Bars we made are rough but good enough to see some extreme benifits. After tring almost anything imaginable for these ridiculous conditions I think we finally found something that will keep us going as long as the seeds are dry enough. Take care and enjoy the holidays.

Dan, Did you end up with an enclosed cylinder - with your additions - can you post a picture of your add on'sIJ best, bill koob