Combines Has anyone used cage fingers in corn soybeansIJ

Tom, my 82 N6 came from Spencer, IA area from new and it too has the fingers in there. They show very heavy wear and some are gone. I am the second owner and the first owner had most of the system Hyperized when I got it 6 years ago. I do strictly corn and soybeans here and live about as close to Spencer as you do in MN. I finished the Hyperizing and have never used the fingers once. My "best guess" is that was Gleaner's way of factory hyperizing. The manual says they are used frequently to aid in separation and extra threshing of the grain(reduce rotor flow). looking at what the manuals says and what I know of the Hyperizing of my N6, I'll stay Hyper'd!

John, do you have a separator grateIJ My machine has all Hyper mods except for the grate and we were wondering if the fingers would help slow movement of leaves in the sep section.

Full loewen Cage, so yes! It was almost new when I bought the combine.

i tried them in my N7 w_sunnybrook last year due to unthreased pods

Tom, We are set up like you and have everything hyperized but the grate in dad's N5 running corn and beans in central Iowa. We had some rotor loss this fall and tried the cage fingers and we could see no power usage and no help in the rotor loss (1.5 to 2 bpa in 170 to 200 bushel corn). We are going to put the grate in this summer and Hyper II has assured us that it will fix our problem. We even tried the factory crop retarder which seemed to help a little, but still not quite enough. Hope this helps answer your question. Kirk Welton

Kirk, it sounds like we are on the same page. But what is a crop retarderIJ The picture in the operators manual is too dark to figure out what it looks like. We have had some rotor loss in immature corn for the past 2 years. Slowing down to 5-6 mph from 6-7 and raising cylinder speed to 350 took care of losses. let us know how a separator grate works for you guys. Thanks to everyone who replied. Tom

Tom, It is a like a curved piece of angle iron that you bolt in the inside of the cage just before the discharge area to make the material go around another time before entering discharge. We only used it for about 100 acres, if you want to try it next fall let me know as I am sure dad would sell it salvage price as I don't think you can use them with the channel helicals we will have with the grate. Kirk

John, Could you please expand on your exact setup. Do you have stacked helicals on thresher and seperator side with green stem kit installed or do you only have thresher side stacked or do you have channel helicals threwoutIJ When you say you are fully hyperized I would be sure you did the high low cylinder bars on seperator side with all forward bars. Would I be assuming right if your full loewen cage has the 1"x1" openings or is it a newer one with 1"x1 1_4" openingsIJ It sounds like your answer to Tom about seperator grate is that you do have one. Did you install after you got machine or did it have oneIJ If you have the seperator grate is it 3" or 6" from crossbar to crossbarIJ I know you say your cage fingers that are not installed are worn and broke which will happen with use but who knows when they were installed and for what (maybe before hi low bars or helical job). I wish Hyper would come on hear and tell us at what stage of the game they had tried cage fingers for I'm sure they have. Sorry about all the questions but I would like an alternative to seperator grate for there are many crops where it hurts and I've heard plenty of reports where the cage fingers will reduce loss in many crops without noticeable power consumption. I suppose it makes a difference how many cage fingers are installed but just a couple assemblies has did the trick for some. I'm thinking the cage fingers would work in a similiar way as the Estes disrupters for CIH and I believe they are now making for the JD STS. Thanks

How many finger assemblies did you installIJ Did you put them all along the back and frontIJ Don't get me wrong for I'm all for Hyper ways in corn and soybeans but looking for an inbetween for the guys with more numerous crops. We are very close to one setup working in all crops and removing and replacing some pegs would be way better than swaping concaves,grates, ect. Thanks

We tried them in the front and back both adding one at a time until we had all 4 in. With the high low setup we noticed no power loss and also noticed no improvement in rotor loss. We were only trying to get rid of approx. 2 bushel loss on 170 to 200 bushell corn I realize that this is probably within acceptable limits but when we know all of it is rotor loss we are wanting to clean it up. The grate is going in this summer and hopefully it will take care of our problem. As I said we are in only corn and beans though. hope this helps Kirk