Combines How are you doing IowaDanIJ

Just got started on soybeans. They are pretty tall this year and header was feeding them in nice and even. It sure does make the rest of the machine run smoothly when the head works that well. I do use the hose-mod. Might not need it this year but it makes for a nice rock guard and I think it saves quite a few shattered beans.

Hi Dan, Gads, I cut all my tall ones two weeks ago. Now I have the hard ones. They are short and have a canopy yet! The hose mod dams them up, I cant get them to flick in! I am condsidering making a few of my own paddles to clip to the reel just to see if that would help. I have 16 acres of them left. AND they just might get left!!! I will go to milo or corn next week with a little luck of no rain. I am glad it is going good for you! We have had rain just about every 5 days and it affected the integrety of the beans. Using the same settings in the same beans I cut 10 days ago, I was splitting them today with othe debris getting in the bin. 10 days ago I had really nice. But had to do something the pods were opening up. So I tried a bunch of different things and got it much better but I sure could tell a difference in harvesting them. How many acres do you have to go yetIJ

I've got about 140 acres of beans left to cut but we are also fighting wet weather. Yea, it's funny how one setting seems to work well for one guy and not someone else. I have a friend that sets his concave at 3 to 4 and cylinder at about 630 to 650 but when I tried it, I had more trash and splits in the bin than I like. Right now I'm running at about 6 on concave and 580 to 610 cylinder speed and I'm getting very clean samples with very few splits. I'm also running air on 6 and seive on tight 3_8's, chaffer 1_2 inch with the front part a little wider(have chaffer mod). I guess what I'm saying is you do have to keep making little adjustments until you get what you like. like I said before, I really think the even feeding makes everything else come together.

I agree. My settings are fairly close to yours but I am running my cylinder about 50 rpms slower. It was doing great a couple weeks ago then I got back in the last couple days and I basically had to reset everything about 6 times to get a descent sample. Not great just descent. I had way too many splits. So I backed the concave off and then I was not getting the pods to open. Well you know the story. Slow it down and then I get all kinds of stuff in the tank, kick the fan up and out the back everything goes! I was doing all this for a 7 acre field that had to come out to be planted to wheat yesterday. Got that done pulled into a 3 acre field and spent 1_2 hour getting the machine to do a good sample and get all we could get. Got that done and went to to a 4 acre field that I should have taken out 2 weeks ago. Maybe I am too picky and should just close my eyes and nose and just take what I can get! I do have a question, from what you stated aproximately what you settings are, what is your ground speedIJ Mine is between 2.9 and 3.2 mph depending on how the beans are feeding. It seems they feed best on this flex head above 2.9, then I get in a tough area and I have to cut back to 2.5 or 2.6 and then I have feeding trouble and then everything goes wacky. Now what surprises me is these guys that say they can go 5 up to 7 mph, We have a new SCH cutter bar and just experiementing with turn point rows I dont think it would cut clean with any speed above 5.5 mph. I saw a JD guy in the neighborhood running what looked like 6 plus (trying to beat a predicted rain) and his field looks like shag carpet. I cant have that for what we do, plus he left what looked like to me about 3 bushels_ac that he could have gotten by slowing down and let the sickle do it's job. (not including what he tossed out the back end) At $8_bu that is 24 dollars an acre he left behind! YIPES! I am probably all wet (well we are now with the rain),but like everyone else I have to make the farm I manage pay for itself. 245 acres is not much so getting every bean or seed off to market is important. Spraying our wheat stubble the past couple morning, I noticed I need to figure out what I am setting wrong during wheat harvest. At wheat prices the way they are I should have seen if it would head out by Thanksgiving. We let the volunteer grow for more organic matter and broadleaf control later in the summer. Then next spring it is a pleasure to plant in to. We no-till.

I usually run from 3.2 to 3.5 with 16ft 800 with standard sickle. If I try to go much faster, I run low on power and I don't think my sickle keeps up.(poor cut)