Combines how do you adjust your combineIJ

Dave, Your article should be interesting. In an ideal situation I believe that the amount of material passing through a machine should be kept at about 95% of capacity of the machine. More than that and the machine will have a shorter life. For varying conditions of the crop then the ground speed needs to be varied accordingly. There are situations where a machine cannot be filled and kept at 95% capacity, in those instances adjustments will need to be made. We harvest wheat, corn, milo, soybeans, and sunflowers. The manufacturers suggested settings are usually a good place to start. And a lot of times they are real close. We have found that by not running the rotor too fast and keeping the returns to a minimum seem to be the best way to have the least amount of grain damage. I do not adjust the cleaning fan very often. Usually the change is made only as the test weight of the grain changes. The main problem in adjusting a combine is if there is a lot of green weeds. They are difficult to keep out of the bin as the pieces of weeds are about the same weight as the grain and cannot be blown out. This is sometimes a problem in wheat. I hope this helps.

When was last time you ran a small combine with a big headIJ I'm on fan choke, cylinder speed, and chaffer settings daily or more often, ground speed, that control is just a moving arm rest! Machine has to be near full to clean well, I prefer a bigger head and slower ground speed.

It would certainly be nice to enjoy a long harvest season like our southern neighbors have and adjust combines (and planters) to their optimum performance levels. However if we take more than a very little time to adjust everything all day long we soon find ourselves working in knee-deep snow. The motto around here is a hasty job done early is better than an exceptionally good late one. I pay close attention to the Pacer loss monitor which helps optimize ground speed to keep the processor as full as possible. Secondly, the engine load Monitor gives an indication if I am overloading the power plant by driving too fast. Most of my processor adjustments are done on the fly or in the shop at the end of the day. I try to maximize the running time when I am in the field and sometimes make a decision to run with settings that may not be perfect. Again, time is of the essence. Tom in MN

we tend to set the combine up as per the manual (well the computer sets it up really) then adjust to get output and sample quality. this usually means wider sieve openings and more wind, we aim to do some cleaning as the crop goes through the dryer anyway and as long as the admix is not outwith standards for sale there is no harm.

Hi Dave,enjoy your article's and this should be a good one... we usually start with the factory recommendations and find them close...some tweaking according to crop conditions but accurate as can be expected for general conditions...absolutely agree that thresher loading has an impact on settings, and ground speed is important to that, but so does crop density,weeds and moisture so we attempt to keep an even loading which means sometimes purposely changing ground speed....seems like every one thing you do with a combine changes everything else so you must strive for a compromise..small grains and soybeans are harder to get really clean samples from as these axials are pretty forgiving in corn...additionally we can run in conditions older machines would not have run in and sometimes qualitywise we should shut down and wait for a better day..perhaps patience during harvest is the biggest adjustment problem and just one year of cutting beans in Feb.will set you back to zero..

How I've approached the questions you asked: 1) Ground speed, per se, doesn't matter, it's how well you can keep the processor fed. The 20 and 24 foot headers we run are the limiting factor with how fast we can run. It's very rare that the headers will out feed the processor. This year in particular, the headers are pretty worn out, and feeding is what's holding us back. 2) Usually I start by making sure I'm not loosing grain on the ground by adjusting the top sieve. Then I start getting the amount of straw in the tank under control by adjusting the cylinder speed. Keep the cylinder at a reasonable speed because if you run it too fast, it pulverizes the straw and overloads the bottom sieve. 3) In wheat, the fan is run at or near full open. We never adjust it, we make changes to the cylinder speed and sieve's instead. 4) The OEM settings get you in the ball park, but a lot of tweaking while running is necessary. I'm always adjusting things to get max performance. 5) The biggest issue with adjustments is having to stop to make most of them, and check the ground for grain loss. A skilled combine operator is a great thing to watch, keeping the combine right at the edge of what it can handle. A plain jane combine operator will just fine a safe operating setup and just cruise around all day. I'll admit all my experiences have been over the last two years, but the farmer I work with is very good about setting up combines and explaining the finer points.

Hello! Read your message. I farm with my brother and uncle in Graves county Ky. We farm 2000 acres and own a 9500 combine with 22' and 6 row heads. Often when we begin harvesting corn its in wet corn, therefore we install concave inserts. They are for corn above 25% moisture. Usually after 4 days we remove them . We try to set the combine shelling corn running at 3.8 to 4 mph. That would do a satisfactory job in 180 plus corn. On our wheat harvest we run the fan a 1090 and on up with our cylinder running at 700. When our combine was set up at the store, we had them to set the back end of the combine up higher for more cleaning time. This helps a great deal when traveling up hills, it keeps from walking out as much wheat. Our soybeans are mostly double crop wheat beans. I hope you put one of my points in your article. I really enjoy reading your magazine and hope to see this article real soon. By the way, last fall we had the least amount of corn left in the field than any other combine in the area, red or green! Thanks, Justin Ralph

Hello! Read your message. I farm with my brother and uncle in Graves county Ky. We farm 2000 acres and own a 9500 combine with 22' and 6 row heads. Often when we begin harvesting corn its in wet corn, therefore we install concave inserts. They are for corn above 25% moisture. Usually after 4 days we remove them . We try to set the combine shelling corn running at 3.8 to 4 mph. That would do a satisfactory job in 180 plus corn. On our wheat harvest we run the fan a 1090 and on up with our cylinder running at 700. When our combine was set up at the store, we had them to set the back end of the combine up higher for more cleaning time. This helps a great deal when traveling up hills, it keeps from walking out as much wheat. Our soybeans are mostly double crop wheat beans. I hope you put one of my points in your article. I really enjoy reading your magazine and hope to see this article real soon. By the way, last fall we had the least amount of corn left in the field than any other combine in the area, red or green! Thanks, Justin Ralph

hi dave interesting topic...we to start with the manufacturers guide but we also keep a note book which has all the setting from crops we harvest noting crop conditions speed weeds etc.. ground speed has got alot to do with crop damage..more so with the high capaicty machines we all now run the main secret we find is to do one setting at a time and take the time to look behind ur machine and in the grain tank and get machine up to ur required operating speed for crop condition before checking once all checks are done and you are happy then set up your harvest monitor the biggest problem we find is trying to get all the harvesting done and sometimes pushing crops to hard due to weather etc so to your questions 1 ground speed plays a major roll in settings example to fast you can overload sieves etc to slow u rattle the crop around inside the rotor not having enought to push it through 2.. perform checks when the combine have reached your desired speed for the crop conditions you are harvesting start with the manufactures guide 3..we only adjust the fan depending on 1.. grain sample in tank or grain been blown out the back 4.. for a general guide the manufacturers do well on this 5.. biggest problem the fine line between quality and and getting all the crop harvested not leaving and behind hope this helps dave look forward to your article