Combines Just an Idea more opinions welcome

It seems that for quite some time now we have been pondering how to one-up the R72 (now the R75). And I think we all have our own ideas for the class 8 Gleaner, ranging from a totally new concept to a simple 'hyperized' Series 2. In any case, I seriously doubt that AGCO will simply drop the transverse rotor in the Gleaner that has served them so well for class 7 machines and below. For class 8 capacity (especially considering the size of some of these up and coming class 8 machines),however, I think it seems clear that 88 inches of rotor_cage length is just not going to cut it, no matter what hyper mods are done. Having said that, after talking with one of the Gleaner reps about this, they can't make the machine any wider due to transport restrictions. And I would personally be against them adding more stages to the processing system, which inevitably increases the level of complexity. I for one firmly believe the MF design is tough to beat. It's already the simplest design on the market and has plenty of rotor capacity. There are no pre-cylinders or discharge beaters. The Massey is a very easy machine to set, and would make an excellent class 8 machine. I would, however, like to see them incorporate the Gleaner cleaning system with accelerator rolls, upper precleaning air blast, and a distribution auger system for hillside capabilities. For now, though, the R75 is plenty of machine for the vast majority of us.

I've thought about this as well. And I also think Harvester has valid points. At one point I thought that using a "Split-flow" design might work where the feeder fed into the center of the rotor and the crop was divided and flowed outwards from the center and then had two discharges in each rear corner. Hyper Harvest just said that he now feels the only limiting factor is the narrow feederhouse. If we even simply put wider feederhouses on the exisiting design and used the same size concave and cage I tend to think it could be done. Using kw's idea of a "pre-thresh" cylinder with bars placed in a cheveron pattern to collect crop from the wide feeder and funnel it into the existing rotor feeder opening. Maybe this would work, maybe not. I'm not an engineer. It wouldn't be that difficult to direct grain from the pre-thresher down to the accelerator rolls and adding one drive for the prethresher wouldn't complicate the machine that much more - nothing like either of Deere's designs or CAT's either. Tom langan

I agree that the Massey design is very simple, however it has its problems like all the others. The reason I feel AGCO must expand the Gleaner capacity is because of market share. How many of the loyal Gleaner people will be willing to make the shift to a Massey_White design painted silver or will they jump ship. As much as everyone hates to admit it brand loyality runs pretty strong with the silver boys, and if a completely new design is pushed on them what will happenIJ More food for thought, Kirk

I think the best thing that AGCO engineer's could do is think of a far more faster feeding system. I've been thinking about a feeder beater down front to start with,followed by a high speed belt system to get the crop to the cylinder. If the crop needs to be compressed before entering the cylinder, Place a beater right before the cylinder to compress the material coming off the high speed belt,and propel it into cylinder. The advantages would be great i feel. No more bent up feeder house floors, noisy chains, lower h.p requirements, cause the crop mat is riding on the belt, not being compressed down, and drug up a floor that is not moving. As far as the cylinder goes why not have a 40 inch diameter to meet the demand of the high speed feeding system followed by a 500h.p cummins-cat. Does anyone see class 8 yetIJIJ

I agree with you kw, and I would add that there are plenty of one rotor "Axial Flows" to choose from now. My opinion is that if I am only to look at the principles of threshing_seperation_cleaning, I am most interested in the twin rotor of HN because as rotors get larger diameter in singles, we just loose too much centrifugal force versus the thresh bar speed that is needed. Also, this easily gets the wide feeder house we need without tricks to get it to feed into one narrower rotor. Mind you I have not owned a TR, but these principles seem logical. Then we need a flex cut draper and accel. rolls and I think there is potential to no end. I would like AGCO to make it of course.

Why don't they put an elecronice hi_lo selector for the rotar gearbox. I can never know when it is engaged. Just something that would be nice and shouldn't be too hard.