Combines MASSEY S AT HESSTON

Turbo, Thank you for your honesty!! T langan loves to talk about the STS as if he is an expert on that machine. I sincerly doubt he has spent an hour in the cab operating the machine. Could be wrong, but that is what my intuition tells me.

TJ i have spent time with the sts and yes it can harvest a lot of grain but it is still new and and has some time to go before you can say it's fully sorted out.CASE,N.H. and GlEANER have spent many years on rotaries getting bugs sorted out.john

The narrower feederhouses on Gleaners may make for a somewhat thicker mat than say a conventional Deere, but the threshing is still done in a mat, not a rope. If the hp were to be increased to near 400, I'm sure there are several areas that would need to be beefed up. But that does not mean it can't be done and that we are at the limit of useable capacity. I disagree totally that Gleaners require more hp than others in the same class. Our rotors are much shorter which means there is less crop in the rotor at any given moment compared to other makes. The more crop that is having to be pushed through, more power is needed. My windrows are not chewed up. I get straw from an R52 that we cannot tell from a conventional. Click on the link below - it shows windrows that you can clearly see long straw. We had to rake our straw even back when we ran conventionals - climate. If you're running slugs through that pop the rock door, it's your fault, not the combine. Adjustments to provide smooth feeeding from the head is required by any combine for optimal harvesting. Are the accelerator rolls under tension like conditioning rolls in a haybineIJ No. Take care- Tom langan

Well, if ya can't dazzle'em with brilliance, baffle'em with B.S.!

You say your ready for a change. Maybe we could guide you on how to CHANGE your Gleaner so you are happy. What year and model do you haveIJ Have you did any upgrading like discussed hear over time and whatIJ You mentioned two feed chains and I would rather not have two also but how else could we feed the concave with a uniform amount of material across the complete concave at the same angle no matter what the header position is. Any way I'm not sure what I'd rather have inbetween the feed chain and cylinder. I think I'd rather have as narrow as posible feed chain instead of a big screw, ears, beater, pre-thresher, or whatever else is out there. The major amount of troublesome feeders were fixed years ago now but could use a little more tweaking to handle even more. I don't know if Gleaners rock portection is any better or worse than any other machine but every single Gleaner has at least some portection. The opening door will also point out a very poor feed situation or a non flow threw rotor problem. If you want more portection than the door than install a sump but don't forget to service it. We use two distribution augers on the large machines and one on the small. This auger only runs in a trough for a couple feet and the rest of it is well above accelerator rolls. I think they should change the name of that or them augers from the old days to fluffers or stirers because that is more of what they do anymore and I see no way they could damage any crop. I have seen accelerator rolls damage a small amount of one crop when it is extremly dry and that is edible beans. In that situation we remove the paddles from one of the rolls or slow them down. We don't need the full affect of rolls in the low yealding edible beans and no steep hills. Anyway I would like them to merge the best of both machines into one but if they EVER EVER switch directions of the cylinder in the Gleaner!!!!!!!!

I disagree that Gleaners perform poorly in tough conditions. We raise soybeans for two seed companies, so grain sample is very important to us. We try to harvest when the beans are on the wet side (16%),this improves germ and allows us to capture maximum weight. Keeping cylinder speeds low in these conditions is tough for any combine, yet with the upgrades to our machines (R-60, R-72) as listed on the Gleaner page we have been able to accomplish this. Typically we run our cylinder speeds in the range of 350-450 rpms; usually just fast enough to do a good job separating. last season we ran as low as 270 rpms with the R-72 and 30 ft head and still never saw the engine blink. Ill admit I havent spent a lot of time in other brands late model combines but what are typical cylinder speeds with themIJ Ill bet that not many can consistently stay near 400 rpms in green beans with 30 ft heads at 5.5 mph; Cat maybeIJ

Anyhow, you are correct. I haven't spent any time in the cab of an STS. If I get the opportunity to be around one, I doubt I'd really want to be in the cab - what can you learn from in thereIJ How well the air conditioning worksIJ I base my claims on what Deere themselves say (tines for fluffing and stirring to break up compacted crop material) and the rock protection thing is from numerous postings in the past on Machinery Talk. A few guys even said that is what took Deere so long to intro a rotary - that they were having trouble with rock protection. He also said that the STS was intro'd before they found a cure in response to the CAT. If it were just one guy saying these things, I would brush it off as someone blowing smoke, but when numerous different posts are found saying the same things, there must be something to it. last fall there were two different posts on M_T from guys who said they got rocks in their STS's. The rocks get into the tine area, breaks one or two tines off and starts a chain reaction. Both of them had their rotors explode causing massive damage to the machines with repair costs amounting to $15 grand or more. To be fair though, a guy that farms about 5 miles from here has a 9650 STS and he claims to be happy with his. Rocks are generally not a major problem in these parts though.... Take care- Tom langan

We tried a STS last fall before we bought our new 72 this winter(which I'm impatiently waiting for). The shoe of the STS is difficult to see, since all of the chaff runs through the chopper. The cab is a little heavy on electronic gadgets, but not bad. My big complaint on the cab was corner posts right in the way of the snouts of a 30' head. Pluses are:full finger header. It fed so much better than the 500 series we had, hope the 800 is better. That awesome even feeding made it a pretty nice machine. Grain quality was as good as the Gleaner. Just my $.02.

A dealer told me that even on an 800 series header, you may want to install the hump kit on the sickle. Although I would try it without first. Those augers on the 800 look VERY aggressive!

I too have heard good things about the new Deere headers with fingers all the way across. A friend of my Dad's bought a new 9650 conventional last fall that was equipped with lateral tilt and a new finger head. He says it makes cutting beans a joy. But before you spend the $$$ on Gleaner's hump kit for your 800, consider trying to hose mod. It will accomplish much the same thing and can be done a lot cheaper. We found beans to be a joy to cut last fall after using the hose mod - run just as fast as the head can cut in any size beans with smoooooth feeding and no plugged feederhouse. The hose mod is cheap and maintenance free. Good luck and enjoy that new R72! Tom langan