Combines My soap box today

Sorry everyone, I think it was a Claas commander, although I cant seem to find any info on it.

SilverShoes, I think our rotors are about 80 inches long. At a 20% increase only 16 inches(8inches thrashing,8 inches seperating) would need to be added to the length of the cage.Guys have said it can't be done because it would make the combine to wide for the roads and transporting but flipping the drive wheels side to side or putting duals on increases the width of the machine much more. The same 20% added to the motor on a R72 would be 390 horse, give it a power boost when the unloader is on and it should be on par with the current red and green hot rods. I would like to see gleaner go this route and keep refining the same design . They might want to do like deere and have different models for different crops.

Excellent idea, wonder if it has been tried or not, I know they are bumping the new 75 up to 350 hp and they say it will give 10% more capacity with just the surge in power. I do believe it will help because when the engine pulls down everything such as rotor, fan, augers, elevators, sieves, ect. I am really curious about those vine knives though. I would really like to hear from someone that has harvested down milo with those knives in place on the CDF

I have thought the same , if they could add 10-15 inches to the feeder on the cylinder drive side and like you said reverse the wheels then change the elevator location then I thought if they went to a turret style unload, they could add 14 inches to that end of the rotor to get an increase of about 24" and then open up the chopper discharge area by about 10' to 12". Just my thoughts on how to get some more out of the current style.

This is my first year with a R60. My personal opinion about increasing capacity on a gleaner rot ary is based on a little different concept.No.1-leave the threshing area the same width, but increase the depth of the feeder throat. Beef up the concave and cage area. The reason for this is to cram as much crop into a small area as possiple to maintain grain on grain threashing to increase grain quality.(The same reason Cat went to narrower concave on the 590). No.2- The seperation side of the rotor should be smaller in diameter with the use of fingers instead of cylinder bars to maximize fluffing of material for grain seperation.To take it one step farther maybe use a rotating seperator cage (birotor concept). Then power this with 450hp.

Maybe someone covered these. What about putting a cylinder in the Feeder throat as a preprossorIJ The Bi-rotor concept would also fit well in the design. Don't know how or if you could incorperate them a without patent infringement.

I am curious to see if the vine knives on the CDF rotor has an affect like what you suggested about putting tines in it instead of bars. I do like the idea of the vine knives and bars together though. I definately like your 450 idea also. Mud loves power.

laverda, the old Fiat Combine line, had a big combine some years ago that borrowed from the Gleaner design with some differences. They put a threshing and separating rotor similar to Gleaners right behind the header with the rotor intake was towards the right end of the header. The rotor was driven via a hydrostat. The chaff and grain was then elevated to the Chaffer via and elevator and auger. The chaff and grain was dumped in to augers designed to distribute things across the chaffer. I think they even used accellering rolls. The engine sat at the very rear of the combine. One big shortcoming was that the straw from the rotor was dumped out near the left end of the header kinda like an old A_C All-Crop harvester. First time around you put the straw in the fence or ditch. Anyway, the combine is no longer made.

I remember that and used to have the brochure on it.

Hey SS, I believe the combine you are refering to in your post was the Class CS116. I had the opportunity to witness the awsome capacity of the 116 at the 1982 or 1983 Farm Progress Show in Wolcott Indiana.(the exact year is fuzzy now) Pushing a 12 row head in what they said was 180bpa corn (must have been 82 as there would not have been much 180bpa corn in'83) it absolutely dominated the corn harvest that year. I must have been running at least 4 mph or more. It was at least 2x faster than the 8820 Deere with a 1243 head. Mot sure what Gleaner was there that year, proably an N6 or N7. The combine I remember was the 116. I remember there being almost no corn on the ground behind it. Your post got me to thinking about that machine so I called the friend I went with. He said that he spoke to thwe operator and was told HP was the limiting factor in corn. One has to wonder what kind of beast might have been unleashed with a 400HP Cummins in that thing.