Combines rotor comparisons for a R series

[tbran]

We are running side by side comparisons, We have R72's equipped with our hyp'd std. , a CDF , and a Bison rotor. In soft red winter wheat there was not a decisive winner. This ws not a good test year, however. The Std hyped cylinder did the best job in this wheat threshing, followed by equal jobs by the cdf and Bison. The straw was longer in the CDF and best in the Bison machine. By this I mean longest straw. Capacity was not much difference UNTIl the machines went through a low spot and theh the Bison was by far the best when injesting giant ragweed, ragweed and whatever else, followed by the CDF and the hyped std at not much difference. This is my and customers observations in a drought year on soft red winter wheat. We will keep everyone advised as to the results in corn - again a year that is moisture stressed, and soybeans. I will admit I am really excited about the Bison rotor's potential in green stem beans after seeing the way it handles green weeds in wheat. More as it developes.

 

[Brian]

Which cropsIJ Which machineIJ We are all corn and soybeans. Have an R60 (P1) and R72. Had hyper mods for 3-4 crops now one crop with St Johns in R60 and CDF in R72 (since one is a P1 and the other P3 I do not think it is apples to apples). When it comes to power. I'd say they are all very similar. All greatly reduce power consumption over standard rotor. Possibly a slight advantage to St. Johns and CDF over hyper in soybeans. Grain loss: All were good. CDF is set-up with four reverse bars. St. Johns 2 reverse bars. Also had four reverse bars in P3 hyper and two in P1 hyper. Tried for two years to leave them out of hypers but could never get corn loss to less than 1_2 bpa. Economics: Can do most hyper stuff very cheap. Often can use used parts. A few hundred dollars does most of them. St. Johns was a little over $3,000 for us and CDF was about $5,000 if I recall correctly. Whats the best overall. For us it has been CDF. The CDF was incredible at reducing shoe load for us in corn-lots of big pieces to whole cobs thus they go out rotor not on to chaffer. That said, I wish the St. Johns was in a P3 machine so it was fair comparison. Even though I like the CDF best so far if I were to get one today I think I'd try to work with St Johns. They seem very receptive to building rotors to "your" specs. They have been a first class business to deal with. All three options will be much better than standard especially, the older the combine is.

 

[Indy_Gleaner]

Would it be possible to swap your two rotors just for comparison. I like my cdf in my r55 for the reasons you gave. But have never hypered, only ran standard 89 1_2 R50, 95 R52, 98 R52. Thanks for your thoughts. Richard

 

[Brian]

Good idea. We'll see if it we get time. Was hoping to leave rotors in this year as we've pulled both rotors at least once mostly twice a year to make changes for 5 years. One bad thing about CDF: the reduced diameter of it as well as being enclosed has made it more difficult to get aligned on gear box using our standard installation techniques (pry bars). When talking with St. Johns about cob difference between the two they said they'd like to see us take out double stacked helicals over the thresher side of R-60. Claim they are to blame for most of our cob breakage on that machine.

 

[Brian]

Don't know what I was thinking-hard to do the swap. I can't think of how one would "true" the concave in the R-60 for the reduced diameter of the CDF.

 

[bfd]

what kind of different rotor speeds did you have with the twoIJIJ got a bison installed for wheat but the wheat went down the tubes. cannot wait for this fall in corn and beans. it could make cdf's obsolete.