Bakersfield - the Show must go on!

Hi Followers,

Yesterday evening we did the next demonstration here in Bakersfield. Because of the time and the darkness it was not possible, to take much pictures, but I did some few.

The location was south of Bakersfield on Old River Road nearby Highway 119. We had to bale Alfalfa Hay for the customer. I asked him before the demonstration how heavy he would like to have the bales, and he answered me "really heavy, but what is heavy? Perhaps 1200 lbs?" I decided to start with 85% plungerforce to made the first 96 inch long bales. My colleagues weight the bales directly with our small Case scale tractor and the scale showed us 1765 lbs. It was a bale with 13% moisture in average. Our customer was really surprised but also a little bit nervous if his bale wagon can load these bales, but after a call to the driver his doubts were gone and we were able to continue making heavy bales. With a speed of 8 to 9 mph one nice bale after the other came out of the bale chamber. We dropped down the plungerforce to 70%, because the Harvest Tec moisturemeter told us, the moisture raised up to 16%. We also speeded a little bit up to get less flakes in the bale, but the weight still stayed at 1700 lbs.

The customer had also his baler in the field - a Freeman 1592. The average bale weight of his baler was at 6 mph 1100 lbs. A big difference, but his baler is also not a HDP baler.

After we were done with the field after only 21 bales, he was very happy with the Krone baler. We talked a few minutes about the technics and I explained and showed him lots of details about our baler.

At the end of the day it was also a very successful demonstration, I thing the customer liked our machine very much, and when I came back today all the bales were out of the field. So the bale wagon also did a good job!

So far!

Regards

Niklas

Bakersfield - the second successful demonstration!

Hi Followers,

last Friday we had another very successful demonstration. This time we were a little bit north-west of Wasco and we had to bale Alfalfa Hay. The Customer already knew the older generation of Krone BiG Pack balers, but after some problems with that machine he changed to New Holland, and now he owns two New Holland BiG Balers - one BB690 and one BB690A. Both balers were also in the same field, pulled by John Deere tractors.

We started at 10:30 am baling, and our first bale was a 2065 lbs bale (96 inch long). The only problem was that the moisture of the Alfalfa Hay was still a little bit too high (18%) so we stopped baling for perhaps half an hour. We also turned down the plunger force from 80% to 40% because the customer thought his bale wagon could have problems to lift up so heavy bales. With 40% plunger force we made bales with 1400 lbs to 1550 lbs - exactly the weight, our customer wanted to have. 

Also the moisture dropped to 9-11%, so that we were able to make pretty bales with the requested weight. Because of the rough field and the Case Puma without suspension we were not able to run the fastest possible speed. At 12 mph the tractor jumped up und down, and it was hard to stay on the seat. But the small windrows asked for more than 12 mph - much more. Sometimes the plunger hit the same flake two times because there was not enough material to feed the VFS System (prechamber) within one plunger circle. It's not such a big deal, but it shows you that you are able to go faster. The optimal speed for the baler is that moment when you have with every plunger stoke a new flake. That is also shown in the terminal - every time when a new flake is pushed into the bale chamber a small icon gets black. When it stays black, you are fine. When it becomes to get light and black it shows you that you have not enough material which means you have to go faster.

We also had our small Case tractor with the scale in the field. In addition to our bales we also weight some New Holland bales - they were at 1365 lbs. Not bad! But the New Holland balers were operating at least with half speed. Every time, they finished their first windrow we finished our second windrow. And we were operating with 40% plunger force and slower than possible because of the rough terrain and already made in average 1500 lbs bales. It's amazing to see, how well the Krone baler works.

Also the customer was very happy with the performance of the baler. He liked the cam less pick up EasyFlow, and the quiet and smooth running of the machine very much. He also complimented the nice bale shape.

After we were done I also showed him how we eject the last bales hydraulically out of the bale chamber, and he also liked that.

So the day was very successful until the bale wagon came to the field. The New Holland bales were no problem, but after he loaded the first two Krone bales (light ones with perhaps 1500 lbs) it was not possible to lift the second table. The only possibility was to collect only single bales.

So far!

Regards

Niklas