Roll baling advice?

[RickB]

1. If you don't have an operator's manual, buy one. If you can't find one, ask.
2. Well shaped bales start with the raking job.
3. It's difficult to make good bales with full-width windrows because the middle of the windrow always has more hay than the edges.
4. If you fill the sides of the bale well, the middle will take care of itself.
5. Do not exceed 540 PTO RPM for any reason.

 

[Tx Jim]

1. If you don't have an operator's manual, buy one. If you can't find one, ask.
2. Well shaped bales start with the raking job.
3. It's difficult to make good bales with full-width windrows because the middle of the windrow always has more hay than the edges.
4. If you fill the sides of the bale well, the middle will take care of itself.
5. Do not exceed 540 PTO RPM for any reason.

Rick
I'll second what you stated. Here in the near desert of N. Tx I rake 3 nine ft cuts with a 14 wheel rake laying the 2 outside windrows on top of the center windrow. I normally have no problem making bales level and if I do it's "operator ERROR". I run my baler at 450 pto rpm's, bales are tight and it conserves fuel.

 

[Birch Hill Farm]

Thanks for the replys! Great advice, I picked up the owners manual as suggested and slowly working through the baler to make sure everything is adjusted and lubricated to spec, so far have had to order the pickup sprocket as the chain was so loose you could take it off by hand and it worn out the sprocket, everything else looks really good. Ran 9 bales through it as we were finishing up some fields of squares I left a little to test out the baler. Couple things I noticed, it clogs fairly easy when starting the core and after the core is started its pretty much impossible to clog, its a major pain to dig out the clog. Also, the manual says minimum of 35 pto hp our tractor begins to bog and die about the time the bale reaches full size and it is rated for 38 pto hp when it was new back in 1971. I found the best way to finish the bales is to time it to be heading down hill when the bale begins to reach full size but, I think we need a bigger tractor. Thanks for the continued advice.

 

[RickB]

Measure your bales to be sure they are not over-sized. Too-large bales make the belts run together while moving in different directions and will create an immediate power drain as well as long-term problems. Measure both sides of the bale on both horizontal and vertical axes and average the 4 results.

 

[SoonerLS]

My dad acquired a round baler last year, but the only tractor he had with the remotes to operate it went down with an injector pump problem, so our combined experience with them is one partial test bale. (Horse people around here usually prefer the small squares, anyway, so it wasn't a killer, just an annoyance.) The one piece of advice we did get from round baling veterans was to carry an infrared thermometer and periodically check the temperature on the bearings. I don't know how common it really is, but there are plenty of stories about fires being started by round baler bearings getting hot. Rural legends are probably just as bad as urban legends, but the $75-ish I paid for a Fluke IR thermometer seemed like cheap insurance, especially with how tinder-dry things were around here last year.

 

[PMA]

1. If you don't have an operator's manual, buy one. If you can't find one, ask.
2. Well shaped bales start with the raking job.
3. It's difficult to make good bales with full-width windrows because the middle of the windrow always has more hay than the edges.
4. If you fill the sides of the bale well, the middle will take care of itself.
5. Do not exceed 540 PTO RPM for any reason.

What do you recommend for PTO RPM? I have a CI RB454 silage. I try to run around 520 or 530. Is that fast?

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[RickB]

What do you recommend for PTO RPM? I have a CI RB454 silage. I try to run around 520 or 530. Is that fast?

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That's fine. A little slower may work jst as well unless you are trying to make 100 or more bales per day.

 

[cflowers]

We run ours at around 450 to 460 rpm, tach on the the tractor is right at 1800 rpm.

 

[PMA]

That's fine. A little slower may work jst as well unless you are trying to make 100 or more bales per day.

Thanks. I might slow it down a little and see how it goes.

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[tom4018]

When starting the bale it helps to slow speed down until the core starts turning good, then throttle up to pto speed.