Seed drill build thread

[FarmerAlex]

Howdy all, building a seed drill for my Pasquali walk behind tractors.

Independent openers with press wheels, 27 speed gearbox for feed rolls

6 run with 272mm Tyne spacing

Electric raise and lower

 

[BHD]

hope it works to your satisfaction,

 

[FarmerAlex]

Here's the press wheel and seed tube mounted onto a Tyne

 

[1950vanisland]

Here's the press wheel and seed tube mounted onto a Tyne View attachment 431072

great keep us posted with the build

 

[FreshRouteFarm]

Interested to see how this turns out. What did you use for the drop tube?

 

[FarmerAlex]

The seed drop tubes are a vinyl spiral bound hose. I think from memory they are primarily used as a suction pipe for small pumps. The hose I'm using is 25mm or 1 inch in imperial units. It's very flexible and at $5 AUD it's quite cost effective.

 

[NibbanaFarm]

Greetings FarmerAlex,
I have a couple gardens I'd like to convert to no till. I have plenty of mulch and manure. The problem is growing cover crops. My understanding is that a seed drill would be able to plant cover crops through the mulch. I've never actually seen one of these things and haven't been able to find any good descriptions on the internet. Do you know any websites that show the details of how these things work? How did you come up with your design?
Thanks.

 

[FarmerAlex]

Greetings FarmerAlex,
I have a couple gardens I'd like to convert to no till. I have plenty of mulch and manure. The problem is growing cover crops. My understanding is that a seed drill would be able to plant cover crops through the mulch. I've never actually seen one of these things and haven't been able to find any good descriptions on the internet. Do you know any websites that show the details of how these things work? How did you come up with your design?
Thanks.

Gday Nibbana, the biggest issue with seeding into mulch is that you will have a great deal of trouble with the machine blocking between the tynes and becoming more like a bulldozer. Now if you wished to sow into a mulch layer there are two ways i would tackle it, 1 if you can breakup the mulch layer into a fine chop ie 2-3 inches long then it may flow through a staggered seeder tyne sowing pattern. 2 If you cannot do this then i would recommend using a berta type flail mulcher and mounting a seedbox onto the back of that which will incorporate the seed into the mulch layer. Now for seed sizes, depending on what you are growing the seed size can vary quite considerably, peas, vetch and cereals have a much larger seed size than say your ryegrasses and clovers. Mine was designed to sow oats and vetch, both having larger seed sizes. It is quite easy to make two seed boxes as with most large agri seeders you have a standard seed box and a small seed box.

The design is based upon three main criteria

1 Accurate seed depth and firming soil once finished - Therefore i used a press wheel on each tyne to regulate the depth of seeding and firm up the seed in place

2 Variable rate capability - The sowing rate at this stage is regulated by a chain drive with derailleur gears however in the future it will be variable rate driven with electric drive and possible paddock mapping

3 Comfortable to ride on - The machine raises and lowers via two electric jacks on each carry wheel, a flick of a switch to raise an lower when turning on headlands and of course a comfortable platform to stand on.

They are the three basic ideas I kept to for this project, however there is still always a lot of room for improvement.

Cheers Alex

 

[farmerboybill]

No-till drills allow you to plant into untilled ground. Basically a no-till drill has a single straight or wavy coulter that cuts through the trash, a pair of straight disks very slightly angled into a Vee to open the row, a gauge wheel to maintain depth, and a firming wheels to close and firm the row. The biggest problem with them is they need weight to accomplish this. I think a person could make a three to five row drill 2 or 3 feet wide, but it's going to have a lot of weight for a two wheel tractor to pull.

 

[FarmerAlex]

No-till drills allow you to plant into untilled ground. Basically a no-till drill has a single straight or wavy coulter that cuts through the trash, a pair of straight disks very slightly angled into a Vee to open the row, a gauge wheel to maintain depth, and a firming wheels to close and firm the row. The biggest problem with them is they need weight to accomplish this. I think a person could make a three to five row drill 2 or 3 feet wide, but it's going to have a lot of weight for a two wheel tractor to pull.

View attachment 432529

Ah just clarify a minimum till drill does not have to have coulters and discs, it can have tunes, tunes with opening coulters, single disc coulters, double disc openers or a triple disc unit.

Discs are good for stony ground as they ride over buried stones better than tynes. Hydraulic breakout is now a popular option as it's very easy to alter breakout pressures. Although everything that keeps hitting stones will damage the machine.

 

[FarmerAlex]

Seed boxes attached now, conducted rip tests yesterday with the machine coming up trumps, now just the metering roller drive and she's ready to get 10acres done asap

 

[boggen]

watching with interest.

any chance for a couple extra photos of the seed boxes?

 

[FarmerAlex]

watching with interest.

any chance for a couple extra photos of the seed boxes?

Sure can anything in particular you would like to see?

 

[boggen]

inside boxes and pipe going through boxes. looks like you are planning some sort of 'auger' to unstick seeds in box and get them to drop down the outlet to each hose?

 

[oldmech]

Hi ! You make a very good job. I like your coulters and pressure wheels. But for the seeder. With Electric motor you have no direct ratio with ground. May be you dont need precision seed. You could add a Mountain bike wheel with grip tire rear for drive your seeder. These wheels can have six or seven gears for adjust seed with soil . Easy and inexpensive way for drive and good precision.
I dont know if a single disk just before coulter could improve the set. This disk could cut soil and roots , pass over rocks .
Thanks for share, Good luck! Oldmech

 

[FarmerAlex]

Here are some more pictures getting very close to calibration and running out seed onto paddocks.

Seed metering rollers are made from hard Australian box timber. Slots were milled in with a carbide router bit. Plastic pipe is Australian class 12 high pressure pvc pipe.

Seed boxes are a special high grade quality with a Teflon laminate inside making them completely non stick.

 

[farmerboybill]

So you're making a shoe planter. Looks like a good unit. Nicely done.

 

[FarmerAlex]

Sown 10 acres with the machine today, did quite well although the Tyne springs are going to be modified to a rubber compression block system as at 10kph behind the bike they are struggling a bit. Seed metering worked perfectly with the rate bang on what I calculated. Hoppers are a bit on the small side for oats, but it's quick to dart across the paddock and refill. 285kg of seed through the machine.

Will keep you posted on some new pasture openers

 

[boggen]

awesome! is that a peddle bike gear setup there? so you can adjust rate of seed?

 

[FarmerAlex]

awesome! is that a peddle bike gear setup there? so you can adjust rate of seed?

It was originally a bicycle chain setup however that failed completely during the wear in phase, the gears just couldn't handle the torque needed to turn over the rotors, now I'm using a 1/2pitch chain. It's working a dream and just purs along quietly. I am also doing a small seed air powered pasture seeder to mainly do rape seed and fine seeds.