$2K lesson with my Round Baler - learn from my ignorance.

[ddivinia]

I had 65 acres of hay cut and mostly raked. Things were looking good. I was only half way around the first time and about to kick out the 4th bale. I feel a thump and I stop. I look at the baler and I have 3 broken belts on the left side of the baler! Holy crap - what did I do is what I was thinking. I get out to survey the damage and well it is hard to see what happened, but I need to get this partial bale out of here. So, I kick the bale out and look things over. Belts are wrapped around the bale and around the rear roller....what a mess.

Of course it is 7:30AM on Saturday. I call my dealer - they are closed. I happen to have the number of one of the mechanics. He says he can come by and look at it or I can bring it. I figure I would have a better chance of getting it fixed if I haul it up there.

I rolled it into their shop at 8:30 and was out at 11:30 with a fresh set of belts.

It seems that that I closed the gate on the belts and pinched them. I baled last weekend and had a clutch problem and I bet I did it then with lower RPM. I learned that I have to keep the RPMs up when opening and closing the gate to make sure the belts get pulled up and out of the way of the gate.

When running the baler you must have the belts spinning before the gate closes all the way... Everybody else on here might have already known that ,but I didn't I am learning as I go. I hope this helps other not have a failure that costs them $2k....

D.

 

[flusher]

I had 65 acres of hay cut and mostly raked. Things were looking good. I was only half way around the first time and about to kick out the 4th bale. I feel a thump and I stop. I look at the baler and I have 3 broken belts on the left side of the baler! Holy crap - what did I do is what I was thinking. I get out to survey the damage and well it is hard to see what happened, but I need to get this partial bale out of here. So, I kick the bale out and look things over. Belts are wrapped around the bale and around the rear roller....what a mess.

Of course it is 7:30AM on Saturday. I call my dealer - they are closed. I happen to have the number of one of the mechanics. He says he can come by and look at it or I can bring it. I figure I would have a better chance of getting it fixed if I haul it up there.

I rolled it into their shop at 8:30 and was out at 11:30 with a fresh set of belts.

It seems that that I closed the gate on the belts and pinched them. I baled last weekend and had a clutch problem and I bet I did it then with lower RPM. I learned that I have to keep the RPMs up when opening and closing the gate to make sure the belts get pulled up and out of the way of the gate.

When running the baler you must have the belts spinning before the gate closes all the way... Everybody else on here might have already known that ,but I didn't I am learning as I go. I hope this helps other not have a failure that costs them $2k....

D.

Wow--$2K for baler belts. I assume it's your JD467 baler.

 

[ddivinia]

Wow--$2K for baler belts. I assume it's your JD467 baler.

JD 467

I have not gotten the bill yet. But the belts run around $350 each, pins, labor, etc. I think the verbal I got on the actual belts was $1940 or something.

Expensive lesson, but at least I got my hay done.

D.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Ouch, I've been told that the belts can last for 10,000 bales at least and maybe double that even.

Also, if you are making the bales to the full diameter is when it puts the most load on everything. Many farmers will "back off" and make their bales a half foot smaller than max to keep the wear down and to sell more bales (or charge for more if custom baling).

Sorry for your high priced lesson.

 

[ddivinia]

Ouch, I've been told that the belts can last for 10,000 bales at least and maybe double that even.

Also, if you are making the bales to the full diameter is when it puts the most load on everything. Many farmers will "back off" and make their bales a half foot smaller than max to keep the wear down and to sell more bales (or charge for more if custom baling).

Sorry for your high priced lesson.

I am running a 65" bale.

Yeah - it sucks learning this lesson.

Belt life seems to depend on a lot of factors. What is being baled, how the unit is stored, etc.

They do recommend changing the pins every 500 hours or so. Mine had new pins in the belts when I bought it. It had around 250 bales on the pins. The mechanics usually say 2000 bales between pins, but after seeing mine with confirmed number of bales. They think 500 might not be out of line.

D.

 

[chh]

Ouch! Sounds like an expensive lesson. I would reccomend not letting the pins go over 1000 bales or so. I let my last set go just over 2000 bales and they were a pain to get out and one pin came out(eventually) in pieces. I know of a JD 566 that was let go so long (he would not say how many bales) that they could not work them out. They ended up cutting between the laces with a dremel tool and cutting the pins to little pieces to get it apart.

 

[mlauk]

I had one belt that rolled up in the bale last year, where you couldn't even see the belt. I just finished baling with 3 out of 4 belts on my Vermeer 604K. I must have gotten the bales mixed up while moving them and ended up unrolling the wrong bale. Found the belt around January when the cows ate the bale of hay. It looked like the pin broke.

 

[kwswan]

i have a jd 567 with a few over 19k bales through it. original belts & splices. i had to have a splice put in one a couple of years ago when i picked up a stick & cut a belt. changing the pins has alot to do with the life of the splice.

 

[ddivinia]

i have a jd 567 with a few over 19k bales through it. original belts & splices. i had to have a splice put in one a couple of years ago when i picked up a stick & cut a belt. changing the pins has alot to do with the life of the splice.

Wow - that is impressive. What are you baling with it? Coastal?

D.

 

[kwswan]

im in tn. mostly fescue,orchard grass, & clover type hays.change the pins every 1000-1200 bales or at the start of the season & they will be alot easier to work with.