Grading controlling box blade height

[ovrszd]

Manual pages:

Draft control and response control

When To Use Draft Control; Using Draft Control; When To Use Response Control; Using Response Control - Massey Ferguson MF 135 Operator's Manual [Page 25]

Position control is on the next page.

Bruce

Good stuff Bruce.

 

[/pine]

That's not true. Tractors have been used for smoothing work decades before hydraulic top links were thought of.

They make it easier. But aren't necessary.

FYI...It is true...and hydraulic top links have been around as long as hydraulics (and 3 point hitches) and as long as box blades have been around... earliest on commercial machines...

Before the CUT/SCUT homeowner tractor craze started it was mostly farmers and earth work contractors that owned most of the tractors...farmers used drags and harrows...most farmers did not own box blades...It was mostly earth work contractors that employed box blades...

Sure you can operate a box blade without hydraulic links but LIKE I SAID...on well established lanes or drives...FYI on the mountain drives and roads I work on all the time...in less then 50' I might make a dozen or more adjustments...multiply that for a 1/2 or 3/4 mile drive and it is a lot of time out of the seat...NO it's not impossible just a waste of time trying to use an implement whose efficiency can be moved from about 20% to 80% by just adding a hydraulic top link...

 

[ovrszd]

If you make 12 adjustments in 50 feet you need to back off the caffeine.

 

[/pine]

If you make 12 adjustments in 50 feet you need to back off the caffeine.

Caffeine free...you need to get a clue...on many runs I will constantly making changes to keep the cutting edge even across the width of the blade (side link)...sometimes I will be continually moving the top link when dealing with high and low spots etc..

You either know how to use a box blade efficiently or you don't...may be why so many folks write them off as not much use...

 

[ovrszd]

Adjustments are not the secret. Repetitions are.

 

[/pine]

Adjustments are not the secret. Repetitions are.

You're clueless...geeze...!

 

[MossRoad]

On a MF-135, how do you keep the box blade at the same level/height? When box balding my road, it rises and lowers creating gouges and high spots.

If I turn, the blade will rise and then lower after I straighten out the tractor.

Yesterday I tried to clean up small debris in the woods and ended up with mounds of stripped top soil.

I tried adjusting the controls and made it worse. Also noticed if you speed up when the tractor needs more rpm's to pull what you have in the blade,

the blade will rise and leave most of what you gathered.

This is what I think...


When you turn, the boxblade raises because it is encountering more pressure from the ground VS when you are going straight. This increased pressure probably causes some wheel spin, which causes the rear tires to dig in, which puts pressure on your toplink, which pushes on your rockshaft, which activates you're draft control, which responds by raising your implement. Once the implement stops dragging in the soil so hard, the pressure your top link is putting on your rock shaft is reduced, lessening draft control, which lowers your implement back down. Easy peasy.

- Position control only sets the height your lift arms can drop to.
- Draft control raises and lowers the 3pt arms as pressure on the implement dragging in the soil changes according to how much wheel spin digs down into the soil. Think about that. There's a triangle made up of your lift arms on one side, your top link on another side, and your tractor on the third side. If your implement drags in the soil too much, it slows down your tractor, your tires start to spin, which starts digging a hole. As the rear of the tractor drops, the implement stays the same height. That tries to changed the length of the top link to a sorter distance. Your top link is connected to a rockshaft that senses this attempted change of length. The rockshaft activates draft control, that raises the implement out of the soil, which reduces the load the implement puts on the tractor. The tire spin lessens, the tires stop digging holes, the length of the top link starts returning to normal as the rockshaft returns to normal position, and the 3pt lowers thee implement back into the soil to the depth that the position control was set to.
- Response control sets the speed at which implements lower to the ground from your transport position, AND it controls the speed that the draft control responds to varying loads.

Make sense?

 

[MossRoad]

Short version:

Your draft control response setting is set too sensitive, or it is faulty.

 

[ovrszd]

You're clueless...geeze...!

I am certainly not clueless. Just more experienced than you...geeze...

 

[ovrszd]

Short version:

Your draft control response setting is set too sensitive, or it is faulty.

Yep, good description of Draft Control and possible problem.

I think until the OP has more experience with draft control he should avoid using it. Simply use the 3pt position control function.