In-line small square balers

[WTA]

I just found this thread and didn't look to see how old it was but thought I'd ask some advice.

I just brought home a Hesston 4570 baler and think I have it all good to go now. It's fairly new and in good shape. I adjusted all the chains, lubed everything, changed the gearbox oil and fixed a few rust spots up top by the knotters.

I ordered a manual for it and a few of the pickup tined that need replaced.

The dealer loaded in two balled of twine for me. It looks like awfully skinny twine to me and I have no idea what brand it is. I hope it works.

Are there any tips or tricks any other 4570 owners can give me for putting this machine to work for the first time? I have very little experience with square balers and none at all on this brand.

 

[mark.r]

How many bales have been through the one you purchased, it looks great. How much did you pay if you don't mind saying?

 

[WTA]

I gave 9000 for it. In looking at prices on tractor house I thought I was getting a good deal considering this one has the hydraulic tensioning, hyd lift and the quarter turn. I saw ones a lot cheaper but they looked pretty worn out too.

The counter on it was at 200 but that can't be right. I'm sure it's been reset several times. It's probably got several thousand through it by my best guess. The dealer didn't know. I'm just happy it only cost me about 30 dollars and some elbow grease to get everything on it working right as far as I can tell without a manual. It's on the way. I hope it gets here before I have to run it. If I run out of string I'll be lost. I have no idea how to rethread it.

My biggest hope is that I will be able to make nice consistent bales now. My neighbors old JD baler just couldn't do it. It would either blow a few up in each row of make bananna bales. Even with the owner operating it so it wasn't anything I was doing. My largest buyer didn't care for any of it and told me he didn't want any more unless they were right.

 

[WTA]

I just got copies of the timing section of the manual and checked the baler. I'm sure glad I did. I now know why the previous owner sold it. What a knucklehead!

The plunger stop timing was off enough to make it crash hard and the needles were out enough to break the knotters or the needles. Maybe both. I had to move the plunger chain 5 teeth and adjust the knotter drive chain about twice that. Then adjusted the needles to keep the right one from crashing hard into the knotter. It was binding real bad. I didn't see any instructions for adjusting the needles in the manual but I just loosened one bolt and tightened the other until both of them would slide freely into the knotter and lay the string in the right place to be grabbed by the string holder.
I hope I did all this right. We turned it by hand and made it pull knots about 10 times without a problem so I guess it's right.

 

[slimdairylate]

bought a CIH 8545 new with belt thrower after owning 3 john deeres, 336, 327,346. gave the baler back to CIH after ONE season.....driving over the row is not as appealing when your neck is sore from turning ALL the way around to watch crop flow.....many problems with shearing bolts on flywheel. DID NOT like the bottom side cut when stacking on edge in barn and cut on string side was hard on gloves and bare hands! The cut side down, combined with a thrower, resulted in a thrower rack with 12 inches of loose chaff on the floor, NOt clean at all and hard to walk on. i was drawn to the straight line crop flow of the inline, but in the end, i was dissapointed!!!!!

 

[Walcar]

I have a 1835 which I have had for 4 years and have baled about 16000 bales. It has worked flawlessly and my customers, mostly horsey people, comment regularly on the uniformity of the bales. If all my implements worked as well I would be a "happy haymaker".

 

[D7E]

I noticed WTA mentioned timing . I learned a lot last year buying a large square baler that the previous owner had lots of problems with . Kept throwing error codes on the computer , he had spent thousands replacing bearings and load sensors . turned out timing was out slightly . You would not know from the operation bales were perfect and worked perfectly we did over 6000 bales before i found the problem . If it had been an older model without the computer and automatic density no one would have known , makes you wonder if all this electrical crap is really a step foreward .

 

[MFRED]

The information the computer tells you is amazing. It's amazing what it won't do too.

Seems customers are wanting to know more & more for map yeilding, fertilizing and so on. There's 1 way to get it fast & that's technologly.

Balers with ISO Bus, who would have thought that 25 years ago.

I may be partial, having had 3 of these small inline balers. I regularly get the nice bale compliments. I'll take cut side on the strings for the rest of my life for being able to make perfect bales. Everytime. No need to adjust for windrow size, feed the outside of the pickup. Just drive. It makes it easy to find help that can handle that.Many are converting here. It's nice not to have a bunch of broken "bananna" bales to rebale through the winter.

It's tough to get someone thats used to a conventional baler adjusted. They usually blame the baler for thier shortcomings getting adjusted. They need to run at 540 rpm to bale best, some people just can't do that. And though you can bale with 35hp, when you get up towards 85 or so you can really start to eat some hay. Pulls straight behind you, easier through barways, safer down the road. You can backup with a wagon a bit easier too.

Boy, I love my in-line.

 

[WilliamBos]

The information the computer tells you is amazing. It's amazing what it won't do too.

Seems customers are wanting to know more & more for map yeilding, fertilizing and so on. There's 1 way to get it fast & that's technologly.

Balers with ISO Bus, who would have thought that 25 years ago.

I may be partial, having had 3 of these small inline balers. I regularly get the nice bale compliments. I'll take cut side on the strings for the rest of my life for being able to make perfect bales. Everytime. No need to adjust for windrow size, feed the outside of the pickup. Just drive. It makes it easy to find help that can handle that.Many are converting here. It's nice not to have a bunch of broken "bananna" bales to rebale through the winter.

It's tough to get someone thats used to a conventional baler adjusted. They usually blame the baler for thier shortcomings getting adjusted. They need to run at 540 rpm to bale best, some people just can't do that. And though you can bale with 35hp, when you get up towards 85 or so you can really start to eat some hay. Pulls straight behind you, easier through barways, safer down the road. You can backup with a wagon a bit easier too.

Boy, I love my in-line.

There are quite a few popping up in this area too. Now I see why they love them.

 

[AKfish]

I didn't re-read all of the previous posts... but, I have a couple of observations regarding the inline balers. Mind you; I don't have an opinion one way or the other - there's just a couple of things that I'd think would be/might be problematic with an in-line baler.

Do you have a problem with hay catching here and there on drivelines, fanbelt (crankshaft), etc. on the tractor when straddling heavy windrows?

How about looking for possible bale problems... looking directly behind you with the structure of the baler blocking a view of the bale as it ejects - is that a PITA?

Appreciate the info from experienced owner/operators.

AKfish