Haying

[jlbash1]

I too did the impossible yesterday. I tried out my L2650 using a New Holland 268 baler. This was my first experience with a baler on any tractor, so I have a question or two. My tractor RPM's are at approx. 2300 when the PTO reaches 540. The fellow helping me out yesterday had me run the tractor at about 1500 RPM while baling. Does this sound too slow? I guess you shoot for a certain plunger speed? Maybe a little less than 60 strokes per minute?

The tractor did fine, the engine did loose a little RPM's when the plunger stroked, but not much at all. I was worried about the tractor being jerked around, but that was not an issue at all.

Jarrod

 

[RichNJKubota]

Congratulations on doing "Mission Impossible". I was worried that my Kubota would have problems baling but my neighbor told me he used to run his NH311 baler with a Ford 8N. He said it was too slow but it worked.
I find that 1500 to 1800 RPM on the engine is about right for the baler. The baler manual has some recomendations about the plunger speed but don't recall at the moment.
The main thing you want to avoid is feeding too much hay into the baler too quickly. You can either jam up the plunger or break the shear bolt on the main flywheel. You should have a supply of shear bolts available and the tools needed to change the bolt out in the field.
If you loosen the bale tension setting then the engine won't be so stressed when the plunger strokes. But then you end up with loose lite bales. One of my neighbors prefers the small, loose bales because his small kids can lift the bales and help out feeding the cows.

Rich

 

[slowzuki]

If you want to stuff hay through your baler use it at PTO speed. Running a 540 baler at 300 rpm is a sure way to start breaking shear pins. I've done it by accident after disengaging the pto and lefting the baler coast out and I drove through a wisp of left over hay. Ker thunk, doh!

The MF baler our neighbour has is rated for 500- 610 rpm. Our JD is good up to 540.

Our JD 336 at PTO speed self-limits it self via the feeding. The packer fork just won't keep up if you try and stuff too much. You'll get like 4 flakes in a 3 ft bale and the hay will pile up in front of the pickup.

 

[jlbash1]

i haven't seen anyting in the baler's manual that even talks about PTO speed. they mention that it operates well between 60 and 75 strokes per minute. i had the baler at around 60 strokes per minute while i was baling and the tractors RPM's were around 1800 as i mentioned before. i would think that if i cranked it up to 2400 RPM to achieve the 540 PTO speed that the baler would really be humming. got to think it would be greater than 75 strokes per minute.

jarrod

 

[glover]

we are just about done our hay we have around 2000 sqaurees done and around 250-350 big round bales done lol second cuts bnext lol