Gea R9500 robot user experience

[Durt Burd]

Apart from @Gerbert has anyone on here direct experience with the R9500 milking robots?

Have a friend thinking of going the robot route and is looking at Gea as well as Lely and DeLaval but there is a bit more information around on the red and blue.

I know the earlier Gea MiOne was a pile of poo (to put it mildly) but trying to find out if the R9500 is worth considering.

This will be for around 180 cows and they do not want a herringbone parlour for various reasons.

Thanks

 

[Durt Burd]

@Gerbert apart from the camera failing, have you had any other problems with your R9500 or are there any common or repeatable failures. Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[Gerbert]

I have had plenty problems but not much that stopped it going. Some reoccuring problems: the aircilinder for the frontdoor keeps wearing seals quickly resulting in a wobbly door. They are two combined cilinders, one for open and close, the other for the small-middle-large setting (size of the cow), the middle setting has the piston in the middle which is a bad design, air can be compressed so the door is never really solid in place.
The cups are hold in place by plastic blocks with wires through, loosing up the wires (b aircilinder) means it is loose. The plastic blocks wear quite quickly resulting in cock-eyed cups that the camera has some trouble with, also the cups might not fit right on the jetters. They are easy to swop though.
The whole dipping setup is quite temporamental, I ran out of dip and it seems the system doesn't like running dry. I replaced the barrel a good fee months later and it's a slew of problems with replacing valves and all.
I can't think of any horrible things, I did have problems with butyric acid in the milk a while ago. Change in feed didn't do anything but after changing a bunch valves it went away. No chance of proving anything though.
I have for pretty much bang on 3 years and there are still things that go wrong which have warrenty, pretty impressive.
Can't think of anything exiting at the which is a good thing moment but ask away.

 

[Durt Burd]

@Gerbert thanks for the information, really appreciate it I will pass it on and see what he says.

 

[Gerbert]

Has your friend contacted the gea dealer yet? If there are to little robots over on your side of the pond he might want to take a trip to the middle of the Netherlands, there are lots and lots in my area.
If the dealer isn't very bothered, well, that's not a great sign.

 

[Durt Burd]

Has your friend contacted the gea dealer yet? If there are to little robots over on your side of the pond he might want to take a trip to the middle of the Netherlands, there are lots and lots in my area.
If the dealer isn't very bothered, well, that's not a great sign.

Yes, I actually went with him last week to a farm running two R9500s in Northern Ireland as well as another farm with a parlour. The robots have been in for four years so will be the older generation 9500s and were being used on a grazing setup with C being buffer feed in the shed.

Gea was out at the farm earlier this week to have a look at the building and understand the layout. The dealer is around an hour away from the farm and there are a few one robot setups already installed that they look after, but I don't think there are many with multiple boxes. The aim would be to fit three robots with the option of a fourth.

A trip to the Netherlands would be a good idea.

 

[Jcb214]

Hoses are pretty exposed and can get kicked off, also it’s easy for cups to get flipped and tangled . Dipping solenoids are really expensive to replace and they do go bad. Cameras could have more protection and located pretty far ahead (heifers belly can block the view .

 

[Durt Burd]

Hoses are pretty exposed and can get kicked off, also it’s easy for cups to get flipped and tangled . Dipping solenoids are really expensive to replace and they do go bad. Cameras could have more protection and located pretty far ahead (heifers belly can block the view .

Thanks for the info. How long have you had it installed?

 

[Jcb214]

2 years

 

[Durt Burd]

Would you go Gea again or would you look at other makes?
Have you more than one robot?

 

[Jcb214]

I would look at Deleval , the camera goes up right beside the teat and can even tilt up and down, cameras clean themselves (takes 10min on gea ) and the Deleval cameras have extra protection on the camera, the best dipping coverage and efficiency is on Deleval . The Deleval arm calabrates itself as needed, it’s hard to do on gea, you have to do it from office computer not on robot screen. Also Deleval has a hydraulic arm, gea needs air cylinder seals every year (sand bedding).
A cow with teats far apart gea can’t attach to (it puts it on a teat, but then putting the second one on it pulls the first one off)

 

[Jcb214]

I would look at Deleval , the camera goes up right beside the teat and can even tilt up and down, cameras clean themselves (takes 10min on gea ) and the Deleval cameras have extra protection on the camera, the best dipping coverage and efficiency is on Deleval . The Deleval arm calabrates itself as needed, it’s hard to do on gea, you have to do it from office computer not on robot screen. Also Deleval has a hydraulic arm, gea needs air cylinder seals every year (sand bedding).
A cow with teats far apart gea can’t attach to (it puts it on a teat, but then putting the second one on it pulls the first one off)

Also Deleval has a electric lock to keep fresh heifers in the robot, gea you have to build your own latch (one gea sells aparently doesn’t work well.

 

[st piran]

Sorry too hijack but on the subject of Delaval robots has anyone run old classics and new vms300’s? Either together or replaced classics with vms300’s? How did they compare, is the vms300 a vast improvement?