Silopacter

[Bloders]

Your like me? Calling bull sh!t? We had a 6430 weighing 5 ton on 600 and 540s also an 820 on 650 and 540s weighing 8ton. The 6430 would travel every day of the year to spread fert, the fendt wouldnt. All tyres at 15psi

have you worked out the contact area of each of those tyre types and then worked out the corresponding pressure?

 

[Beef farmer]

have you worked out the contact area of each of those tyre types and then worked out the corresponding pressure?

Apart from the fendt having 50mm wider rear tyres they where the same. So on that theory the heavier tractor should have the lighter foot print.

 

[DaveGrohl]

A lot of it depends on what you're trying to achieve really. I had this discussion on here months ago. I came at it from the angle of cutting waste. We've found that we can reduce waste to virtually zero without resorting to a compactor by using a combination of sheeting, weighing down and only removing sheet on feedout prior to feeding that bit of the pit. Others have reported big success with these things for waste reduction. A lot depends on what's happening such as chop length, dry matter, sheeting policy and feedout policy. We aren't short of clamp capacity now so having to cram as much as possible into a pit isn't an issue here. We also chop much shorter than we used to so compaction isn't much of a problem either.

I can however see that these things can provide value on some farms. They'll be good at covering for deficiencies in one or two other areas but will do a good job generally even without that proviso. Why not give it a go? Only way to find out. We're trying a single plastic sheet this year for the first time after years of success with clingfilm and black sheet. We'll find out in due course if this works or not.

 

[kiwi pom]

I think it's probably more to do with the fact some people just can't grasp the idea of agreeing with another person's opinion or experience. We use one and are really happy with the result. It's easy to do and almost anybody with a brain can roll. Not the same can be said of buckeraking. With it being 3m wide it's easy to roll the edges without catching the tractor mirror and whilst it's rolling it levels any bumps out(sort of)

I haven't worked on a clamp for years now, maybe it works better maybe it doesn't. I look at it as its more money spent, that I don't thinks really required when you could just use the tractor. Everyone's entitled to there own opinion. Maybe there's more money in the job now?
Some of the crappy little pits i used to fill barely had room for one tractor let alone two.

 

[bitwrx]

Apart from the fendt having 50mm wider rear tyres they where the same. So on that theory the heavier tractor should have the lighter foot print.

Contact patches have a length as well as a breadth. Length is variable, depending on tyre pressure (for a given tyre diameter and axle load). It is accommodated by flex in the sidewall. Lower tyre pressure, more sidewall flex, longer contact patch, larger contact area. Tractor weighs the same, therefore lower average ground pressure.

Simple (apart from the complicating effects of lugs, and carcase thickness, and behaviour of the ground/silage/whatever you're driving on).

Quite how this all translates into silage compaction I don't know, but it's not necessarily true to say 5t spread over a width of 3m is any better or worse than a tractor plus weights spread over 2*650 tyre widths. As your experience with your 6430 and 820 shows, theory is somewhat lacking when it comes to the real world. Likewise a judgement may sound implausible without a theoretical basis to back it up.

 

[james ds]

you need to have a look at good silage you toy town loader will never in a million years roll a pit as well as a compactor can, but jimmy boy is the silage king & we all know nothing about making a quality feed ,

So our loader including fork is 16 ton , add on 2 or 3 ton of grass , so we’re about 19 ton , with the majority on the front wheels , say 11 ton between two wheels and you think that 5 ton over 3 meters is heavier , this story is getting very like your 29 mpg story.

 

[Bloders]

So our loader including fork is 16 ton , add on 2 or 3 ton of grass , so we’re about 19 ton , with the majority on the front wheels , say 11 ton between two wheels and you think that 5 ton over 3 meters is heavier , this story is getting very like your 29 mpg story.

its nothing to do with weight, its all to do with pressure.

 

[vantage]

its nothing to do with weight, its all to do with pressure.

Yes the comparison between Dr Martens and stillettos is a good one.

 

[Digester Man]

I’ve run one for 5 seasons, brilliant bit of kit for grass and whole crop.. wouldn’t be without it now

 

[betweenthelines]

A tractor of any weight will exert the same average ground pressure as the air in its tyres (excepting any effects of tyre carcase stiffness).

So a tractor on 16 inch tyres exerts the same ground pressure as it would on 10 inch tyres?

So why do people use wide tyres or duals, are they wrong?

 

[bitwrx]

So a tractor on 16 inch tyres exerts the same ground pressure as it would on 10 inch tyres?

So why do people use wide tyres or duals, are they wrong?

If the tyres are inflated to the same pressure, yes they will.

So why wouldn't you? Let me use this preposterous example to illustrate...

If you let your rowcrops down to 10 psi (to do some rolling after the drill for example), the sidewalls will flex so much you'll completely bugger the tyre in no time at all, and the contact patch will be so long you'll barely be able to go round a corner. It'd pretty much be a flat tyre.

If you did the same rolling in the same tractor on dualled up rowcrops, both set at 10psi, the surface area of ground in contact with the tyres would be the same as with one set of rowcrops, but would be shared equally across four tyres, rather than two. Therefore the contact patches would be half as long, and so the sidewall flex would be much less.

If you stick a pair of 1050s on the same tractor, and put 10psi in them, you'd have the same contact area again, but it would be really short and broad. There would hardly be any sidewall flex at all. The contact patch would be really short.

But in all cases, you'd still have 10psi average ground pressure.

What I'm talking about here is the average ground pressure. There will be pressure spikes under the tyre - near the sidewalls and at the lugs for example - but these spikes will change depending on loads of things. The interaction of tyres and the surfaces they run on is something that people are still doing PhDs on!

 

[bitwrx]

its nothing to do with weight, its all to do with pressure.

Yeh, and it's probably a lot to do with the deformable body mechanics of silage (or soil) as well. Christ knows how that works.

 

[Headless chicken]

@Bald Rick we use one on a 170hp Valtra. Neighbours use it on a tm120 and it’s in no way big enough for the job.
Contractor uses a 435 on the pit with a 9600 feeding into it ( I think) rolling was good before ie they didn’t stop.
More grass goes into the same area with using the compactor.
when I used to work away ( same criteria recontractor) and we moved to using the compactor the silage was so dense we used to have to pre grab and loosen prior to loading a keenan as it would just stop it dead if it went in as a block.

 

[Bald Rick]

@Bald Rick we use one on a 170hp Valtra. Neighbours use it on a tm120 and it’s in no way big enough for the job.
Contractor uses a 435 on the pit with a 9600 feeding into it ( I think) rolling was good before ie they didn’t stop.
More grass goes into the same area with using the compactor.
when I used to work away ( same criteria recontractor) and we moved to using the compactor the silage was so dense we used to have to pre grab and loosen prior to loading a keenan as it would just stop it dead if it went in as a block.

Run in to a slight snag atm. Don’t have a spare tractor with a shuttle box and son can do one if he thinks he’s putting the Deutz on the pit.
Think we will have to put TM on the pit for this season but I do think a compactor is the way forward

 

[PhilipWatkinsLtd]

it is the rib on the train wheel that packs the grass right in, you have to see one working to know how good they are

Don’t know about yourself but my tyres have a nicely arranged set of ribs around them that exert extra pressure to a smaller area

 

[kiwi pom]

How much is a compactor

Run in to a slight snag atm. Don’t have a spare tractor with a shuttle box and son can do one if he thinks he’s putting the Deutz on the pit.
Think we will have to put TM on the pit for this season but I do think a compactor is the way forward

How much does a compactor cost? (I'm always coming at this from the 'there's no money in the job' angle, because that's what I'm always told)
Put that new JCB on it, if it has time and keep it moving. Look carefully at the job it does when you've finished and when you feed it out before you decide. There'll be a point where you cant make a better job no matter how much you spend.

With the JCB you also have the advantage of the sticky out bit on the front being able to move crop too so the buckrake doesn't have to push whole loads up, smaller layers can be spread and rolled and more material can be put carefully on the sides.

 

[Andrew]

In a field when you want to reduce compaction, the key is reducing weight. You can fit bigger tyres to 'spread' the weight, but this just makes a larger area of shallower compaction.

So compaction at depth requires maximum weight over minimal area.
I would suggest the minimal increase in surface area from these train wheels is more than compensated for by the weight of the thing?

 

[Speedstar]

So our loader including fork is 16 ton , add on 2 or 3 ton of grass , so we’re about 19 ton , with the majority on the front wheels , say 11 ton between two wheels and you think that 5 ton over 3 meters is heavier , this story is getting very like your 29 mpg story.

you should have went to school more , there is no point in trying to tell you any thing, , i have facts & figures or how much more dense the pit is after using a compactor, but there is no point in telling you as it is only a few years ago you told me tedder's were a waste of time & the water that ran out of silage in the pit was good feed for the pound life

 

[Speedstar]

Don’t know about yourself but my tyres have a nicely arranged set of ribs around them that exert extra pressure to a smaller area

you need to see one working if you think that

 

[Mouser]

you should have went to school more , there is no point in trying to tell you any thing, , i have facts & figures or how much more dense the pit is after using a compactor, but there is no point in telling you as it is only a few years ago you told me tedder's were a waste of time & the water that ran out of silage in the pit was good feed for the pound life

Cool, let's see them, I love a bit of facts and figures. I remember the last thread about this, 40% extra clamp capacity was the claim, see its dropped to 20-30% now. Still pretty good ?