ADF good? or a long term rip off?

[jim bob]

What would a 12 point vaccar clusterflush, that's about 5 yr old be worth?

 

[Headless chicken]

They should pay you to take it away!

 

[jimmer]

i am going to tee some air clamps to the acr and vacuum diaphragm , which will be connected to a gravity fed pipe teed into the milk line at the meter source , thus i will have a home made flush system

i am going to try it on a couple to see how it goes and go from there

the only thing i need to do is work out if my alpro system will do cluster drop after milking to allow the cluster to drain

 

[newholland]

you could just block off the pit drain and walk about in 2ft of acid and just get the clusters to drop

 

[Headless chicken]

i am going to tee some air clamps to the acr and vacuum diaphragm , which will be connected to a gravity fed pipe teed into the milk line at the meter source , thus i will have a home made flush system

i am going to try it on a couple to see how it goes and go from there

the only thing i need to do is work out if my alpro system will do cluster drop after milking to allow the cluster to drain

I'm not one for sceptasim but be very careful playing around with this sort of thing one mistake could cost you an awful lot of money if water starts getting into the tank! So much so I know a local farm who has taken his cluster flush out as that was happening on a Sereous scale...,.. And that was made by a "reputable" company.

Worth a call to @ClusterClean Systems .... Of course they would like to sell you a system but I don't doubt that they will be happy to advise very nice people indeed. Phone call a lot cheaper than water in the tank

 

[newholland]

.......every good design is simple

 

[rusty]

I have had ADF for about 4 years, got it on the grant job. Initially had issues with cows milking slower. Put it down to lighter ADF claw pieces. Put some weights on them and was ok. We eventually took these off when cows got used to lighter claws.
In first year mastitis dropped from 38 to 32 per 100, now at 20. We would miss it now if it wasn't there. Liners at £28 set adds up. They do wear out by 2000 milkings if you use peracetic acid in the flush water. We have changed to Cluster clean mentioned above and the liners last longer. There teat dip is £300 per IBC more than it should be. After a year we changed back to our previous iodine with no problems.
You do need to check its covering the teats, occasionally you get a blocked nozzle that needs sorting. Overall maintenance has not been an issue and reliability has been pretty good.

 

[cattow]

I should change my ADF liners every 85 days, just worked out current set been in 8 months they are cracking a bit so better change soon but bact 8 & cell 118 at last test so still doing their job

 

[ClusterClean Systems]

i am going to tee some air clamps to the acr and vacuum diaphragm , which will be connected to a gravity fed pipe teed into the milk line at the meter source , thus i will have a home made flush system

i am going to try it on a couple to see how it goes and go from there

the only thing i need to do is work out if my alpro system will do cluster drop after milking to allow the cluster to drain

Hi Jimmer,

A good flush system is always a good idea, but please be careful.

Vacuum clamp valves are normally open and depend on full vacuum to clamp. They will definitely leak disinfectant in to the milk. They usually only have enough force to shut the tube. Quite often they will fail to fully clamp a new piece of soft silicone milk tube.

• If a cow kicks off a cluster or the vacuum level drops that valve will leak and the parlour will suck the disinfectant tank dry very quickly.
  
• The diaphragm rubber seals that provide the clamping force are really prone to perishing. also btw, the stainless steel clamp valve seal are really poor quality and fail really quickly.

If you would like a really good backflush system that is built to last, i bet we can do a deal that you'd be happy with.

Thanks

Charles

 

[Blue.]

i am going to tee some air clamps to the acr and vacuum diaphragm , which will be connected to a gravity fed pipe teed into the milk line at the meter source , thus i will have a home made flush system

i am going to try it on a couple to see how it goes and go from there

the only thing i need to do is work out if my alpro system will do cluster drop after milking to allow the cluster to drain

Westfalia metatron 12s have an output for backfush,you can set it via dairyplan to drop the machine for a set time.

 

[jimmer]

my other thought was to connect a lever tap to the volume washer line with pipe teed off to every unit , then open her up for a few seconds as that side of cows were walking out

 

[ClusterClean Systems]

Sorry you will struggle with that too, if all the units are tee'd together the vacuum from one cluster will travel to another.

Then you still need to get all the water out of the cluster & pipe. It would be sure to take you over the water fpd.(freezing point density)

How many points is your parlour? we've got a second hand fully refurbished system available soon from a customer who is putting in a new Swingover.

 

[Cows 'n grass]

Can I ask a rough price per point for a 32:64.

And do you have to alter the way the unit hangs? Mine sit quite nicely like this when the ACR pulls off

All the liners are shut off when its like this so no water could get through

 

[ClusterClean Systems]

Can I ask a rough price per point for a 32:64.

And do you have to alter the way the unit hangs? Mine sit quite nicely like this when the ACR pulls off

All the liners are shut off when its like this so no water could get through

Thanks, I'll pm you.

I'm in your area next week quoting quite a few farms.

We have a universal cluster bracket that works nicely with all types of cluster.
It clamps the milk tube to the nipple of the cluster and attach the ACR cord to the nipple. As it detaches from the cow, the cluster rolls over so it's nipple is at the top and the liners are down. Works really well i can give you a sample bracket to try.


Have a look at the 40 point swing over rapid exit on youtube - the video was of the very first milking & unit to go on a cow. The farmers staff got the hang of it instantly its really easy.

(The amount and pressure of the water is all adjustable) - We set that system up to have a really powerful wash because they had some Delaval MC73 cluster and the air bleed get blocked up easily so our system keeps the air bleed clean each time which made a huge difference to the milking.

 

[Headless chicken]

@Cows 'n grass i thought the cluster being the "wrong" way up was an issue before we had it. Your get used to it really easily and hardly notice it after a while